I want to believe you but I don't believe you. How do your neutral trades lead to this much return?
I hope you realize you have been given a gift. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.I want to believe that the truth is close within my reach hopefully on this forum. This is my vision. This is the vision of everyone on this forum with a PHD. Poor hungry and driven.
Now let's talk strategy. Let's get back to explaining defending strategy.
Thank you for sharing.Sorry to take so long to reply. The last couple of years have been a good time to do this. Other years will suck, I'm sure. The trades are not totally neutral in that my target is not where the market is now, but where I think it will be when the options expire. So if I put on a fly, the center strike is slightly above the current price in this bull market. I only use liquid stock indexes. I do not trade if the UL is below its 4-wk MA. This keeps me out at times. For example, I was not trading for most of April, August, and November of 2017. Finally, some of the trades are not neutral, they are bull put spreads, and these I will only trade in a secular bull market. However, the neutral trades have been a bit more profitable. I try to get in on a down day with higher IV. I don't do adjustments, but I will get out of a trade if it makes me over half the premium in a few days.
Sorry to take so long to reply. The last couple of years have been a good time to do this. Other years will suck, I'm sure. The trades are not totally neutral in that my target is not where the market is now, but where I think it will be when the options expire. So if I put on a fly, the center strike is slightly above the current price in this bull market. I only use liquid stock indexes. I do not trade if the UL is below its 4-wk MA. This keeps me out at times. For example, I was not trading for most of April, August, and November of 2017. Finally, some of the trades are not neutral, they are bull put spreads, and these I will only trade in a secular bull market. However, the neutral trades have been a bit more profitable. I try to get in on a down day with higher IV. I don't do adjustments, but I will get out of a trade if it makes me over half the premium in a few days.
Inspirational. Fantastic. Congratulations on your success .Here's a graph of my closed PnL over about 13 months (since I started trading this particular strategy).
In this account I sell vertical spreads on stocks I like. They are $5 or $10 wide spreads centered ATM, 45 or 60 DTE.
Unrealized $ (22,795)
Realized $ 101,610
Avg Return 8.13%
Avg Days in Trade 24.45
Current margin $ 75,822
Positions Open 14
Total Trades 226
Pct Wins 78.76%
Pct Losers 21.24%
Avg Win 22.61%
Avg Loss -45.55%
Avg Return 8.13%
View attachment 187935
I'm probably not what you're looking for though. I'm just using option delta to leverage stock picks. I think that when most people talk about successful options trades, they're thinking about non-directional stuff, like these guys that buy straddles into earnings or the guys selling volatility premium or the like. Not my game, but I know plenty of guys that succeed there.