MAV, Good to see you're earning your salary here on ET. You may consider editing a few of these posts and submitting them to Andy for compensation. Claim is as "prospective client services". It's good to know you're around.... miss you in GR. The boys say hello... M~
Your percent return is kicking the crap out of mine (I'm currently a little under 7% after giving up some ground today), very impressive. My tent pole is a diagonal with a 1365 short. At this point it looks like you made a good move with your calendar. I'm with you, any vol spike in the next few days and I am out. Lately a vol spike means +.5 .
Hi, November has been a dream - so far. My remaining risk is real. The largest short position (MID 800s) was almost ITM when the rally stopped. Of course, that strike is being threatened again, but this time, expiration is just a few days away and I hope to be able to hold the position longer. I've covered many of my other Dec/Nov positions - all for various cash credits, but have a few remaining. I already own all the Jan/Dec spreads I can handle and have started opening Feb/Jan (RUT). As I close the remaining Dec/Novs I'll be looking to add Dec/Jan, but doubt I'll be able to find opportunites that meet my criteria. Thus, I expect to be doing more Feb/Jan next week, when all the indexes add Feb options. Due to the recent contributions by Mav, I've decided to experiment and added a bit of positive curvature to my portfolio by opening a small number of Feb/Jan diagonal call backspreads (more longs than short; 2x1 and 3x1 ratios). Looking to do the same with puts, but the vol skew makes it difficult for me - because I hate paying debits. Mark
Murray, it's about time I came clean here. I'm only posting here because I still have 1000 hours of community service to do and I was instructed to help out good old Dr. Phil here on the SPX thread. I'm suppose to give back to the community. So when my time is up.......I'm gone~
Yes, of course Mav has an update. I can speak on behalf of Fimat. They will be doing customer portfolio accounts next month on only index options, not equities and there will be a 150k minimum like I suspected. I'm sure other retail firms will follow suit and most should be requiring a pretty steep minimum account value. In the case of Fimat, I think each person has to qualify for the account individually. In other words there is some kind of personal interview involved where one has to demonstrate a certain amount of knowledge and experience. So that basically eliminates everyone on this thread.
In other words, a remote MM uses electronic means to make his trades, while the other MM is a floor trader. ? Cru
What about if we are using haircut? I believe it is slightly less than span margin, but pretty close. Higher leverage comes with higher risk. Basically we need to find a strategy that works well with your margin rule.