Hi all, This is the best time for trading. Stocks like PCLN etc, you can leave lots of cushion and still pick up .05 =00 1% in a three day trade.
These are of course spreads for this week.
So do some looking and pick a good stock and jump in.
Jerry
66 comments:
PCLN is looking great right now! I was waiting for a "pop". Just more cushion for Friday!!!
Perfect, pole position on a new comment thread and a great chance to get an answer on my (slightly ignored) question in the last. :o)
When it says a demand of 50 on an AAPL strike, is that in thousands of contracts? It doesn't seem so as I was buying back 50 yesterday, and the number corresponded to my remaining purchases, first 41, then 9.
I read somewhere that AAPL trades around 70,000 contracts a normal Friday but I can imagine that the people on this blog alone could trade 700 contracts, can we really represent 1% of the option market on a $300B company? Not to be presumptious, but a long term succesful trader like Jerry must be selling in the 100's if working with a premium of five cents.
I'm quite stunned if the above is correct as it implies much less liquidity than I could have ever imagined? Comments?
Oh man, you took pole while I was typing, DR3Z! :-)
CRM 115/110 got .55!!!
@ Bald Harley - CRM releases earnings tomorrow...lot's of IV and the stock could make big moves up or down, I'd be careful with that one.
@ All - PCLN up over 2% gratz all on this!!!!
My SPX is up but I wasn't worried. It will expire worthless at the end of today!!
I won't pick any new stocks until next week.
I learn something new on SPX today and would like to pass it on. The monthly SPX (5/21)is actually expired on Friday morning after the market is opened. Most of us now know that the last trading day for us is Thursday, but what I did not know before is what the settlement of the Friday morning really means. It means that we are at the mercy of whatever news that may come up from Thursday evening to Fridaay morning. If the news is extremely bad for the market, the market may open Friday morning with a big drop from Thursday closing price, and none of us will be able to adjust or close out our positions. This is a huge risk when compare with the normal weekly option that you have a chance to get out until the last minute. So, anyone with small cushion should be very careful.- you won't have a chance to correct your position or get out of it. And keep in mind, 1 contract of spx is 100 shares= $133000. 10 contracts is over a million bucks.
CRM Earnings.... Damn, I missed that!!!
@TK, Thanks for that information it is revealing. I feel as though I am safe with the SPX (this week was my first SPX trade) The reason is I use a spread.
But wow do they get you. Hey we are going to check the market Friday morning and if it is down / up to much we are going to get you. If it is not then we will let you go. Wow!
@Bald, ToS doesn't always have the earnings symbol next to the stock symbol so I like to use http://earningswhispers.com/ to verify before a trade.
Ok question. Say I got put to my contract. I have a spread going on for a put sell. The margin maint is $5000. How would this work? Do I have to buy the stock then sell it or can I just buy my sold put and sell my bought one? I am just wondering just in case one day I am in this situation.
How does this work?
Hi Fulgore,
I also have spx spread. I think there is still a danger even for spread, if you did not cover before Thursday closing, the buy leg may or may not be in the money, especially if the spx close in between the strike price of the spread. Your sell put side will be exercised, but your buy put side will expire worthless and offer no protection whatsoever. I have over 40 contracts, it will wipe me out! So, I will be out before the end of tomorrow and learn not to treat this spx European monthly option like the normal weekly option.
@TK, The way I see it is, this could happen on Thursday morning and do the same thing. This could happen with almost any stock the day before the expiration. I still don't see it as being any different then a normal weekly except it expires almost 1 day before.
May I just don't get it?
