Quote from JohnGreen:
Smith the Trader-- how close are you putting your IC's to the current prices of the index you are working with? It seems to me that you may be cutting things too close, and then running into trouble as a result. I know that the last couple of weeks haven't been that explosively upward. They should be easily in the realm of manageable changes, and not particularly alarming for IC traders, given a reasonably spaced position.
If you are aiming for super high returns with IC's that are close to the money, you may want to buy a little insurance. Mark and I had a bit of a discussion about that two or three pages back in this thread.
I'm pleased with how the insurance spreads are working. My delta/ gamma has been pretty small consistently, and I've been hyper conservative. I made a little adjustment upward in the call spreads that probably wasn't necessary, but I was prepared to spend a little to keep things very comfortable. I like my sleep, and I find myself actually hoping the market will keep tracking placidly upward over the next few weeks. Of course, if it stalls or even drops modestly, I'll still be in a good position to make some money. With the low commission levels currently available, and reasonable bid-asks, a multiple spread position is doable. You do give up a little piece on each, and your typical monthly return will be less, but occasionally there will be a real winner (an insurance spread that maxes out) to help compensate for the trouble, and some protection against sharper moves in either direction in every month.