In June, I was in a Credit spread: GOOG 10ea. s360p / b350p. Took this to one day before expiration and made $1020. For July I enter a GOOG Credit Spread on 7/7/06..10 ea. s460c/ b470c. Closed the Short side on 7/19 (Opened @ 3.0 closed at .15). I let the 470c that I paid 1.6 for , expire. Total profit after commission was $1189. I then re entered GOOG Credit spread of 10ea. s350p/ b340p with 3 days till exp. With GOOG sitting around the 400 level this seemed a Great play for "Gift" premium. (1.05/ .65). Pocketed $350 at the EOD of exp. This seem to work for me...keep taking the premium as long as it looks good.
I am side stepping GOOG for the rest of the week. I will re-visit it after exp. on Friday. Today I entered into a Credit Put Spread that has quite a bit of potential. Plus it expires in 5 days. SHLD... Sears Holding Corp. It is in a nice up trend and the put premium is still holding good value. I entered a 135p/125p spread. (10X 1.60/.40). Potential profit by this fridays exp. of $1200 before commissions.
10 min to go till the end of the trading day...and with earnings out BMO tomarrow I took my profits and left the building... Closed out the SHLD spread. Got out of the short 135 p @ .60 and the 125p at .15. That made a nice profit after comm. of $690.00. Not bad for holding the spread for only a couple days. Time to sit back and wait again until next month. This brings my account to $12,630. Not quite the $1000 this month I was targeting for, but still a PLUS. I took a hit on the commissions on the GOOG spread I bailed out of. That would have been in the green now, if I stayed in...but I stuck to my exit plan.
Well here we go again... I entered into a GOOG spread for the month of September.. Goal again is to make approx $1000 for the trade, with only 2 weeks left. Account status: $12,630. GOOG currently @ 378.89 Sold 10 370 Puts @ $2.80 Bought 10 360 Puts @ $1.20 Net Credit of $1600. Commissions $30.00. My break even point is 368.40 I will keep a constant eye on this one. I have a little more cushoin to fall back on if it swing against me. The CCI 14 has pulled back to around zero on the charts and looking for it to bounce off the zero line. Price has been consolidating around the 380 area last week.
credit spreads are great but you need a ton of $$$ on just a 10 contracts GOOG credit spread 20 pts wide you need close to 20K and you have 12K?
I think it's a 10 point spread 360/370. IV_Trader pointed out recently that GOOG is at historic low vols. Not neccessarily a good time to be short premium on this issue. When it moves, it can really move...it's nearly due :eek:
I entered a 10 contract spread (short 10/ long 10). I never go over 10 point spread. The goal is to try to earn approx $1000 per month with less that 2 weeks of time left in the options premium. This is month #3 of doing this. I have kept the amount in play at a $10,000 base. Starting next month I will be increase the base to what ever the account balance will be. 12 or 13 contracts. For every $1000 that I make, I will increase by one more contract. As my base grows, I then can go further OTM for more security from going ITM.
On the topic of options; who do you use as a broker?. I noticed you paid 32 something in commission, that seems a bit much. Do you pay per-contract or do you get a flat rate?