Ok, this difference is this- all of us are familiar with our weekly trading and how it works. at the end of Friday, if the stock does not hit our strike price, you are safe and no chance of being exercised because the assignment price is the same time that we stop trading at the end of Friday. Now, imagine that I change the rule on you and said that ok,you are not allow to trade on this option after market close on Friday just like before, but i am not going to determine the assignment price until slightly after the market open next Monday morning? (and you are not allow to trade anymore, because there is no 5/21 option exist for you to trade) Now, i don't think you are going to like the new rule as much as the old rule where you have 100% control of your own destiny. let's say that you have an spread option of 1290/1285. Assume Spx ended the day at Friday 4 pm at 1300, and normally we would be safe. However, with spx monthly, you are not in the clear yet. If something happen during the weekend, Monday openning price for spx is 1289. it is now below your 1290, but not below 1285, you would 1290 option leg would be exercised and you will have to come up with 129000 per contract. Your 1285 option leg expired worthless. There is nothing you can do at that point. You can not buy back the 1290 option leg because the trading time was over since the prior Friday, and you won't be able to find the listing of the 5/21 option because it does not exist anymore. I hope the explanation help. If you have a lot of cushion, you are probably safe. But I don't like surprises like this at all.
@TK, Thanks for the explaination. I will have to keep this in mind because I do like trading the SPX. If I can get 100 points of cushion for 4 days like I am and a 1.2 % return per week I am a happy man
tk, I believe the OEX which is the S&P 100 has American style exercise. Maybe better to trade these???????
SPX still uses a Friday PM close on the weeklies the monthly the last you can trade it is Thu. and settlement is based on Friday open.
It sure would be nice if they all could be Fri. PM I'm SOOOOOO Confused.. :+)
New trades this week for both weeklies and June CAT CLF CLV Best one is CLF sold May 82.50 puts 5-17 for .56 :+)
Fulgore and any others who trade SPX, TK's explanation about trading SPX options, although correct on some aspects, is NOT correct on how the ITM options are handled. If, the SPX were a normal equity, his explanation would be correct. But, the SPX is not an equity, it is a cash settled index fund and thus it's treated differently than equities for ITM options on expiration. TK's explanation about the amount of money you would be required to put up for ITM options on expiration would be correct if SPX was classified as an equity, but it is not an equity, it's an index fund and as such there is no assignment process but instead a settlement process. Using his example, if you are short the 1290/1285 put spread and SPX settles on Friday morning's opening print @ 1289, as his example states, your short put is 1 point in the money and on 1 contract, your account would be debited $100 not $129,000 as he states. If in that example, you were trading 10 contracts, and settlement price was 1 point ITM, your account would be debited $1,000, not the "over a million bucks" as he states. Cash settled index funds simply handle ITM options by how many points the settlement price is ITM times how many contracts traded (1 point ITM and trading 1 contract = $100 debited from your account and 20 points ITM and 1 contract traded = $2,000 debited from your account). Using the 1290/1285 short put spread as an example, on 1 contract, the most you could lose is $500, no matter how low the SPX settlement price is...even if SPX goes to zero, your max loss is still only $500 on that 1 contract. I verified with two different brokers my explanation here before sending this out.TK, I'm sorry about calling you out on this, but this is a very important aspect of trading cash settled index funds that needs to be understood by all that trade the SPX and other index funds like it. Fulgore, I'm with you dude, I also love trading SPX, but unlike you, I sell naked puts way out of the money instead of put spreads closer to the at the money and I still get some decent crumb action being that far out.
Thanks Dave G, excellent explanation.
Hey Dave G, I am glad that you corrected me. my broker did not tell me about the cash settlement part in details, he gave me the impression that it will be treated as like any other equity assignment. Thank you for giving the details. I feel much better now. Thanks again.
Nic, it has to be thousands of open interest.
Bald, on Trademonster when you set up a trade you can click 'analyze' and it will alert you to pending earnings as well as give you a percentage likelyhood that it will expire worthless.
Lastly on Brokers... Trademonster is very good..but... you can not trade on an ipad or iphone.
I can trade in another account at Schwab on both.
Dave G,
Thanks for the clarification and Fulgore thanks for your input as well. Now that I got over being assigned millions of dollars I can reassess my next trade.
