Some of these boys beating you up on this subject really know their stuff. they aren't beating you up for sport. You are getting beat up because you are quasi marketing yourself (your "firm") in a public forum as a qualified option trader promoting a highly risky strategy who in each post further confirms he knows nothing about the risks associated with the strategy. Your post below further demonstrates this. Do you really think when you have trade on bunch of short out of the money future options and the market moves quickly against you, that you can limit your loss and get out at double the premium received? I wish life was so easy.
Hard, if you wake up and the marks are already 5-10x against you. Why would you assume continuity of price anyway? Just because you are prepared to cover at double the premium received doesn't mean the market will offer you a chance to do so.
You can close it when it trades at that level, or looks like it will imminently trade at that level. Says nothing about what price you pay to get out, and if you can get out. I assume these are European style rather than American style so there is no danger of being assigned a short futures position when you don't own the physical, can't deliver it, and can't buy an offsetting future as they're limit up? If you're in the grains where there are limits in the futures, do you have the ability to trade in the cash market if your naked short call is assigned and futures market is limit bid?
I am certainly not marketing myself. For what would I be marketing? I just went out on a limb to detail what I have been doing. I have nothing to sell here. What would qualify me to say anything about what I'm doing? Isn't this thread about, "What strategies do you guys use?" Do I have to do what you guys do to join the "club"? I simply like the risk profile. Others may not. That's fine. I've said my piece. Since you guys are the so-called experts here, what is it that you do???????????
selling option premium is like an ATM machine in "calm" market environment. it can make you feel like you can find no easier way to make money than selling option premium. but soon, you'll learn it the hard way - this is not an ATM machine, when the market moves against you and take back several months of your gain, or even more. and you will learn it, sooner or later. there is no way to know when it's coming, or able to manage the risk.
Well, it hasn't happened to me yet. We're still building our track record. We'll leave it at that for the next 6 months to a year. I'll surely post a thread if such an event occurs. I'll be on the alert. Practice makes perfect right?