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Good work, swcom. One would think they should rename this forum to 'Elitist Trader' given the inflated egos of some of the posters on this board.

I too must give a plug for thinkorswim. Since moving from Cybertrader I feel much more in control. The fact that they update margin requirements on the fly (rather than in batch mode over night) was by itself enough to have me make the move - got burned for 30k once with Cybertrader because of...

I recognized when I posted it that there were more than likely some underlying flaws to the strategy, namely the need for rebalancing to remain delta neutral. Interesting to hear about the 'convextivity' of the gamma curve (apologies if I butchered the spelling). Would that inherently mean...

I stumbled across an idea that strikes me as rather intriguing - selling premium in options (SPY perhaps, many other possibilities), and hedging it with e-mini futures. So one would sell x number of calls in SPY and go long the requisite number of e-mini contracts to get at delta neutrality...

What the hell is a prop firm? FWIW, the platform I use has some loose margin requirements - for instance, one only has to have margin for one side of an iron condor, not both, likewise double diagonals and probably some others I'm not aware of (or trade). Think or Swim - those guys have been...

This has been a very interesting topic, and thanks to all for your input. My bad on the analogy of insurance companies - clearly it doesn't hold water. I do believe in the effeciency of the market, so it seems I've got more studying to do. Here I was thinking that positive theta gave me an...

OK, for everyone interested: Is there a component of the premium known as theta or not? I believe (make that know) there is, and I'm holding quite a few positions right now that if I were to annualize the theta it'd be one hell of a lot bigger than the risk free rate. I understand the dashed...

Ursa, Thanks for that summary. I think I see the logic to that argument now, but I've still yet to hear someone put it in terms of theta for me. In short, if I'm given the choice of buying or selling something that is intrinsicly worthless, I'll stick to the latter. It still doesn't...

Agreed. All this talk of trying to trade IV is interesting, and perhaps it worked in the past, but I believe that the markets have become effecient enough in the last few years to render a vega trading strategy pretty much fruitless. Maverick, I'd like to hear your feedback on how you...