lol, okay, I'll stop my quibbling here. When I talk to other traders, I would say I have an (iron) condor or (iron) buttefly position on, sometimes leaving out or accidentally putting in the iron word, but always meaning long the wings and short the body. They probably know me well enough to know what I meant.
Let's look at a simpler case: The humble bear call credit spread: XYZ is at 10.15 Sell XYZ June $12 call for 0.60. Buy XYZ June $15 call for 0.15. Cash out of pocket: -0.45 (credit) Margin requirement: 3.00 Net cash required: 2.55 Maximum profit: 0.45 Maximum loss: 2.55 Nearly everyone would agree that this is a short option position. Now consider its equally humble synthetic equivalent, the bear put debit spread: Sell XYZ June $12 put for 2.45. Buy XYZ June $15 put for 5.00. Cash out of pocket: 2.55 Margin requirement: 0.00 Net cash required: 2.55 Maximum profit: 0.45 Maximum loss: 2.55 This has the same cost and the same profit/loss characteristics as the bear call spread, as we would expect. But everyone would call this a long option position. So the mere fact that an iron condor is synthetically equivalent to a long put or long call condor does not mean that the iron condor has to be considered to be a long position.
Mark, Very good point on the 0.40 call spread value. I usually start thinking about buying them back somewhere around that point, and definitely around the 0.25 point. I think a lot of people don't realize that blindly opening spreads a fixed distance away from the index doesn't really accomplish much in the way of balance or additional protection as far as setting up an iron condor. Their approach needs to be much more sophisticated than that. I also want to thank you personally for your assistance in developing my thinking about protective strategies for iron condors. Frankly, I do have credit spreads in both puts and calls in my portfolio, but not by themselves. I have regularly implemented some of your ideas and they have been very helpful and in some cases quite profitable. If you ever come up to Calgary, look me up (PM me on this board), and I'll buy you a serious steak dinner. You have done a great service to options investors on this board and on your blog.
There is this confusing thing when it comes to Iron positions and when one uses the word long or short. For example, if you sell the straddle and buy the strangle, some call that a Long Iron Butterfly whereas I have seen other people focus on the short straddle as the main part and state they are short the Iron Fly. It is semantics but can be confusing.