NOT-ADVICE
).All part of this game, I'm afraid, but also a good indicator that maybe you're trades are a bit too risky, you'll know it's bad when you can't sleep any more
Thanks to all for thoughts and assistance. A slight modification to my situation ( I wasn’t exactly remembering which account had what). Unfortunately, I boxed myself into this situation and realistically have very few options. My broker doesn’t allow spreads in IRAs, and I can only buyback options with free cash (unsettled is ok), so I’m stuck there.
Monday sold p950s at $19-20. Tuesday close at $4-5, sell p1010s at $15 and p1040s at $28-31. Wednesday closed p1040s at $13.50 and rolled to 11/05 p1040s at $31 and p1050s at $38. Today, $30 cr net on puts. Thus, I cleared near $30/sh this week, and possibly next week as well, all on fully cash-secured puts (3%/week), no spreads required, just being ATM, high IV, and having a $100+ SP rise. Not something that I see every week, but it’s what I could do to salvage my poor CC sales.Great interview, but what he is predicting does not seem to be happening.
- I just can't decide when to step into the next BPS. Premiums are not great yet for what I consider safe (write <900, 100 spread).
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I’d recommend IBKR. Very reliable platform with a lot of trading tools and options trading for spreads etc.
Looks too close to me. I've got 1200 strike cc's for next week that feel ok, but they're also not leveraged as spreads so I can just take assignment and sell at a $1200 share price if I need to.
My employer had a similar restriction. To get the money out of the 401k into a rollover IRA, I need a rollover event, and that would come from leaving the company. I even told HR that this great company benefit was designed to get me to leave the company.
I know that you've already resolved this. My input for situations like this is to ask myself whether I'd rather be assigned at the current position or the new position. The other input is that when looking at rolls for deeper ITM situations like this, I would be looking at 2-8 week rolls in addition to the 1 week roll, with a bias towards 4 week rolls. Deeply ITM isn't going to resolve in 1 week and the longer roll will reduce the frequency of management and most likely generate enough time value to get a strike improvement.
I have the same thing with Fidelity - I don't think its specific to Fidelity. Rather I think that Fidelity is automatically putting things together that yields the lowest possible margin requirement. I expect that the arrangement actually yields less total margin than the arrangement you're thinking.
BCS has been my big source of trauma this year as well. I think that this week I've decided I'm not even going to bother with BCS. WHen we're at a relatively high share price (as we are right now) then I'll sell cc / lcc, but I won't be selling call spreads at all (while I'm busy piling up the put spreads like whoa).
First observation is that having a specific target / objective is really valuable. When your knowledge and experience builds, you'll be able to make choices between puts and calls, and even make those week to week.
Thanks to all.
Thanks to all for thoughts and assistance. A slight modification to my situation ( I wasn’t exactly remembering which account had what). Unfortunately, I boxed myself into this situation and realistically have very few options. My broker doesn’t allow spreads in IRAs, and I can only buyback options with free cash (unsettled is ok), so I’m stuck there.
My smallest account is my biggest problem: only $5k cash for rolling and -c860s @ $20k/ea & -c905s @ $16k/ea. I had rolled up and out last week (one option at a time, painful) when it was still possible, from the 800s, but got caught sleeping (literally) on Monday’s jump. Now rolling is no longer an option. I will just accept assignments and switch to selling puts.
Fortunately, my biggest account, with those pesky 10/29 -c800s & 11/05 -c800s, also has some -p1040s sold at $31 (now about $6) and some cash. I can definitely buyback the puts, release the $104k cash backing each put, and use it to buyback/roll the 800s. This has been my latest method, keeping strangle puts and calls. I’m still contemplating rolling those out, but I actually think that it’s a really bad idea. I’m convinced that the SP is now permanently above $1000 and that $1500 will occur when Berlin and Austin come online. Rolling out weekly for $1 or so, seems like a pretty dumb idea when the SP is moving at $10/wk (1%), let alone $100/day. The only way to catch up (once an option has already been steamrolled), is to trade daily price swings with perfect timing and I’m not very good at that.
Ok, apparently I made the decision. Bought back the -p1040s at $5.25 (80% profit), rolled-c800s to 11/12 -c805s for $1 cr, and then sold 11/05 -p1060s at $35. I left next week’s -c800s alone and will try to time another trade next week. The problem is that I must buyback puts to buyback the calls (which of course means that the SP direction will be against one or the other when I do the trade).
Trading puts this week has been definitely more profitable (though not as profitable as HODLING shares).
I was literally just typing this up when I saw your Message.....
Looks like we are in the same incoming class.
I think we'd be halfway down to $1000 today if it weren't for the Biden plan moving forward. If/When these two bills pass and are signed, look out....the moon is the limit.
