the trade i love as of right now is + oct / - nov and adjust whatever ratio's you've got to be net long or short vol as you please.
Lol for real, it is crazy. I did the chat thing last night with IB asking how they come up with their requirement and the guy asked where you find the exchange margin requirements, and then said well our risk manager must think it is a particularly risky spread or something. Oh well.
I was actually looking at doing that fly with a few -nov/+dec to a single long vol front spread. Things have moved quite a bit in the short vol one since I first started looking at that, but possibly still a play there.
Sorry to ask but what is the reason for ratio-ing 2 spreads instead of doing a +1 oct/-2 nov/+1 dec butterfly?
just a different way to express what you think is going to happen/hedge yourself I didn't lose any money if that counts lol. I was short some vol but closed out everything yesterday afternoon.
Bought Jan/Feb at .14, not looking for a whole lot out of it. I feel like it's been quite a bit stronger than Feb/Mar. Anybody have any insight on why that might be the case?
now that we have been in a different vol regime/spot regime than we have seen in a long time has anyone changed the trades they are doing? are most of the people that follow here systematic guys? if so, how have those strategies worked through this? i'm still mostly trading vix futures spreads and flies. for myself, its 70% system 30% discretion. i had some drawdown (nothing out of the ordinary) after the initial big move lower in SPX but i've made it back and im near account highs on the year (as of friday, we'll see how long that lasts).
good questions. as you know, this is all i trade...in my experience when you have this type of vol and curve; its just too tough to trade with the whips, etc. what i have seen is "coming out of the vol" dislocations occur and that presents flies and spread trades that make up for all the waiting. no idea if we are getting near there or not..so still waiting.