Jerry,
I am having a hard time finding the .05 spreads. Are you just putting in that amount between the bid and ask and you are getting filled? Sometimes, usually, rarely?
Also are you thinking of going over to the selling calls side of things?
Kite,
I do have an open (unfunded) acct with TM, and I do like the ALERT it gives on activity before expiry. My OH watchlist does have a little 'e' next to stocks with earnings in the near future/past... I just failed to note it for CRM.
AND, it is one of Jerry's primary checklist items!! Wo-is-me...
CRM has only kissed it's 200 day sma once in the last year and that was at $120 during the March market bottom. Today the 200 sma is ~$125, so my 115/110 spread might work out ok with its big move today to ~$135.
Thanks!!
rick
Hi all, some great comments . thanks david for squaring away the facts on spx assignment. I haven't trades spx for a month or so. I have lost a feeling for what it has been doing.
Kite; this morning i sold 50 of the pcln 460/465 at .05 tomorrow i might try for 50 more at the 480/485 or even higher. the thought being you will see the opening action and have a feel for Thursday. I will drop down 20pt below pcln if it is trading up in the AM. the same rational is true for all the usual suspects AAPL, AMZN, NFLX, ETC. So pull up each option chain and scan for cushion and .04 or better. One advantage to trading later in the week is that you are often picking up the discards where other traders are rolling up etc.
But don't give in to not leaving a decent cushion. If the stock is trading down look at calls. Same maintenance and often some good position there also.
Jerry
The more and more I do this stuff the more I like the whole waiting till Tues or even Wed to make weekly plays. Came home from vacation last week in the middle of the week with a bunch of unallocated funds that were burning a hole....so said, OK let's just do a GOOG and PCLN monthly spread (among some others). "that way I'll be good for the rest of this week and the next!" hah, well we all know what happened Monday....and Tuesday started off just as bad. Man, I think I gained some grey hairs from those couple of days. Was nice to wake up Wed morning without wanting to run into the woods screaming. Think I'll stick with those mid-week weeklies from now on.
@ Dave G:
Thanks much for your in-depth explanation of cash-settled index funds in regards to settlement. As far as equities go *are* there any out there that trade in such a way that TK's scenario would be true; i.e. the time disparity between assignment and settlement resulting in some catastrophe if it settles between the spread? Or is everything that trades in such a manner an index-based fund?
Gremjun, I thought the answer to your question was going to be clear-cut and straight forward, but as I found out, it was not. I called both my brokers and the CBOE to verify my understanding of how assignment and settlement works. In fact, I called each of them twice, so I made 6 calls total and talked to 6 different people in an attempt to get some firm consensus of how this process actually works. (It's amazing how even within the same firm you can get different answers depending on who you talk to). Also, people who you think should know how this stuff works, actually do not...anyways, here is how I think the process works based on my previous understanding and the conversations I just had with several people. (lets start with the easy answer first):
1. Cash settled index funds (like the SPX): TK's warning about the AM SPX settled monthly options is spot on and traders who are short premium going into expiration Friday for those monthly options need to be aware of that AM settlement and the fact that they cease trading on Thursday and settle the next day (Friday) on the opening print (AM). As far as the weeklys go, they settle on Friday's closing print (PM) and this next point is most important - after hours activity cannot effect that settlement price (note: this last point is pertinent to cash settled index funds like SPX). Now for the more difficult one - normal equities:
