As mentioned in the post below, there are several different ways to scale up the size of your trades: widening the spreads of your iron condor wings, increasing the number of contracts used, and well as "going naked" via short strangle.
There are also other instruments that can offer you scale for trading the S&P in lieu of SPY -- SPX options and /ES (E-Mini S&P futures or futures options). Basically, 1 SPX = 10 SPY, and 1 /ES futures contract = 5 SPY. Each of these products offers various advantages and disadvantages over one another, including fees/commissions incurred, liquidity, and issues associated with ex-dividends. For purposes of this post, however, I'm only going to be talking about using SPX over SPY as way to scale up the size of your trades instead of either (1) going completely "naked" (which may not be desirable or permissible for some, depending on risk tolerance and the nature of the account involved) or (2) simply increasing the number of SPY contracts utilized, which will naturally increases the fees/commissions paid for those setups with brokers that charge fee that is a multiple of the contracts traded in addition to a commission for the trade.
Here's an example:
SPX 1700/1705/1980/1985 iron condor
POP%: 57%
Max Profit: $180/contract
Buying Power Effect: ~$320
As with the SPY iron condors, you can also scale SPX up in terms of buying power effect by widening the wings. The advantage here is that instead of paying fees/commissions for the equivalent number of SPY contracts (10), I'm only paying fees/commissions associated with a single contract of SPX ... .
There are also other instruments that can offer you scale for trading the S&P in lieu of SPY -- SPX options and /ES (E-Mini S&P futures or futures options). Basically, 1 SPX = 10 SPY, and 1 /ES futures contract = 5 SPY. Each of these products offers various advantages and disadvantages over one another, including fees/commissions incurred, liquidity, and issues associated with ex-dividends. For purposes of this post, however, I'm only going to be talking about using SPX over SPY as way to scale up the size of your trades instead of either (1) going completely "naked" (which may not be desirable or permissible for some, depending on risk tolerance and the nature of the account involved) or (2) simply increasing the number of SPY contracts utilized, which will naturally increases the fees/commissions paid for those setups with brokers that charge fee that is a multiple of the contracts traded in addition to a commission for the trade.
Here's an example:
SPX 1700/1705/1980/1985 iron condor
POP%: 57%
Max Profit: $180/contract
Buying Power Effect: ~$320
As with the SPY iron condors, you can also scale SPX up in terms of buying power effect by widening the wings. The advantage here is that instead of paying fees/commissions for the equivalent number of SPY contracts (10), I'm only paying fees/commissions associated with a single contract of SPX ... .
Comment:
I tried getting something like this setup filled today. Due to the spreads, you may have to do some "price discovery" in an attempt to get a fill a few pennies above the mid price and see if it fills; it it doesn't, lower your fill price a little bit lower, but still above the mid and see if that fills, etc. The other option is to leg into the put side and, after that fills, leg into the call side (or vice versa).
