One thing I'm certain about, and that's that I don't want to buy SNAP stock here with its having whipsawed between 29+ and 19 in the short time since its IPO. But I might want to acquire it later once it settles down -- as with all things, preferably at a lower price than 22.74. A Poor Man's Covered Call gives me the flexibility to play SNAP, give me the...
Trade Setup: - 1 XLK May 19 45/53/53/57 Synthetic Straddle @ 1.97. DTE: 57 Max Win: $197 Max Loss: $603 (theoretically), but will manage at 2x credit, so ~$200. Breakevens: $51.03 & $54.97 Trade Management: 25% profit; WIll risk full loser to upside and only 2x credit received to downside. I often will take off one of the sides when it becomes...
... for a 1.40 credit. (Earnings; Volatility Contraction Play). Metrics: Probability of Profit: 60% Max Profit: $140/contract Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: $360/contract Break Evens: 181.10/203.90 Notes: Will look to manage at 50% of max.
Ugh. Doing my weekly market review/screening and there is literally nothing high IVR/high IV to play ... . Nada ... . Zilch ... . One option is to sell puts in one of these "just high IV" underlyings: VRX: April 21st 11 goes for .56 AKS: April 21st 7 goes for .31 AMD: April 21st 13 goes for .66 WLL: April 21st 8 goes for .28 CLF April 21st 8 goes for .34 X:...
Broke out of uptrend with high volume. CFTC showed specs were long, so there is plenty of room to the downside. Spreads have been weak and option volatility was low before breakout. As it broke to the downside, longs scrambled to protect with an downside puts and panic left option vol to increase by over 6 points. On the downside, i am looking into the...
This is a continuation of a trade that started as an earnings play iron fly (see post below). There are a couple of reasons I went this particular way, as opposed to attempting to continue to work the setup "as is." First, the March 17th 40 short call was deep in the money. Even assuming I could roll to improve that strike a bit, it would still be deep in the...
... for a 4.35 ($435)/contract credit. I put this on earlier in the week, but neglected to post it here ... . (High implied volatility rank; high implied volatility; it's in the 95th percentile of where implied volatility has been in the past six months; its background implied volatility is at 47%). Metrics (Currently): Max Profit: $418/contract Max...
BBY announces earnings tomorrow before market open, so look to put on something today before market close to take advantage of the ensuing volatility contraction. Implied volatility rank is currently at 92 over the preceding six months, with implied volatility just shy of the 50% mark. I compared and contrasted going with my standard 20-delta iron condor, as...
High implied volatility rank, high implied volatility, earnings/volatility contraction play ... . Metrics: Max Profit: $203/contract Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: $197/contract Break Evens: 22.97/27.03 Delta: -6.38 Theta: 2.03 Notes: I'll shoot to take this off at 25% max profit ... .
If you're going to play anything next week premium selling wise, it's going to be in earnings, because that's all that's really out there volatility-wise. The VIX remains persistently low here, and running a screen for exchange-traded funds with >70% implied volatility rank, and >35% implied volatility yields absolutely nothing. Here's what showed up on my radar...
Here, I'm looking to add some long delta to my portfolio, although it's also good as a stand alone trade in this low volatility environment. The short-dated put is being sold at the ~20 delta strike, the long-dated one at the ~15, so I'm picking up about 5.00 positive delta/contract from this setup. Unfortunately, with diagonals, we're not able to precisely...
... for a 1.57/contract credit. (Earnings; High IVR/High IV). I fiddled with various setups long enough ... . Here, I'm going out farther in time than I usually like to go with an earnings play in order to give myself time to be right. Will look to manage to 50% max profit. Metrics: Probability of Profit: 63% Max Profit: $157/contract Max Loss:...
ATVI announces earnings tomorrow after market close, so look to put on a play in the waning hours of the NY sesh ... . Its implied volatility rank is >70%, and its background volatility is on the cusp of 50% ... . Metrics: Probability of Profit: 50%* Max Profit: $231/contract Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: $219/contract Theta: 11.33/contract Delta:...
Looking for petro to zombie about in here in the short term ... . Implied volatility rank isn't as high as I'd like it, but background vol is one of the higher ones out there for exchange traded funds. Metrics: Max Profit: $242/contract Max Loss: $158/contract Break Evens: 37.58/42.42 Notes: Will look to manage at north of 25% max profit.
Bad advice in part; good advice in part; hiding the ball in part. finance.yahoo.com The good part: cover your stock/equity positions with short calls. This will smooth out your P&L somewhat and protect you -- albeit not completely -- from down side risk while reducing cost basis in your shares. Unfortunately, they don't want to "share their secrets" right up...
X announces earnings tomorrow (Tuesday) after market close, and with its implied volatility rank and implied volatility metrics, it's ripe for a volatility contraction play. Here are two possible setups, which naturally might need to be tweaked this way or that depending on price movement intraday tomorrow. Feb 17th 29/38 Short Strangle Metrics Probability...
Truth be told, I'm not a "debit spread" guy, namely because I look at them as "one and dones" -- they either work or they don't; rolling these out for duration generally costs more money, and I don't like paying to roll, so I look at them as "one shots." Here, I looked for a risk one to make one metric for the setup ... . Metrics: Max Profit: $105/contract Max...
There isn't much non-earnings stuff out there that has both high implied volatility rank and high implied volatility. This is one of them. Here I'm going with an extremely narrow iron condor, such that it's almost an iron fly ... . Metrics: Max Profit: $338/contract Max Loss/Buying Power Effect: $462/contract Break Evens: 32.62/40.38 Notes: I'm going to treat...