2. Gremjun, the answer to your question about equities is yes - TK's scenario does apply to equities in general. Here are the facts, as I know them, after consensus from several sources. For monthly options that expire on the 3rd Friday of the month, trading ceases at 1600 EST except for a few ETF's that you can trade for an additional 15 minutes after that close. The actual settlement for the normal monthly options is @ 2359 on the following Saturday. Most exchanges allow an additional 90 minutes (an hour and a half) for the holder of an option to exercise his/her right to assign that option after the 1600 market close. Note: certain brokers may circumvent that with a tighter window, of their own, of say an hour, for example. So, lets say you are short the AAPL 300 puts on a monthly expiration Friday and AAPL closes at 1600 EST @ 305. You are now 5 points OTM and you're thinking probably is that you are safe and the option will expire worthless. But now assume that after the close, bad news comes out on AAPL
and the stock drops to 290 in after hours trading and now you are 10 points ITM on your short 300 strike put. Remember, equity options do not settle until 2359 EST the following Saturday. So, in this example, you can go from feeling good about your OTM position to being ITM based on after hours trading and the holder of that put has an additional 1-1/2 hours of cut-off time after market close to notify the exchanges that they wish to exercise that put and put the stock to you @ 300 when it's now trading (based on after hours) @ 290. Bottom line is: after hours trading on expiration Friday can affect your short equity option positions potential of assignment especially when the equity closed near your strike price. Now I'm not saying it will, I'm saying it can--that possibility is there and as a holder of short premium, you need to be aware of that (the exchanges official cut-off time for long option holders to exercise their options is 1730 EST - 1-1/2 hours after the normal market close). Different brokers may have different rules regarding option exercise rules, so you need to check with your specific broker on how they handle option exercise notification. The weeklys work the same way as the monthly options except they settle @ 2359 on Friday instead of @ 2359 on Saturday for the monthly options.
I would welcome anyone else to chime in on this if they have anything to add that is pertinent to this topic because as I stated before, you'll get different answers from different people/sources on this topic. I do, do apologize for the length of this response.
Jerry I never use AON. My eyeballs are falling off looking for spread. I submitted and cancelled and repeated.... It never gets hit even when I saw bid and ask spread for 5 cents. Must be TDA fault lol. Serious.
Newport - Are you still with POT or LULU or OPEN?
Am looking for one that is far out which I don't mind owning for long term for IRA?
POT Sept May be at below $43. Thinking.
Hannah - I just sold 10 contracts of Apple May 325/320 for .05. Hope that helps you :)
Hi Han, this morn i did a spread w/ PCLN the 500/495 for .05 getting a little close to the stock but over 20pts of cush in 1.5 days. they are out there, just hunt them down.
Bought to close KLAC May $39s for .05, nice to have the option to buy back commission free on TK, Goldman downgraded Intel, KLAC taking a hit from this, didn't want to take a chance, good overall trade received .55 premium, bought back for .05.
Hannah,
Many broker platforms have screeners in the platform that will help you find juicy put spreads. Option House has this. Thats how I found CRM with a potential 10% ROI. Too bad it has an earning announcement today.
HOWEVER... I realized today that I could also sell a call spread for NO additional margin. ie I have 110/105 put spread, collecting .55 (10% ROI). Concerned about a drop after earnings, I looked at a call spread with 20pts cush. A 140/145 call spread collected .35, but with ZERO additional margin requirement. Thus, if CRM can close tomorrow between 110.01 - 139.99, I collect .90 which is ~18% ROI. Wowee!!!
Apparently OH sees this as a 'condor' and only requires margin on one side... I didn't know that, but it makes sense. Only one side is at risk. Very cool!!
rick
CORRECTION - I have a 155/160 call spread on CRM, collecting .35cents.
Rick,
That is pretty much the only trading style I like is the condors. Two trades in one, with the maintenance one time. You can double your profits by doing a put spread and call spread. This also helps when you are going for a target ROI, as you can go further out and get the return you are looking for from both trades, or just go for double. The SPX and PCLN are the two best that I have been trading because you can go further out on these due to the volatility and the strike range.
Nice CRM trade as well.
Chris.
Thanks Gssound,
With CRM trading up to $145, I'm a genious, right? LOL. This is my first iron condor. I'm so excited, I cannot even calc my ROI in my head. LOL.
