Give the guy a break. He's just learning and using play money. Real money really focuses the mind and intensifies the learning curve, but it will also cost real money, too! Playing with paper money is a good way to get a basic feel for things.
However, as a real trader myself in both of these instruments, (mostly with SPX) I have a couple of comments which may be of assistance.
1)The RUT IC's have two 670 components, one long and one short. This means that they have canceled each other out, and then it disappears, leaving something a little different than a standard balanced IC. This is not necessary horribly wrong, but in real life it will affect the balance of the portfolio, meaning that it will have some directional bias.
2) The second SPX IC has a put spread written for 0.25 that is 50 points wide. In the real world, this kind of spread yields poor results because it ties up a lot of margin for a very small return. It may be more difficult to buy back in because it is far OTM, and will be disastrous if the market happens to drop sharply. Most IC writers, myself included, would recommend that the initial credit for each side on a 10 point RUT spread should not be less than 0.50, and 1.00 would be better. Some will go even closer to the money aiming for higher returns. This gives a better risk reward ratio, better returns on margin and means you can close at 0.25 and still have a healthy profit.
For the SPX, I recommend 10-25 point spreads and you should also obtain more than a dollar for each side. You can make your IC unbalanced if you have a directional bias, but this will noticeably increase your losses if you're wrong.
Good luck learning about IC's.
