You can look up the price of each individual option contract at the specific time you are interested and calculate the spread between them. The site will give you historical prices throughout the day. You do need to wait after close of the day of trading to back check the option contract price for that current day. http://host.businessweek.com/busine...T&Symbol=WIB+AR Murray
Historical Option Contract Prices: Not sure if the entire link copied, so here it is http://host.businessweek.com/businessweek/Historical_Quotes.html?Button=NEW+REQUEST&Symbol=WIB+AR Murray
An example of the SPX SPX March 1275 Call Option Intra-day Prices (today) http://host.businessweek.com/busine...te=03/08/06&Type=5&Format=0&Button=Get+Quotes Hope this Help.... it's great for back testing. Murray
Poached this link from another thread. Been a while since JA has stopped by to say hi. Try not to stare directly at the pic during trading hours as the beauty is blinding..... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=956148
I'm trying out the double diagonal on paper so I can begin to understand it better. Here is what I have: Sell April 1360 call and April 1190 put for $2.25 + $.80 = $3.25 Buy May 1375 call and May 1175 put for $3.90 + $1.45 = $5.35 Net debit is $2.10 At April expiration if SPX is between 1190 and 1360 than I keep the $3.25 and roll into a May iron condor for another credit TBD. Or, I could exit the May positions at April expiration so my profit would be $3.25 plus the remaining value of the May straddle. Is this correct? Also, what would the margin requirements be when I open the positions, would it be $1500 as if it were an iron condor? ryan
Minor point but be careful how you describe the position values. If the APRIL short strangle expires worthless, your profit is not $3.25 in general. The entire position is opened for a net debit of $2.10 so if the APRIL strangle expires worthless you still have a net debit in the position which is $2.10. You can sell the MAY strangle for a profit if it is above $2.10 in value to sell to close. If you can open the MAY inside strangle for a credit greater than $2.10 then your new MAY IC will have a net credit of that amount. Or if the market has swung to one side a bit, you can turn the long strangle into a set of long debit spreads by selling a deeper OTM strangle in MAY and play a potential free loittery ticket on each side for MAY (i.e. sell the MAY 1380 strike to get a bull call spread with a net credit perhaps-thinking out loud). I think there are a lot of ways to play this and I might look into it as well. Especialy doing small contracts like 10 of these at a time. If the market moves past your short strike, the extra time value in the long MAY position will reduce the risk to below the $1500 per spread max. Moreover, you can roll the short strike out to MAY at further OTM strikes and have a nice adjustment there. I will study this a bit and you know me, I will have to put some real money in to get a feel for this. I will start by selecting short strikes I like for APR and then add 10 or 15 points to it for the MAY strikes.