TradeKing (one leg charge) just warranted a big transfer of $$$.
rick
Rick,
I didn't get in - don't trade earnings. Thought you are real brave! The fear is when the market opens tomorrow, it may go up a lot more with heavy volume or dip. Keep $$$ and smile to the bank!!
Hi,
I'm thinking about writing LULU 75 June puts, but I know there will be a 2 for 1 split in June, what will happen to my short put after the split, will I get double the number of contracts at 37.5?
@Dave G: Thanks so much for your in-depth research and your stitching together the facts from patchwork and inconsistent information. (Sad that these "professional" folks don't know this stuff cold.) I had always wondered whether or not an equity settling in after-hours to the "wrong" place could cause mayhem. I guess the moral of the story is always close it up if it looks to end the period just marginally above/below the strike instead of being miserly about trying to save on commission.
Saw an interesting trade in spread book on the Think or Swim platform. A 20 contract iron condor on the SPX was purchased for a credit of $5.15. Strikes were 1340/1345/1350/1355. If market goes below 1340 or above 1355 the trade still nets $300. It looks like the trade could have been closed out today for a profit of $4,000-6,000. The SPX close today at 1343. The trade was placed on May 3rd. Talk about no risk to potentially high gain wow! Was that an anomaly?
Maud, you are correct. If you are short the June 75 puts and LULU does a 2-for-1 split, you'll own twice the number of contracts at a 37.50 strike. Back in February POT did a 3-for-1 split and I was short the 150 strike puts at the time. After the split, I had three times my number of contracts at a 50 strike. By the way, stock splits are the main reason why you see some odd strike prices in equities option chains. Reference POT, for example, where you'll see strike prices like 36.67 and 38.33 in the monthly option chains.
Gremjun, I agree with your "moral of the story". If it looks like the stock will close near your short strike, then buy back that obligation and sleep better at night. Now if your intent is to play the "wheel of fortune" and you do not care if your are put the stock, then no big deal...you can stand pat.
jbl, I find the situation you just described to be too hard to believe. It just doesn't pass the common sense test for me. To put on a credit spread trade for more money than you can possibly lose in a worse case scenario sounds too good to be true. If true, why did they only do it for 20 contracts...hell, I would have done it for at least 100 contracts because, you can't lose any money on the trade! I suspect either the credit amount is wrong or the strikes are wrong (maybe $5.15 credit on 10-wide strikes, not 5). If true, maybe the market makers messed up on the fill as the SPX does have some pretty wide spreads on near the money strikes. I know some very knowledgeable people on options and I am going to inquire if something like this is even possible.
David,
That is how the trade showed in spread book. I would have to go back and look at the charts on May 3rd. Maybe there was a volatility spike and or maybe he got a fluke fill.
Sold TTWO June $16s for .50, earnings report out Tuesday, New game: "Duke Nukem Forever" out on June 14, so two big events before expiration, I think this stock is headed to $20, I want to be all in before earnings, looking to go big tomorrow.
Take-Two downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at Cowen
Cowen believes Take-Two expectations are too high ahead of Tuesday's report and that comps will be down.
This is bull! Manipulation! Might increase premium though, thanks Cowen!
Hi all; Nick, wow, that is living on the edge. I don't follow the gaming industry, to fickle for me. But for me I have learned to not guess on earnings or a coming product. One company announcement that Duke nuke is being recalled or postponed etc and the stock drops and then it is hold-on time. But if you like the company and don't mind holding it?? We all trade different. Losing over a million in a very short time period because in one part i was betting on a company and not on an investment level. To me stock names are just inventory. I now have hundreds of puts, naked and spreads with aapl. But that is for this week. Next week the company can go bankrupt and i will just find another stock and move on. It is just inventory!
All of my positions have at least 25 pts of cushion for this weeks..
