Quote from TrendSailor:
Now that you put up the objective data and taken the subjectivity out of it you make a darn good point. My problem was I only enter the SPX at the tail end of the prior month of the current options period and my VIX numbers span two calendar months. From my perspective we had over a 60 point volatility to the upside during Oct expiration with a 7 point gap up on SET as well. It was a killer for IC players who started out 50 points out of the money and did not get much premium. We often had to ride the roller coaster of 1% daily swings up and down. Weee - such fun to be on the tip of that market whip as it lashed back and forth at both bears & bulls with the bulls dominating...
TS
I had an iron condor as well with 1365 as the short strike call. Entered on monday (9/18) following the exp friday in Sep. The IC was about 45 points OTM on the call side. I took a net loss of about 4 points after that run up and the final 7pt settlement gap. Fortunately, I had similar iron condors in NDX and RUT, both of which were profitable and offset the loss in SPX and left a tiny profit (about 0.25% on capital).