I was looking to buy some GOOG MAR 350/340 when all hell broke loose. Was in Thinkorswim's software to see very clearly that bids & asks were crazy, even show credit sometimes. Imp volatility went up for March to over 50%. Guess the only way to lock in profit of 380 puts would be to buy the stocks at that time since options were not tradable. If I had that position I'd call TOS to have them hold my hand to tell me what is the best strategy, or they will work the trade for me. It does not cost any more commission. I have a friend called TOS when Internet connection was down to take care of the position.
I have seen this kind of thing 9 or 10 times in the last 5 years and that's exactly the situation. When it's your ball, you make up the rules and you can tell the other kids that your not going to play anytime you want and they can't do diddly about it in circumstances like this!!!! THEIVES Even when your RIGHT in this business these crooks can screw you over and it's been going on since the floor opened and ECN's are no different. imo
okay to follow up, initially goog options quotes were crossed. They then were "orderly" but didn't make sense, the goog 380 puts traded at 36 x 38 area when goog was trading at 340 (this makes no sense but whatever). This isn't fair but I figured I should liquidate while I can cause I got to 340 which was my final target for these options. I should have gotten more for these IF i had been able to sell because how can an option be less than the intrinsic value!?!? At this point i tried to limit sell, and wouldn't get filled. hit the bid, then the bid started dropping, put market order and couldn't get filled. Order got stuck when I tried to cancel so I couldn't do anything. It was stuckw ith IB and called IB, they couldn't reach CBOE or it was toob usy so they couldn't give me an "out" and couldn't advise me since they couldn't tell if the order was executed or not. Ultimately the order was cancelled several hours later and I was unable to exit this position at the desired price/time. Perhaps they should make a market in whether the market will work. Taleb's black swan's always talk about externalities but not the actual market itself, ie what if in a black swan one side of your hedge fails (not counterparty risk, but exchange risk), etc. Ie can you ever really be hedged/in the position you think when there is volume/volatility it becomes illiquid even if you are taking the other side? The reality is, you can never hedge nor can you ever really have a position short or long in anything since during high volatility events your position becomes discretionary to exchanges/other people as what happened to me. And perhaps thats the lesson here, regardless of how good a trader you are is that you're only as good as a market is.
well it was in the money ..then out of the money ...then WAY out of the money ... then at the money !!! options prem's were 10$ higher on the way down ... then adjusted after the move was made .. was absolutely ridiculous.
empee You have just been added to my (short) list of traders to be respected in ET. No truer words about trading have been spoken in here! I'm glad that it worked out for you I have been in many of these situations that haven't been so forgiving. Good Trading to you.
thanks for the nice comments, actually I ended up holding the position since my exit was 340. I'm going to hold I'm thinking that they'll use tommorow as a excuse to sell GOOG on volume during analyst day, if not I'll ether stop out or take some gains! Hopefully, others will learn from this experience.
Again.... it's called "theft" I guess the public was long puts. What happened to the prices of out-of-the-money calls? Any of you guys was short calls?
You've almost got it. Instead of 'as good as the market is' you should have said 'as good as my contacts are'. Can you imagine SAC, DEShaw, or any other member of the market aristocracy having the same experience as you did with the exchange? As a friend once quipped, life is about two things: money and connections. All else is detritus.