on another note, yesterday , was amazing.. I had a bunch of short naked puts and calls..... all the call expired worthless.. ha ha.. i didnot even pay 5 cents to close them. as no one would try to assign them in after hours. and I had MONSANTO 65 put RTP Rio tinto at 125... TROW 25. I did not want them assigned.. fortunately, the market rallied and I could forget about them. except RTP it was 127 and the bid /ask was 10 cents and 1.95.. I found that strange.. as it was well above 125... but I could not take a chance, in after hours and did not want it assigned to me.. hence I put a bid of 30 cents and it got executed.. but eventually in after hours it went to past 130... i guess the poiint i am driving here is .that we usually see options bid ask. go to intrinsic value . at close.. but due to the damn volatility... it was moving like a wild roller coaster..... I hope eveeyone is aware,. that .. even though options close. at 4pm.. there is still 90 minutes. where it can get assigned to us...... hence to be safe, I always close my nail biter close finishers who I have no intention of taking with me over the weekend..
With VIX over 60, sell the FOTM SPY puts, in deep oversold conditions, e.g. hourly RSI and Stoch under 20, and take profits on any SP rebound over 50 points. You got to know how to do this - can't learn to do it in these markets.
It's been brutal. I'm not worried about my covered calls in equities. Sure most of the stocks (all actually) have been crushed, but most should come back and I've sold ALOT of covered calls in stocks. Short puts ini ES are a b**ch and I keep having to find ways to roll out of them. Not all, but some. I've at least managed to catch a few of the big sudden down moves intraday to rake in some collateral and stay alive and I've writing puts in bond and note futures so it's not the end of the world.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from spindr0: Hey! Get your facts staight! Covered call sellers make a lot of money on their option trades!!! It's the stock that kills em (g) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOL! very good one! It reminds me "casinos do not beat you, odds do". But in your case it true. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The crash of '87 cured me of trust in covered calls/naked puts. Friday the 16th was option expiration and everything that I rolled/sold to open that day was figuratively owned that Monday, the first day of the new expiration month Covered call writng (naked put selling) is for those who are buy and hold investors looking for add'l income from their portfolio. There are better ways to speculate with options than CC's and NP's.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from spindr0: There are better ways to speculate with options than CC's and NP's. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I disagree. There are different ways, but not better ways -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You're entitled to your opinion and choice of posion.. If it works for you, go for it.
S&P 500 Index Drop Leaves 64 Industries With Losses "All 64 of the S&P 500's so-called level-three categories, groups such as "distributors'' and "leisure equipment'' with as few as one company, dropped in 2008. Four hundred eighty-two companies slipped as the 500-stock index slumped 46 percent, poised for its biggest yearly retreat in eight decades." And... " "There seems to be no bottom,'' Laszlo Birinyi, who oversees more than $350 million as president of Birinyi Associates Inc. in Westport, Connecticut, said on Bloomberg Television. "We have no tools that tell us where to go now.'' " http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=am1FNznC.tNE&refer=home