In fact, the best example is GOOG. Looking at GOOG shares today closing near $610, who'd ever thought GOOG missed EPS by $1? That right there tells you this market's rally is intact.
Quote from falconview:
I´m not following this. What kind of spread are you putting on?
Quote from ryanpatrick:
exactly what forex said, these are usually just debit spreads. I have started doing this when I see that the risk ratio is quite beneficial to me. Ex, the 34 calls were trading near $2 with AKAM at $34. Instead of a full $2 risk, I checked my notes and it showed AKAM had about a 14% run up or down from its previous close. I used 38 calls as the short which would make the run up at 11.7%, just enough room to catch the max gain. Instead of risking $2, and getting a potential return of only $4-$4.50, I'm now risking $1.45-$1.50 for a max return of $4. I went from a 1:1 risk ratio to 1.7:1 risk ratio. Just added another 0.70 gain for every dollar risk from just trading the long 34 calls.
Hope that gives you a better idea as to why I jump into the debit spreads from time to time. Options have to be priced fairly expensive to do this too.
Quote from atticus:
Huh? You're long the call vertical and you're looking for high implied vol? Uh, no.
Quote from ryanpatrick:
Put it simple this way, IV high = better risk ratio in debit spread. IV low = straight call/put. Can't get any simpler than that right atticus?
Now, if the market can just open up so I can lock in the gains on AKAM, then I'm fine.