Recent content by PastorDave

Sorry to hear about your problem! One other thing to keep in mind is that max loss spreads like that should be very cheap to roll one more week. I've got the same 1100/1000 spreads for 5/13, and I think it cost me like $3 to roll. I agree with others that 1000 again in the next week (after...

If he's going to follow a pattern of selling ~1m shares every Monday for several more weeks, the inflection wouldn't wait for 4 weeks (9 Mondays left on those sales). It should be when he's almost done selling every day, which is possibly by Thursday. That's one possible scenario, at least.

I see 3 possibilities: 1, exactly what you said above 2, Elon for some reason choose not to sell any shares today, and this is what the normal price action looks like without him selling 3, Double bottom around 987 spooked the shorts, and they're covering / longs thinking we've hit the bottom...

Wow, what a day! On the one hand, I'm glad I typed up that list of ways to manage positions, because I feel like I used about half of them today. On the other, I learned that I was too heavily in naked puts and BPS with 100-200 wide spreads (30% of my account in those was too much for this...

Bingo. I totaled it up this morning and I've got about 150k max loss risk from 7 open positions of this 25% (closer to 33%, now that I look at it) gain 20 wide spread type. That's like 5% of my cash. I'm working on a more detailed explanation that I'll post later (apparently I touched a...

Exactly. To me, this is "safe". To everyone else on this board, it's a gamble. I can manage the expected moves of the SP with very little problem. I can get in and get out and make informed decisions. What gets me is the unexpected moves, which could turn that 1% gain into a huge loss...

But what if the SP gapped down 200 points before the options market opened? You can't always manage these things, especially under stress. I agree that's super rare, but that's also the definition of black swan. I think ultra wide spreads are fine, so long as you've got the cash to roll or...

My typical trade of this type is Low volume (x10, x20), 20 wide, and about maybe 30 points away from the money. With the high IV I've been able to get further away from the money recently. I'll have several of these on at once at different strikes as I feel out the week. Another example...

No, but what if the black swan is the week you started this strategy? And would you rather spend 4 weeks building back your reserves or 22? (well, 2 weeks or 6-11, in the more likely scenarios were you close early) Example 25% ROIC trade (I used to report these, but they're directly counter...

Absolutely, edit it however seems best to you. This is a group effort, so far as I'm concerned.

For the FAQ (I've been working on this over the weekend, but just finished it up) Managing Spreads As I see it, there are 3 main categories of management: Closing, Transforming, or Adding Leverage. I'm going to list out the management strategies that I've collected from the forum and then my...

I moved to all cash (well, 95%) on Friday, and so far I'm loving it too (especially after Elon's tweet, smh). I probably qualify as a "big dog" investor now, as I hit my retirement target last week, and will be transitioning out of my job later this year. Main reasons I went to cash: I don't...

I... love this trade. My version: 11/12 975/1000/1450/1475 @ $3.49 240 points to the downside and 210 points to the upside for this to go bad on me; plenty of time to fix things if it looks like it's going bad. And since I think 1300 and 1100 should be strong support/resistance I feel...

For TDA at least my longer dated options don't give me any margin benefit at all. I'm pretty sure this varies by broker. Shares (I have very few, but plan to start loading up if we see a pull back) give (I think?) 60% margin or so. More than I expected, at any rate. So I maintain a large...

I've got a ton of margin, but I'm only doing one contract at a time. Also, I have so many random positions open I think it only took like 60k margin instead of the 200k or so it should have.