red_bp

I've seen this sort of thing, yes. I have kept accounts open (with only $500 in them) at a couple brokerages just to "check" options prices when this sort of thing happens. The ones I have accounts and check are TDA, OX (OptionsXpress), ETrade. If those are different, I have pulled up my old Scottrade account to verify. Often the weird one is ETrade. TDA and OX tend to be the same (and Scottrade when I double check with it). I opened the TDA account so I could get away from the Etrade account, but I'm not thinking its much different. Often I can't get filled on ETrade but no problems with OX. My experience with TDA is thin, but like ETrade I've had problems with getting complex trades filled. I've only done basic options trading with Scottrade (and that was a couple years ago) so can't comment there. One of the reasons I keep the Scottrade account is that I used to short stocks (yes, I'm one of them) and I had better liquidity with ST than ET for shorting stocks. I'm always concerned when I get the impression the brokerage is behaving like a bucket shop, yes.

Thanks so much. The highest I saw after hours pop was $34.85 or so before dropping back down to $34.20-ish.

DBH21--yes,thank you. Your data was useful (and not overwhelming, btw), and I appreciate it. It reinforced the information I'd pulled about stock movement for ORCL. In the general case, thus far, I've made more money simply from IV collapse with earnings than anything else--therefore, this trade (buying and holding the straddle through earnings) is opposite of my normal trading preferences when I think there will be large IV collapse immediately with earnings.

Hummm...I'm missing something. Didn't close it. Going with closing it tomorrow. AH move is a jump up and I was counting on that to increase straddle value tomorrow not today. It did bump up 9.8% as of right before closing ($2.35) today (that was largely the call increasing in value) but I expect higher tomorrow. I won't cry in my tea about it if it doesn't, but my look at historical stock movement (and expected movement) concurred with DBH21 look at straddles increasing +1 day after earnings announcement. Perhaps I read DBH21 incorrectly though. I do get it that the collapse in IV from earnings date to next day is very large and my straddle is then reliant upon stock movement alone (similar to purchase of far OTM call pre-earnings which is very much a gambler's move)...

Thanks, Kim. I may be confused--the earnings is today after close. I expected increase in straddle value post earnings with stock movement. And, to close trade tomorrow following earnings which are today after hour. No?

If there isn't already a topic open about a particular trade, what's the protocol/right place to share trade-made-info? For example, this forum topic http://steadyoptions.com/forum/topic/1497-september-16-20-2013-trade-candidates/ includes some good ORCL straddle info as it relates to earnings. On 9/16, I opened ORCL Oct 19 $33 straddle at $2.14 (its now showing $2.23). The trade should hopefully pop up post-earnings and, thus, I plan to sell tomorrow. So, where to share info? would I put a new topic under earnings trades? Here? in the trade-candidate thread? Not exactly an interesting trade, but it made me realize I didn't know where to share Thanks!

Thanks so much Mikael for this topic and information you are sharing. I'm new to the forum here and just really reading/watching what others are doing. I recently skimmed/read Augen's "Trading Options at Expiration" but haven't read his other books. I note from TOAE that he relies upon 2008 data. I was trading options in 2008 (new to it in 2007) and it was pretty easy to make money TOAE that year because of the high volatility in the market premiums were huge and declined like lightening in the last day (or two) before expiration. Some of the TOAE strategies that worked in that market environment wouldn't necessarily work today though.