I agree with what's been stated here -- cover this profitable spread. It's difficult to make a case for back month verticals. Ppl generally trade back months to go long/short volatility, not gamma. Narrow verticals are a distribution or gamma play. Stick to the two front months when trading narrow verticals.
I've used various software in the past (optionetics platinum, optionvue, etc..) I don't use many anymore because I wasn't getting my money's worth. I am becoming increasingly impressed with the ToS platform and there analysis tools are my favorite price. $FREE.99 baby! Word on the street is that in the not too distant future they will have the remaining features that I like. Once that happens they will have my undivided attention.
Hey... maybe I'll have my IT guy develope my own software. On second thought, scratch that idea. The software would be SO INCREDIBLY AMAZING that I would have to keep it all to myself so that I had an edge. Then I wouldn't be able to make any money off of it. Oh well. Good idea while it lasted. LOL
Back down to business. I was getting a little worried about my SPY 126 short puts earlier today with the move we were making. Looking a little better now. I don't know how much I'll be inclined to hold on for a worthless expiration on that SPY IC. I might bail a little early. If one of the short strikes is threatened, I might bump it back a bit. I don't really want to risk being ITM at all this close to expiry. That's definitely the benefit of SPX over SPY. Getting assigned before expiry sucks every time.
with answers like that , you are turning other posters away from your thread. Good luck with your trades , I am done here
I don't understand why you got upset. You didn't offer more info yourself: A trading system's success depends maybe even more of other variables than %win, i.e. average win/loss, frequency of trading. Also, such numbers are anyway irrelevant to others. Actually in my opinion your assertion: "They probably should be atleast 55/45 (positive to negative)" is incorrect.
Sorry, were you asking specifically how accurate my predictions are? I thought your post was more rhetorical from the wording. I assumed you were making an observation rather than an inquiry. So in response to the question of whether I run those stats, I said yes. I agree that a person should at least be 55/45, or even higher for some strategies. When I said there is more to it than that, I wasn't implying that I have a magic/complex strategy. What I meant was that I don't know how to answer a question of accuracy without more detail. For example, if I put on an OTM bear call spread and the underlying goes up but doesn't reach my short strike, was that an accurate prediction? It was not accurate in the sense that I put on a bearish position when the underlying made a bullish move. Overall though, it was accurate in the sense that it never made it to my short strike, which was probably the reason I was OTM to begin with (thinking it might still run against me a bit but not too far). Also, if I were to play all FOTM credit spreads I could claim that 95% of my plays have been profitable. Without proper risk management though, that other 5% could wipe out those gains. So the claim of 95% accuracy wouldn't help much. Are you looking for my actual "batting average"?
Well I was worried about RIMM having an ER before MAR expiry, but it turns out that it isn't going to be until APR 6. Question: Back when I used to play earnings reports, it seemed like more often than not if a company delayed an earnings announcement, when it finally came around the report was less than stellar, or at least didn't meet market expectations. I never took the time to actually get some numbers together, but that seemed like the case. In this case, RIMM usually announces around the 20th of the month following the end of the previous quarter. This will be a few weeks late by those expectations. Has anyone noticed anything along these lines? I'm not suggesting developing a strategy around it (I'm not too crazy about earnings reports these days), but just curious what ya'll have seen.