Spx/es options

Discussion in 'Options' started by met1989, Mar 10, 2019.

  1. met1989

    met1989

    i want to buy one butterfly spread but it seems liquidity is not so good on them and they never fill in on the net debit I target (which is near the price it gives ) what would be better Spx spy or es
     
  2. Robert Morse

    Robert Morse Sponsor

    Can you give a live example of the spread and what the bid/ask is on the markets if you entered a market order and then what price you are looking to trade. Maybe your bid is just too low.
     
  3. Traded options on all of those, but been doing SPY last couple years. Liquidity on most strikes for all of them, even fairly deep ITM is great I thought? You'll usually have to give a little better than mid tho on those spreads.
     
  4. Robert Morse

    Robert Morse Sponsor

    You are correct. Spy has narrow liquid spreads, but SPX is 10X SPY and has better tax treatment. A $0.01 spread is SPY is like $0.10 in SPX.
     
  5. met1989

    met1989

    I look at the net credit of buying that butterfly but maybe it’s better to place them one by one and get a better price for al of them ?
     
  6. Robert Morse

    Robert Morse Sponsor

    You should enter spreads orders not try to leg. You need to calculate fair value for yourself and not use midpoint which can change with small customer orders. Then decide the most you are willing to give a market maker to enter the spread and enter an order a little lower than fair and move up slowly to your limit looking for a seller. The seller will be an automated MM looking for a little edge to their values.
     
  7. Spx is the most liquid product you will ever trade.
     
  8. Robert Morse

    Robert Morse Sponsor

    I agree that it is liquid but market makers do not show their best bids and offers so it requires manually working your orders to find liquidity. And, I if lived in a different time zone than US markets, I would consider ES for the longer trading hours.
     
  9. met1989

    met1989

    here is a trade i put in and it just doesn't fill already for one hour, a 4 leg trade with a net debit of 0.25 and just won't go
     
  10. Robert Morse

    Robert Morse Sponsor

    What does it say the bid/ask spread is on all the legs?
    Is this a live order or sim?
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2019
    #10     Mar 11, 2019