So I opened a short strangle. I submitted it as a COMBO - short Visa 200 put and short Visa 220 call. The way the brokerage (IB) parsed the trade was a "buy" in booktrader. ok. So I bought a short position. I guess I'm confused because with stocks it's simple - I short a stock by selling and then cover it by buying to close. Now if I want to close the position tomorrow AS A COMBO - do I enter it in booktrader as as a "sell"? Because if I were to close just one of the legs I'd have to enter it as a "buy" in the booktrader page. I doubt i even explained this correctly. Sorry.
It will depend on how your broker treats the trade in the platform. For some broker, it will be a "buy" because your opening trade was a "sell" whether you are closing one leg or both legs as a combo. In your broker's case that it treated the transaction as a "buy" of a short combo, then when you are closing the position as a combo, it will be a "sell". What you can do is just use "Close position" on your platform to close the position. Most brokers offer this command. That way you are closing the position and you are guaranteed to have entered the order with the correct command. Check with your broker to be sure.
You can see the position on your Portfolio Monitor, POSITION Column indicates a long or short. Add a POSITION Column if you don't have it. Combos will be shown as combos unless you leg out or in. You should add BID and ASK columns to your Portfolio Monitor if you don't have it. Left click on Ask-price to get a buy ticket. Left click on the Bid-price to get a Sell Ticket. It doesn't matter what you think you did. Make the appropriate trade to reverse the position you see in the monitor to close that trade. Most importantly, remember to set a reasonable price for a Limit Order. Buy low/Sell high. If a negative price confuses you, you have no business tradng spreads. Also, It probably defaults to a Market Order and will make you lose 2x the spread.
Sell for a credit buy for a debit is all you need to remember. You can also just click buy the 200 put and buy the 220 call for the amount of contracts you have to close the position.
With IB, if you bought a combo, you have sell the combo to close it, and vice versa. You can also select "close" from a right click on the combo in tws classic and it will open a close order for the combo selected. Double check order details, double check margin to make sure and execute. On IB mobile app, which is more user friendly than tws, you also have a "close" function that you find when you scroll down on your position, and it does the same thing, in a more straight forward way. Mobile app is more straight forward even when entering the position imo. On IB it's "Close" or sell combo, if you bought it. You buy a (-1put / -1call) strategy; and to close it, you sell a (-1put / -1 call) strategy. On the portfolio you can also see under quantity column, a 1 or a -1, if you buy a combo, under quantity you have a green (+)1, if you sell it, you have a red -1 quantity. The opposite function will close it.
A perfectly well explained answer in the whole comment box .I like your way , how simply you resolved this query .