Any spread traders get blind sided by the gov attack on wall street? I was lucky in that I usually get in the week after OPX for my BPS on the SPY, and did not like what I was seeing early in the week, so I kept waiting and then bama lowers the boom.
My horror story is on stock. Wish I had bought less of it. Managed to scratch my Feb RUT flies for even money. Volatility making me seasick. With the wicked skew, my calendar hedges are not even working. A few short straddles-- doing decently with some adjustments--they are on far-month bonds and euros.
my horror story is a few months old. I had a BWB on Activision-Blizzard I think they were NOV expiration, and there was a huge sell-off I was short vega, and my risk was to the downside. Well anyways, 2 weeks to go, IV spiked up, and the stock dropped. That one was a bit painful... but i learned from it.
To say that the problem was Obama is wrong. Jim Cramer himself said that if Scott Brown was elected the market would go up. Look what happened. I play contrarian and option selling. Three weeks ago I saw that I had to profit take a number of stocks. I thought it was a one off, but they kept being knocked out. Then at the beginning of last week it increased to a torrential 4 to 6 stocks per day. On Tuesday I played NDX C2025-2050, SPX C1210-1220, and CL C120's naked. I am sitting in 81% cash and if we have anymore days like last week I will be essentially all cash. Usually I leg into Puts, but last month had no chance, and this month not going to... I made the rent money and then some, and will sit on my hands!!! So I happen to be happy as a pig in mud...
My horror stories are for stocks. My short bear call spread on SPX and my short bear call spread on IYT are doing just fine.
My Jan vertical calls that I sold (650/660), had to be rolled over to Feb(670/680). I broke even for Jan. even though I had a few :eek: sleepless nights and rolled them over to Feb for an average fill of $1.89. I'll slowly start buying em back this week.