Weekly Poll: Don't Short A Dull Market?

[tradingjournals]

Quote from shortie:

max pain:
SPY 110
QQQQ 45

we are less than 1% away and 2 days to go. according to my limited understanding max pain should be a decent attractor when the underlying is so close to it.

I am thinking that for Qs they will try to pin 45. Since it is in the red, and since I am a chicken, I decided to sell the straddle expiring not this week but next week. If I want to sell tomorrow's straddle, I can always do it tomorrow morning.

Here is the issue. If it stays below 45 today, and they pin it tomorrow at 45, it will be too obvious that they pinned it.

So to avoid this, market may have to run itself up today, and close around 45 (better if a bit higher than 45) so that tomorrow action will not look unusual in comparison to today.

What do you think of the chance of a pin at 44, or a market continued selloff tomorrow? My forecast is a horizontal Friday, but it just intuition which may not be A LA SHORTIE.

 

[tradingjournals]

Quote from shortie:

max pain:
SPY 110

I looked at SPY chart, and I doubt 110. How about a short 109/108 strangle?

 

[tradingjournals]

I checked the bond market. Treasuries are trading at 109'23. This is almost "insane". People are lending money for 2 years at less than 0.5%?

I am going to short them. Wish me good luck folks, as I may lose 1%, which is still a lot for the size of these futures. This is assuming positive yields. If yields go negative, I would get toasted.

 

[shortie]

Quote from shortie:

today is a good illustration of problems with short straddles: a large market move and those short straddles don't look so good.

just to finish our education session on straddles here the price around close today:

i can see that selling 110 would have been b/e but the short straddles below made money