Sleep was good. I have spent to many nights tossing and turning. And then along came the crumb method and returns are just as good and sleep factor is 'way' good..
good luck today all
Jerry
Wise words Jerry!! That's why I come here, your "crumb" system and to identify "inventory" ideas! Thanks a bunch, happy trading, and as always continue sleeping well (in between those golf games, of course). :)
Hi All, I was away yesterday, but back today.
my SPX weekly will expire worthless no problem today.
@ DaveG - Thanks for the technical explaination. This will help in the future.
Another question. I have ToS and I have SPX weekly. It still shows that it is using my maint for this weekely and it is 11:19 AM on Friday.
With My weekely's like AAPL it shows this maint until Sunday night.
Does anyone know why they do this? If the contracts have expired I should have this maint available to me.
@DaveG Also when they say (AM) for the SPX on Friday what does this mean. Does this mean until noon?
@Bald,
Gratz on the CRM as it is up $12 today. Unless you took that IC you were talking about and now your call is almost ITM ?
@Dave G - You said you sell Naked puts for SPX way OTM. I would LOVE to do this but the amount of maint I need is rediculous, and i don't have it lol.
@ All - So I just spoke with ToS on the SPX. They state this:
SPX - Weekly & Quarterly - PM CLOSE on Friday
SPX - Monthly - AM CLOSE on Friday
and yes cash settlement as stated above. If your In The Money (ITM) by $1 it is $100 per contract you owe.
Also I noticed that if you go to far OTM for SPX it starts going by a 25 point difference for the strike prices. So be careful.
Opt for monthly for now.
Sold BIDU JUNE PUT $105 for 33 cents.
Just 3% for 5 weeks.
Thanks Fulgore. I noticed that 25k diff as well. I placed an order for 1150/1125 for 10 cents. It is pending forever, though the last prices show a 10 cent difference between these spreads. It is a low return, but playing it safely for now:)
@avid, I looked into the SPX and haven't seen a 90+ point drop for a while. and even that for a 5 day spread too.
Fulgore,
Check your SPX trades again, they should be closed now. Since the AM time is done, these have settled. Your maintenance will be available Monday morning to put to good use. My screen wasn't large enough to show all my SPX trades for the week. Had a great week, can't wait for next week either.
Avid,
Why would you want to put up 25k for a spread just to make 10 bucks? You are almost 200 points out on the SPX. You can easily come in to 100 points or 75 and pick up 10 cents on a 5 dollar (500 maintenance) spread. ROI of 2 percent or close to it. Just to help, in the previous blog post, DRZ3 posted about a spreadsheet he created which will help show you how stocks and indexs fared for the prior year (in regards to the week we are in), he uses Google finance to get the information and then inputs that info in his calculated spreadsheet. It is easy to use and very helpfull. Look for the post or email him for the spreadsheet.
Chris
Fulgore & Gssound - thanks for your suggestions. I am new to options and can't monitor closely during day time. That's why I was being ultra-conservative. I have changed now to 1245/1240 the lowest available 5k spread for SPX weekly. Bidding at .15. (last sale shows .20 difference). Will wait to see if this goes through.
Avid,
I concur with Gssound. I trade alot of SPX. Put spreads and call spreads depending on my gut. There is NO need to use a 25pt spread (1150/1125) to make .10. SPX options are generally VERY juicy, and I have had excellent luck at getting filled at/above the midpoint of the bid/ask. With a little research, you will see that SPX rarely moves over 30-40pts per week. I use a 40-60pt cushion, depending on the premium, shooting for .15cents. That is about 3% per week, and exceeds this blogs average, but the spreads on SPX are usually sooo wide, I have always been able to get an extra .5-.10 above the bid price...so the extra 1%/week could be seen as a gift.....or go out another 20pts, for extra safety.
Hope this helps.
rick
@Fulgore,
Re CRM - with 90min to go, my CRM spreads & condors are $2.52 & $7.52 OTM... The high today has been $149.72. The markets are pulling off highs, so this blind hog may get his acorn :-)
FLASH - Jim Cramer (CNBC) just said CRM "was not up enough today" and it has just jumped $1.15. Damn it...
