Banana... sounds good. As I am looking at TWS SPX options now I can see 1 bid and 1 ask for APR1235, and 55/5 for APR1225. Is that because I use IB ? How is your perspective ?
Lost me on the last sentence there.... what exactly are you seeing for the b/a on each leg? For the spread i was fighting a b/a of $0.00/$0.85 all day trying to get $0.40 but no dice. Settled for the $0.35 after a long time waiting.
Yes, there is a tax worksheet that can be downloaded from ToS. I've never accessed it from the desktop platform so I don't know about that and I'm not at my home computer. But you can get it from their web page by logging in and looking under the my accounts tab > taxes > tax worksheet. You're there. Very convenient.
Right, each leg. The same b/a I can see for the spread. Now is 0.05/0.8. I understand that you can open spreads anyway, patience always pays. But how about adjustments ? If you need to roll them etc. ?
SPX is certainly a game of patience. If you want to shave a nickle of the mid-point then you have to be prepared to let it sit a long time with the liklihood of getting filled really small. When I am opening trades I rarely am desparate to get in so I am fine with letting orders sit all day and changing my limit order little by litte to see if the fish bite. On an adjustment it is the same prinicple. If I want to be really aggressive I cannot expect a quick fill. I have to be willing to give up some nickles off the mid-point if I really want to get filled. It is a down side of the SPX options but for me the pros outweight it. When I need to roll it is usually with enough time and space where I do not need to rusj so I do not mind waiting to get filled and trying to squeeze as much out as I can. If no fill looks likely I just keep shaving until I hit.
Coach, can you be more specific with regard to how you would add the hedge later (what would be the trigger and how you would execute). how close would you let it move to your low strike (still your 10 pt rule)? Would you simply buy 1260 puts? - assuming the news drives the market south?
I would add the partial hedge today or tomorrow before volatility picked up before the FED meeting. I think I would use 1260 as my hedge strike for a small SPY or XSP position so that if the market does really move lower I can use the profits to help finance or partially offset an adjustment. The reason I might add it today or tomorow is that I am a few strikes higher than I would have liked to be for the put spreads so since the premium was nice I do not mind giving up $1,000 - $1,500 of it in a partial hedge that could prove useful later on if we break down through 1295 and further on major bad news. I did not get filled on a 126/125 SPY bear put spread yet so if we are up tomorrow I may grab it for $0.10 or less if I can.
The b/a was .1/.8 after 4:00 today for the 1225/1235, couldn't get a MM to bite for a .40 credit. Just trying to show you up Coach ryan
I called down to the SPX floor and let them know that I was sick of them giving better fills to my thread members so I may have screwed it up for your guys.
And last but not least - in scale 1 to 10 how would you rate importance of good entry/fill in regards to overall strategy performance ?