Bye-bye reg T

[yip1997]

Quote from Maverick74:

That's not the commission. That's what you pay for long gamma. In other words, if you are long a straddle in AAPL 100 times, you would pay 200 times 37.50 or $7,500 for the straddle. In a JBO, you would pay 200 times 25.00 or $5,000.

In other words, you have to put up 50% more money for the portfolio margin account.

Sorry, Mav. I am slow in understanding your number. By looking at the option quote, did you mean 37.5 the price of Jan 09 110 straddle?

What do you mean by AAPL 100 times? (100 strikes or 100 contracts?)

How come you use 200 in your cost calculation?

Is 25 the min haircut for a long option contract?

 

[yip1997]

Mav,

The real practical benefit i can see by joining a prop firm is the cross margin in a haircut environment. Please educate me if you see other benefits.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from yip1997:

Sorry, Mav. I am slow in understanding your number. By looking at the option quote, did you mean 37.5 the price of Jan 09 110 straddle?

What do you mean by AAPL 100 times? (100 strikes or 100 contracts?)

How come you use 200 in your cost calculation?

Is 25 the min haircut for a long option contract?

No, 37.50 is your haircut per contract when you are long gamma. When you are long a curvature, many times, you have no risk right? Because you can go up and down 15% and not have any losses. So the OCC makes you put up a set dollar amount per contract in those situations.

When someone says 100 times, that is floor jargon for how big the spread is. If you buy 10 Jan 100 calls, you say you bought the Jan 100 calls ten times.

You use 200 because if you are long the straddle 100 times, that means you are long 100 calls and 100 puts for a total of 200 contracts.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from yip1997:

Mav,

The real practical benefit i can see by joining a prop firm is the cross margin in a haircut environment. Please educate me if you see other benefits.

Yip, I listed all the advantages above. The cross margin. The fact you are not forced to trade in a pattern day trader environment. The k-1 vs the 1099 tax forms. The 60/40 tax treatment for equity options. The unlimited daytrading buying power vs the 4 to 1 for pattern day trader.

And there are little things, like not having a margin call. In a JBO, you can trade beyond your haircut. This is very important going into option expiration. You will never get a margin call in a JBO. In a retail account you will.

Keep in mind that portfolio margin, or haircut, is simply the forward risk discount to Reg T. In other words, as you move towards expiration, your haircut will converge to Reg T. So if you hold a position till expiration you are going to need to have the full capital as if you were trading in a Reg T account. That is a huge benefit of the JBO haircut. As your haircut converges to Reg T, you can maintain and hold your position instead of getting squeezed out of it or being forced to roll at bad prices.

Not to mention you can't pair trade in a portfolio margin account as Don will tell you. You can't really do any stat arb trades.

A lot of people don't understand haircut. And portfolio margin will be very dangerous to those that don't understand that without being able to trade beyond your haircut, you are not really getting any additional leverage beyond Reg T especially if you are in a pattern day trader account.

 

[just21]

How does portfolio margining on short options compare to SPAN on options on futures?

 

[yip1997]

Quote from Maverick74:

And there are little things, like not having a margin call. In a JBO, you can trade beyond your haircut. This is very important going into option expiration. You will never get a margin call in a JBO. In a retail account you will.

This is huge IMO. However it seems that a trader who just join your firm will not get this benefit in the first several months. Is it true?

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from yip1997:

This is huge IMO. However it seems that a trader who just join your firm will not get this benefit in the first several months. Is it true?

What do you mean by not get this benefit?

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from just21:

How does portfolio margining on short options compare to SPAN on options on futures?

Very similiar.

 

[yip1997]

Quote from Maverick74:

What do you mean by not get this benefit?

I might misunderstood our conversation. My phone call with Andy seemed to imply that I cannot have overnight position higher than haircut even if I am willing to pay for the haircut interest.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from yip1997:

I might misunderstood our conversation. My phone call with Andy seemed to imply that I cannot have overnight position higher than haircut even if I am willing to pay for the haircut interest.

Well, maybe not your first week. You need to establish yourself a little bit. Usually traders get more rope after their first month. What do you expect? To come into the firm and trade 3 to 1 over haircut the first day? LOL.