@Gssound - I looked back scanning for the word "Excel" in earlier posts and I found the naked put calculator post for mediafire. Is this the one? I am looking at spreads. But if the idea is the same about showing the SPX movement over the past years then I will dowload it and look?
Put in a trade for 30 contracts of TTWO June $16s @ .70, bid only reached .60, I guess I'm better off as Sentiment going into earnings is negative, now I'll sit back and see how earnings look before I write anymore TTWO, as far as expiration Friday goes it was mostly positive:
EBAY $34 covered calls - expired
TTWO $16 - expired
TTWO $15 - expired
BGU - $75 - expired
TER - $16 - assigned - $15.84
MSFT - $25 - assigned - $24.49
CBOE - $28 - expired
UYG - $48 - expired
@All, my SPX expired this morning:
1.2% return after comms - comms were $46 WOW for the vertical put spread for 12 contracts. Before Comms it was 2%
If you track that for a year at 1.2% that is 57.6% return WOW
It sounds like a lot of happy campers for the past week. Don't get careless, avoid strike creep and you can hire me to help fold your money....
jerry
Fulgore, here is the skinny on the AM settlement. AM settlement (also called morning settlement) only applies to cash settled index options like SPX, VIX, and DJX which are European style options. The final settlement value is calculated using the opening trade price for each stock in the index. The final settlement is not the first reported SPX index price which is generally reported the first few seconds after the market opens. The final settlement value cannot be calculated until all stocks in the S&P 500 index have had their first trade. It can frequently take an hour or longer for all stocks in the S&P 500 index to have their first trade and the final settlement value cannot be calculated until that happens. In some cases it may take until Friday's close to calculate the settlement value. Another feature of AM settlement is that all indexes subject to the AM settlement method have a unique ticker symbol for the final settlement value. For the SPX that ticker symbol is SET. Remember, the final settlement value for SPX AM settlement is not necessarily the same value that the SPX opens at. For the May SPX options which ceased trading yesterday and settled this Friday morning, the SPX opened @ 1342 and the settlement price was 1342.55. I know, in this case there is a very small difference, but just bear in mind that the opening Friday SPX print for the monthly AM settled options is not going to be the final settlement price. To obtain the monthly AM settlement price you can go to yahoo.com and use the ticker: ^SET
You can also go to cboe.com -> Quotes & Data -> Index Settlement Values
Again, the two methods listed above are to get the settlement price for the monthly, AM settled SPX options. To get the settlement price for the weeklys PM settled options, just use the closing SPX print on expiration Friday for the weeks that have separate weeklys listed on the SPX.
The way I trade SPX is different it appears from everyone else on this blog as I sell them naked with lots of cushion. I want lots of cushion when dealing with cash settled instruments like SPX. I sell puts naked in AAPL where I do not necessarily strive for as much cushion as SPX. To each his own. I do pay very close attention to all blogs about SPX trading and may at some time go with SPX spread trading with less cushion...but not for now.
The yahoo site I made reference to is not yahoo.com but finance.yahoo.com
Sorry.
Re TradeMonster. Someone said earlier that they do not offer iPhone/iPad trading. Untrue. They do have an iPhone app that includes trading. IMHO, E*Trade has the best app. I recently left ET due to big fees but their iPad app is really outta sight. IPhone app is almost as powerful.
I have unfunded accts at TM, IB, TOS and OX. Currently trading with OH and a little bit with TK. TK's fees cannot be beat. I'm gonna move more $$$ to TK for this reason only. I like the tools better at OH and TM. Just started playing a paper acct at TOS. Looks like they have great tools.
Cheers all
Rick
Thank you for the answer Dave G
Rick - Thanks for your detailed response to my post above.
My SPX 1245/1240 expired at 15 cents. I will wait for Mon/Tues to see how it goes!
Post a Comment