Quote from riskarb:
Mav,
With all due respect, I do take flyers... This is a play I make every earnings season -- and I WILL gamma trade it, if possible.
If you think 12k delta is a lot, then that's an issue with your risk tolerance, not mine.
FWIW, I trade neutral with the rest of my portfolio, mostly index dispersion, and I'm long gamma overall. When you see some box and roll opportunities, off-floor, you let me know!
I trade micro-flyers all the time, that is close to my risk-limit, but I know guys a lot smaller on the floor that take much larger deltas.
Good trading to ya,
arb.
Yeah, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. It's just on some of the other boards on options, you were going apeshit over some of my positions because you didn't like the directional exposure on them and then you went on to say that you don't trade directional and that you leave that for other guys. So I'm just giving you some shit for the hell of it because you went out of your way to say you were a non directional trader before.
And it's not that you have a lot of delta on it's just that compared to your vega your delta is way way too much. You are only short about 6500 vega and your short 11k to 12k delta but yet you call it a vega play. It's really a delta play since you have twice as much delta as you do vega. Now if you had -50k delta and -100k vega I would agree with you about the delta in that its inconsequential. But in this case I would call this trade purely directional based on your delta/vega ratio.
Also, I know guys on the floor that purely trade deltas so the fact that they are on the floor doesn't mean anything. I know guys on the floor that hold 400k to 500k deltas. But that's their trading style.
I'll tell you what, I'll go on record saying that vol on ebay will be 33 to 34 after earnings on those strikes. i will also go on record that ebay will gap 3 to 5 pts at least on the numbers. Which way I don't know. And you can trade the gamma all you want but then that just proves you are a directional trader. Ha!
With the way you have this trade structured, I don't think you are going to make any money, but we'll see. I hope you prove me wrong and make a killing. At least you posted your trade before the fact. Have to respect that.