Please stop doing this on such a huge scale. October 1987 is going to happen again. Maybe not this month, or this year, but it will. As Mark has recently pointed out in his blog, the markets are becoming more and more volatile. There is no money without risk. None. I'm sure you know this, deep down. And I would hate for any beginners reading this board to think that there is. Mary
King of Shorts: Go away. Or put a gazillion dollars in an account and do it for yourself. Idiot. It doesn't matter if there's two hours, two days, or two months until expiry. Stress-test it on Bloomberg or Sun-gard. No clearing firm in the universe will let you short vol unless you can cover the implied fungible. Amateur.
That makes absolute no sense. Why would anyone sell options for 1 penny if it has 2 months of time value?
It's not free. Brokers don't make deals of this type. Margin rules are are tweaked by brokers, but set by the SEC. Your broker cannot ignore them, No broker would ever agree to a 'deal.' They would never allow you to carry that much risk without a huge account. And people with a huge account don't take the risk you are suggesting. In fact, the whole idea is so absurd, that I'm certain you are toying with us and cannot possibly be seriously suggesting anyone take your trade advice. Mark
This would be like "shorting" lottery tickets. You know - you walk in to the store, say "I'll short 1,000 Super Lotto please", they give you $1,000 cash and if the number picked don't match any of the numbers you got, you're off the hook. On the other hand, if they do all match one of your tickets.... you got it... you owe $10,000,000 to the state. JJacksET4
Were you trading on expiration day in September 2008 (the day after the financials short-selling ban)? Some of the most experienced options market makers in the world dropped hundreds of millions that day by doing exactly this strategy.