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There are many tools that have upcoming earnings. I used to use optionslam, now I'm using VolatilityHQ because I have a subscription anyway. The stocks are mostly the candidates we used in the past, so performance page is a good start. SO Strategies and Allocation provides general guidance about the strategies we use. And yes, using the return matrix to optimize the best entry and exit dates. And yes, if RV for straddles is okay, strangles should be fine too. DD have no RV, we just use ONE to see if the chart looks attractive.

Hi. I'm a new member. I'm very interested in learning how to execute the SteadyOption process on my own. To this end, do you provide a daily/weekly/monthly trading checklist or process that we can leverage to guide us on our journey? This is an abbreviated example of what I'm looking for: Daily: Check and adjust/exit positions - Tool: Broker platfom Enter new trades when entry target price is met - Tool: Broker platform Update Trade Journal - Tool: Excel, ONE, etc. Weekly: Assess Market, Volatility - Tool?, Expected output? Determine strategy mix- Tool? This step helps us detemine how many of each type of strategy we should trade (both earnings and non-earnings) based on what we learn from the market assessment. Identify candidates - Tool: Optionslam (?), other tools? Determine RV so that we can determiine entry price for candidate - Tool: VolatilityHQ/Chartaffair/others? Weekly Retrospective- what went well, where are opportunities for improvement Monthly: Assess Market, Volatility - Tool?, Output? Monthly Retrospective - what went well, where are opportunities for improvement I've been studying the forums but I haven't found anything like this yet; however, there is so much great information there I may have missed it. Thank you!

Is it please possible to post the 100 stocks with high IV's mentioned here, so it helps in understanding and application of principles. I do not have premium access to seeking alpha , appreciate the help ------------------------------------------------ , Which stocks should be used? I tend to trade stocks with post-earnings moves of at least 5-7% in the last four earnings cycles; the larger the move the better. When to buy? IV starts to rise as early as three weeks before earnings for some stocks and just a few days before earnings for others. Buy too early and negative theta will kill the trade. Buy too late and you might miss the big portion of the IV increase. I found that 5-7 days usually works the best. Which strikes to buy? If you go far OTM (Out of The Money), you get big gains if the stock moves before earnings. But if the stock doesn’t move, closer to the money strikes might be a better choice. Since I don’t know in advance if the stock will move, I found deltas in the 20-30 range to be a good compromise. The selection of the stocks is very important to the success of the strategy. The following simple steps will help with the selection: Go to here. Filter stocks with movement greater than 5% in the last 3 earnings. For each stock in the list, check if the options are liquid enough. Using those simple steps, I compiled a list of almost 100 stocks which fit the criteria. Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Netflix (NFLX), F5 Networks (FFIV), Priceline (PCLN), Amazon (AMZN), First Solar (FSLR), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), Akamai Technologies (AKAM), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Saleforce (CRM), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), Baidu (BIDU) are among the best candidates for this strategy. Those stocks usually experience the largest pre-earnings IV spikes.

@KogeletFor straddle RV, its the price of the ATM straddle divided by the stock price (its also called the implied move when you are really close to earnings day). RV is a great technical measurement for our trades because it encompasses both IV increases and theta decline. When looking at pre-earnings straddles, all RV charts will decrease on average (there will be days when it goes up, but in general the average line always goes down). Its the downward slope that is important - things with a steeper slopes have little RV increases heading into earnings to offset the theta decay, and things with flatter slopes have IV increase that counteract a lot of the theta decay. For our hedged straddle trades, we like to see the short strangle credits offset the typical RV decay - that way if we don't have gamma gains on stock price movement, we usually see the short strangle credits cover the straddle decline (or many times the short strangle credits exceed the long straddle decline)

As a non-directional trader, I'm trying not to be dependent on the market direction. My goal is to make money in any market. To achieve that goal, I need to constantly balance my portfolio in terms of direction and volatility. The first goal is being as delta neutral as possible. That means starting most trades with balanced deltas. What does it mean? If the stock is trading at $50, and I buy a 50 straddle, I'm delta neutral. If I buy a 55 straddle, I'm delta negative. The puts which are ITM have higher delta than the calls which are OTM. So if the stock goes down, the delta of the puts starts increasing faster than delta of the calls decreasing, overall delta becomes even more negative and the trade makes money. However, if the stock goes up, the trade becomes more delta neutral, the puts are losing more than the calls are gaining, and the trade is likely to lose money. What happens if I started delta neutral (with 50 straddle in our example) and the stock went up to 55? It depends if the trade became profitable by that time. If the answer is positive, we can close the 50 straddle and roll to 55 straddle. But what if the profit is still insufficient? In this case, we can let the trade run hoping for the stock continue rising, but we also risk a reversal. One way to hedge yourself, at least partially, is opening the next trade slightly delta negative. This will balance the total delta exposure of the portfolio. For example, after opening the RUT Iron Condor with RUT at 785, the trade became delta negative after the recent run to 825. So I might choose opening my next trades with slightly positive delta to balance my total delta. To be truly non-directional, it is not enough to balance the deltas. We also need to balance our theta and vega exposure. That means that we will have to have a mixture of theta positive trades, like Iron Condors and calendars, and theta negative plays, like our earnings plays. To balance the vega, we need a mixture of vega positive and vega negative plays. ICs are vega negative - they benefit from decrease in IV. The aim is to open an IC on a down day when IV spikes. Calendars tend to be vega positive as well. The reason is that longer dated options are supposed to benefit more from IV increase than shorter dated options. Our earnings plays are vega positive. They will be the most profitable when IV jumps. SO having a mix of strategies will help us to be ready to all scenarios in terms of overall market volatility. This post has been promoted to an article