Frank, Frank, Frank. Got to agree! Learned the hard way in fact. But those are the lessons that stick. By the way, rather than short with far out OTM puts, i like to short with fairly deep in the money far out puts. I still have a defined max loss, though it is greater because it is potentially the entire intrinsic, not going to let that happen though.. Of course this ties up money, but it does keep me from having to guess where the price will eventually go to, because any movement down is an immediate profit if i want to cash out. And if i'm wrong i lose about the same (other than my interest) as i would have with an OTM put.