Hi, I want to sell puts on S&P 500 companies. I use TOS and I want to create this: 1.) 85% or higher probability out of the money. 2.) 14 days or less to expiration. 3.) bid price above, lets say 0.50. I asked thinkorswim about this and they said their system is not capable. Can anyone help figure something close in think or swim or recommend an alternate broker? Thanks.
What does the Think or swim platform have to do with your criteria? You can do EVERYTHING you have described on think or swim. The problem is you would need a huge account to cover the margin requirement. What is the reason Think or swim gave you for not being able to sell puts?
to clarify i am not looking to sell puts on every s and p company. i am trying to create a query to identify out of the money puts that pay a nice premium. i have been watching companies like gild scty and qcor where for some reason some strikes have pretty high bids.
I think the customer service just blew you off. I've seen youtube videos of how precise ToS can be. Why not use delta as an approximation. 85% is 42.5% up or 42.5% down. 50%-42.5% is 7.5%. So, you short around 7 delta. Check out MDVN 50P @.30 and 50 IV. Thats playing with a gun to your head. As the other fellow already implied, my guess you need a stock around $200 with double market volatility. And thats, about $40,000 margin. If you can post that to make $50 bucks, then I've got other investments for you ... Start with Index options man. They are more predictable and you don't expose yourself with undue risk. SPY, QQQ, or IWN. And, do credit spreads. Don't go naked.
Ok, it's the scan that is giving you trouble. Have you tried the Spread hacker scans? I do not believe you can scan for naked puts but you can scan for put spreads. I imagine you can determine a scan that would result in your minimum credit requirement with a little bit of tweeking. You can scan for days til expiration and if you entered something like a .35 cent credit on a put spread you may be able to identify options that would have a .50 cent credit for naked puts. Naked puts scare me unless I REALLY wanted to own the underlying.
I love TOS. I think I'm in the 5th year of my free trial. But doesn't the analyze tab give you everything you need? I'm looking at SCTY right now, and the NOV 43 puts have a .50 bid and an 86% chance of OTM at exp. Just don't start looking until you're within 2 weeks.