SPX Credit Spread Trader

MAV,

Good to see you're earning your salary here on ET. You may consider editing a few of these posts and submitting them to Andy for compensation. Claim is as "prospective client services".

It's good to know you're around.... miss you in GR. The boys say hello...

M~
 
Quote from Sailing:

Diagonals are doing well. PLaced a 1375 Put Calendar in between the 1325 and 1400 short strikes.

Currently 5K return on about 28K.

Looking to exit on any VOL spike going into expiration.

M~

Your percent return is kicking the crap out of mine (I'm currently a little under 7% after giving up some ground today), very impressive. My tent pole is a diagonal with a 1365 short. At this point it looks like you made a good move with your calendar. I'm with you, any vol spike in the next few days and I am out. Lately a vol spike means +.5 :p.
 
Quote from ryank:

Mark and Sailing,

How are your diagonals holding up for Nov? I'm sitting in a pretty good spot right now, will probably jump out sometime before expiration but not sure when. If market drives higher based on CPI or PPI then I am out, I have a short at 1400. A dip with a vol increase would be a bonus! I've kind of got a Goldilocks position right now, I want the market to go up or down a little but not too much, move just right :). I'm just starting my search for Dec positions. Mark, you are probably looking at Jan positions at this point aren't you?

Hi,
November has been a dream - so far. My remaining risk is real. The largest short position (MID 800s) was almost ITM when the rally stopped. Of course, that strike is being threatened again, but this time, expiration is just a few days away and I hope to be able to hold the position longer. I've covered many of my other Dec/Nov positions - all for various cash credits, but have a few remaining.

I already own all the Jan/Dec spreads I can handle and have started opening Feb/Jan (RUT). As I close the remaining Dec/Novs I'll be looking to add Dec/Jan, but doubt I'll be able to find opportunites that meet my criteria. Thus, I expect to be doing more Feb/Jan next week, when all the indexes add Feb options.

Due to the recent contributions by Mav, I've decided to experiment and added a bit of positive curvature to my portfolio by opening a small number of Feb/Jan diagonal call backspreads (more longs than short; 2x1 and 3x1 ratios). Looking to do the same with puts, but the vol skew makes it difficult for me - because I hate paying debits.

Mark
 
Quote from Sailing:

MAV,

Good to see you're earning your salary here on ET. You may consider editing a few of these posts and submitting them to Andy for compensation. Claim is as "prospective client services".

It's good to know you're around.... miss you in GR. The boys say hello...

M~

Murray, it's about time I came clean here. I'm only posting here because I still have 1000 hours of community service to do and I was instructed to help out good old Dr. Phil here on the SPX thread. I'm suppose to give back to the community. So when my time is up.......I'm gone~
 
Quote from Bben1006:

Mav,
First, thank you for being here—and keeping us all honest.

Do you know if the SEC will follow through on plans to allow (a total) risk-based margin on retail accounts. A WSJ article by Mohammaed Hadi, (from sep 23rd) mentioned these plans, but I haven't seen anything passed that.

Many thanks

Ben

Yes, of course Mav has an update. I can speak on behalf of Fimat. They will be doing customer portfolio accounts next month on only index options, not equities and there will be a 150k minimum like I suspected. I'm sure other retail firms will follow suit and most should be requiring a pretty steep minimum account value. In the case of Fimat, I think each person has to qualify for the account individually. In other words there is some kind of personal interview involved where one has to demonstrate a certain amount of knowledge and experience. So that basically eliminates everyone on this thread. :D
 
Sailing, does the 28K include the debit for the Put Calendar?

Quote from Sailing:

Diagonals are doing well. PLaced a 1375 Put Calendar in between the 1325 and 1400 short strikes.

Currently 5K return on about 28K.

Looking to exit on any VOL spike going into expiration.

M~
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Remote Market Makers are members of an exchange and on a seat and pushes quotes through the exchanges. A remote trader is just someone that trades from a remote location. Huge difference.

In other words, a remote MM uses electronic means to make his trades, while the other MM is a floor trader. ?

Cru
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Well segv, you are the only person on here who has given me an example to work with. Jeffm apparently did not want to self incriminate himself. LOL. Smart move on his part actually.

Selling the ATM combo is a hard delta bet. You are basically long half the equivalent underlying position. This position will outperform the SPY position with the same number of contracts all the way down and underperform it all the way up.

The difference will present itself more clearly if we adjust for margin. In other words, if we sell the same marginable amount of combos as to the SPY shares.

Now we are talking a completely different story as the combo will provide considerable more risk. So let's use real world numbers shall we?

Let's say we bought 1,000 shares of SPY at the current closing price of 138.58 for a margin of 69k. Now let's construct a position that has a similar margin amount using the SPX options. BTW, SPX is more restrictive then ES options which uses Span margin, which I will also compare.

Long 1000 SPY (margin 69K) at 1215.00 = 17k loss
short 2 SPX ATM DEC straddles (55k margin) at 1215.00 =27k loss

Short 4 ATM DEC ES straddles ( 69k) span margin at 1215.00 =136k loss!!!!!

These are using real numbers folks. So what is the point to this demonstration. If we compare the risk of owning the underlying to the naked option position with the SAME margin, you can get an idea of how the risk gets leveraged substantially on a selloff.

The best position to own in this example would be the long 1000 SPY. It carries the largest upside vs the risk taken.

What about if we are using haircut? I believe it is slightly less than span margin, but pretty close.

Higher leverage comes with higher risk. Basically we need to find a strategy that works well with your margin rule.
 
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