SPX Credit Spread Trader

I am so sorry for my typo. You are right.
It is 20 SPX MAR 1170/1180 @0.30 credit.

I also have a question. How does time decay help spreads like this? All I see is no matter what, when SPX moves to 1170 or higher I will start losing money.

I am looking for email alert in case stock moves higher. I think www.FreeStockCharts.com does only sound alert if the site is open and logged in. (I will try text alert from the other site)

I am also worried what if spx opens higher than 1170 on any good news.

Thanks
 
I think that FreeStockCharts.com allows up to five active email price alerts active at one time. I know that I did test that feature a couple of months ago and it worked.

Quote from vsusi:



I am looking for email alert in case stock moves higher. I think www.FreeStockCharts.com does only sound alert if the site is open and logged in. (I will try text alert from the other site)
More...
 
Quote from vsusi:

I am so sorry for my typo. You are right.
It is 20 SPX MAR 1170/1180 @0.30 credit.

I also have a question. How does time decay help spreads like this? All I see is no matter what, when SPX moves to 1170 or higher I will start losing money.


I am also worried what if spx opens higher than 1170 on any good news.

Thanks
More...

Unfortunately the trade is losing money now. It would cost about 1.00 to buy it back, if the 1170's go at the money the trade will be worth around 5.00, assuming no gap. I suggest you decide the max loss you are willing to take and pull the plug if it is hit. Or you are looking at paying over 15 times your entry if it goes atm.
 
I went to preview order several times but still didn't pull the trigger. It looked like I will be losing $2800 to $3000 @ 1169.xx . Is the expiry date Thursday or Friday?
How does time decay help spreads as many say?
Any advise for tomorrow?
 
A 10 point spx spread sold at .3 should have a max loss of $970 each or am I missing it? 20 of them would mean a max loss of $19400? Someone check my math?

Looks like it closed at 2.1. equity options expire Friday's close. Pit futures options expire eod Thursday and emini futures expire friday morning.

at the money it was worth what I thought it would, 9 times the entry.

At this point I would buy it back 2 points higher than today's high. I would have bought it back for no more than 1.5.

Theta is high at this point but small spreads are basically binomial...you win or you lose...

You may get lucky tomorrow with a down move, vix has cratered.
 
Forgive a neophyte for asking a dumb question. I'm trading weekly OEX credit spreads as a beginner. So far I have 9 successful weeks. First I had to try a couple of brokers and settled on Thinkorswim. Then I am still learning the platform. Running across this thread forum I have spent a few hours and am now up to page 32, so I thought I would skip to the end of the 2305 pages and see if Phil was still on here and ask a stupid beginners question. No question I have been lucky in the past 9 weeks, but I have been threatened twice which scared me, as I do not know how to CLOSE a CREDIT SPREAD. Can't find anything around the internet that tells me either. I'm thinking to just buy back the sold side and just keep the buy side, or take my time in closing it looking for a bounce.
I tried closing a spread just once as a unit as a spread, but it was on a Expiration Friday and it never got closed at .5 cent prices. Which I can understand. The OEX is not that big a mover usually and the premiums are really not any good after 3 STRIKES out. In this case, the OEX moved back a point and I ended up okay. But I sweated it, because I didn't know what to do and haven't satisfactorily figured out yet how to close a Spread, like immediately?
What do you do? I am ashamed it sounds really stupid. But one of these weeks I am going to get hit if I don't figure out how to close a credit spread.
 
Quote from falconview:

Forgive a neophyte for asking a dumb question. I'm trading weekly OEX credit spreads as a beginner. So far I have 9 successful weeks. First I had to try a couple of brokers and settled on Thinkorswim. Then I am still learning the platform. Running across this thread forum I have spent a few hours and am now up to page 32, so I thought I would skip to the end of the 2305 pages and see if Phil was still on here and ask a stupid beginners question. No question I have been lucky in the past 9 weeks, but I have been threatened twice which scared me, as I do not know how to CLOSE a CREDIT SPREAD. Can't find anything around the internet that tells me either. I'm thinking to just buy back the sold side and just keep the buy side, or take my time in closing it looking for a bounce.
I tried closing a spread just once as a unit as a spread, but it was on a Expiration Friday and it never got closed at .5 cent prices. Which I can understand. The OEX is not that big a mover usually and the premiums are really not any good after 3 STRIKES out. In this case, the OEX moved back a point and I ended up okay. But I sweated it, because I didn't know what to do and haven't satisfactorily figured out yet how to close a Spread, like immediately?
What do you do? I am ashamed it sounds really stupid. But one of these weeks I am going to get hit if I don't figure out how to close a credit spread.
More...

- You can close the entire position, spread, by placing an order between bid and ask into spread order dialog box.
- Or keeping just a position and trading actively the short side f.ex.
- You can also, in some cases, close the short side and let to expire worthless the long side... etc....

You can take a demo account from optionsxpress through the CBOE wsite to test and monitor some orders configurations...
An OXP virtual trade image in attch
 

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