You ar right, that doesn't really make any sense to me now either. How was the cash balance affected? Is the P/L shown just for that one position, or are you looking at the total for several trades? Were you looking at total open, or P/L for the day? Just guessing here. Michael
Stanford Put on another Straight CALL buy this morning. 2 Oct 510 Calls at $9.90 Trying a straight day trade but if it doesn't work will hold it over the weekend, as the trend continues UP. Also put on another Bull Call Debit Spread this morning. 5 OEX OCT 510 @ 9.90 buy 5 OEX Oct 515 @ 6.50 sell Am trying a sort of day trading idea and wanting to compare the straight buying of CALLS with the action of the debit Call spread. The book says the spread should do better in a slow market. Neither one is urgent until Monday for the straight CALL and the Debit Call Spread can sit for couple of weeks as it is an insurance policy against time decay. So long as I eventually get upward market movement. Got to learn how to handle these things in different situations, so I can identify implementation points for trading them. Read somewhere you can do overlapping debit spreads as you go up and down the index. Using both Calls and Puts.
Falconview, even though still a long way out of the money I was not as comfortable with my calls, so I rolled out again to 2100/2125 NDX. I think it cost $1000. Happy with that. Also put on put spread at NDX 1725/1700 which seemed very safe to me.
Stanford Tell me how it comes out. I'm closing down. Pretty much over now for the expiration week. Going to do some errands and other work.
Stanford I was compiling a TRADING LORE type of list for my DEBIT SPREAD trading. In the process I ran across a couple of notes I had made in the past, which I don't know how they work for credit spreads. Maybe by now as the new GURU in credit spreads you can explain these notes to me? a) Close the Credit Spread whenever you make .40 cents. This I don't understand as I don't have any reference on how to do this or when? b) Close the Credit Spread whenever you lose. 40 cents. Not sure how you figure this either? Supposed to be half the premium! Thats what my note says. c) A Credit spread starts to lose money whenever it returns to the index starting point, on which it was put on. d) If Credit Spread is threatened. BUY OPTIONS to cover the amount of loss involved. I have no idea how you would calculate and figure this adjustment out? What kind of options and how many do you figure it?
falconview, you are sadly mistaken. I know way too little almost embarassed you said GURU. Maybe a NEWRU! 1 and 2. I will give it a shot though. As far as making or losing 40c a trade, if that is someones strategy, it would have to depend on what the crdidt was in the first place. This would be a very conservative way to get out postions and take little losses, but also make smaller gains. I have the strategy that if you are 80% of the gains (if you close the position you will be left with 80% of the credit you originally banked). The remaining 20% possibly not worth the risk. If you had a credit of 80c to start, then closing it when you would lose 40c is along the lines of my strategy to close when it gets to 150% loss of the original credit. (if you were going to make 80c, close it when you would lose $1.20), but roll into another position which is what I am working on) 3. I am not sure if that is exactly true. A position would start to lose money when the cost to exit is more than the credit you received. To be honest, I dont know exactly when that would be, but doesn't that depend a lot on volatility at the time? 4. I have never done this or thought about it. I guess that if the market was going down and you had a bull put spread that was getting in trouble, you could buy a naked option to offset that. I am sure TJ can tell us how that would work. I dont know the details. You must have a lot of pieces of paper on that desk! Michael
Stanford I have the one working weekly credit spread strategy. So I am going to leave it at that. Unless there is some trick, like closing if you gain .40 cents, or .80 cents, or vice versa, closing if you lose .40 cents. Half your credit anyway? When I find out how that works by somebody else, I'll be interested. Got too many weeks involved learning these different things. This week I concentrate on learning DEBIT SPREADS. Was trying to figure out what was happening to one from last week. Got me confused. I'm pretty sure the spread has to widen. But I think I put it on too much. I think you have to leg into a credit spread in order to get a decent premium? Won't know until I try it. Like learning a guitar, you practice and practice until it becomes instinctive without thinking. UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS "Turning theory into reality."