Good question, just a feeling from what the market is doing and where I am comfortable. I have done sometimes just one strike, sometimes 2. No hard strategy on that yet.
Stanford Here is some stuff I never followed up on and tried. 1) The Credit Spread should not be allowed to lose more than .40 cents, then it should be closed out. The Spread narrowing makes it profitable. If the spread widens by .40 cents, then close it out. Take your loss. 2) A one strike move the wrong way in the OEX close the trade. This will keep losses equal to gains, or a 50% - 50% to win. 3) The credit spread you try to get the widest premium. If you want to profit go for the narrowest premium_ Not sure if I got that right? 4) One guy, Larry Berg out of Nebaska, uses credit spreads on a trend turn, like right now. If you have the trend direction right, Larry straddles the OEX index. Thus buy the OTM strike and sell the ITM strike. The widest point is right then. As a stop/loss if the market goes the wrong way, he uses 1 1/2% of the index to exit and close. This is a play on the spread being put on at the widest point and closed at the narrowest point.
Thursday morning Couldn´t get into a credit spread yesterday, nor so far this morning. I´m long some straight PUTS so that is bad news so far. If this market is going to continue in a bull trend from the horizontal box it was congesting in, then there will be another 30 points up in the OEX for the second wave. Not sure where it is going yet?
I´m fast running out of time for a weekly expiration credit spread. Can´t get any premium inside my safety parameters. Didn´t get filled yesterday either.
I am loaded, so did not have time to come around here. Tomorrow is non farm payroll numbers, which is a marketsw mover. Markets seem to be creating a range wide enough to strike in either direction. Do you consider such reports in your spread writing? EUR/USD has touched the round number of 1.40 area. It seems to be in a retreat from here, but it can visit the high tomorrow. Chance for it to revisit the high today is tiny small.
TJ Great to hear you are loaded! Good sign! Falconview, just read the latest Monthly Cash through options newsletter and interesting to see that over the last 6 years, many of their losses have been with the calls when the market was going up! Seems opposite to what we had figured. Michael
TJ I have no weekly credit spread. Ran out of time and couldn´t get premium where I wanted it for safety. I am long some puts. Got a question for you. ASSIGNMENT. I´m not clear on this. Are you assigned at closure, such as Expiration? Or can you be assigned at any time a trade is on, like a credit spread? I believe there are indexes that you must beware of assignment, and others where it does not exist? Is that true?
Stanford Falconview, just read the latest Monthly Cash through options newsletter and interesting to see that over the last 6 years, many of their losses have been with the calls when the market was going up! Seems opposite to what we had figured. _________________________________ Yes! I´ve learned that in the past decades ago. You can lose badly in a bull market with calls, because the velocity slows down. You can see it by the daily bars getting shorter and closer together. They do not move enough to overcome TIME DECAY. Only the first quarter, or third of a BULL TREND is for straight calls. The latter half is better to do credit spreads, presumably on weeklies. I had hopes for DEBIT SPREADS but they do not seem to work either, yet. Something I havent figured out. I´m running an experiment today on the credit spread put on as a directional straddle over the index current price. You have to guess direction right and the credit spread will then move out of the money. You can gain in 7 OEX points or breakeven there, with a narrowing of the spread, plus the TIME DECAY you collect. Right now we put it on OTM as far as we can get to collect TIME DECAY. What if any profitability is in this move I don´t know, but on scratch paper I´m giving it a try. I´ve got all these old notes of mine from years back. I see Larry Berg is still alive and trades using TIDES, MOON and ASTROLOGY still. His returns didn´t look too good though. _____________________________