I've built similar situations like this myself, turning profitable options into straddles. Haven't done it with this pair, but if I were already in a profitable EBAY short, then I would look hard at "covering" with equivalent PYPL. If I later thought that it was time to trade long I might use PYPL then sell-out by shorting EBAY....collecting premium along the way. Of course, the premium collected assumes that the deal closes or the spread collapses for some other reason....like it did a month ago. Bravo... --Derek