Edwin

If it's one call, I would get out, unless you want to risk everything you paid for the call.

There is no right or wrong answer. If the deal were to fall through, then you'll lose. I guess it would depend on how many calls you bought. If it were me and I bought 10 calls, I would take profit on the majority of them, and let a few ride. That way, you lock in the majority of the profit, and let a few ride if the merger is approved, and still get some upside, and not lose all of your profits if something were go to wrong.

Thanks, do you know if you can do this in TWS Mobile as well?

Hi, how do you chart the VXV/VIX ratio in IB? Thanks

Bob, I found some groups in the past using meetup.com, there are multiple options trading groups that have been created in the past, as well there is a decent size Boston Trader's group, Quants, Stocktwits, etc. I'm not sure if you've looked on Meetup, but it looks like there are some trading groups already you could take a look at in the Atlanta area: http://www.meetup.com/Get-Your-Trade-On-The-Atlanta-Area-Traders-Meetup-Group/ http://www.meetup.com/1st-Time-Stock-and-Options-Traders/ http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Option-Investors-Club/ http://www.meetup.com/thinkorswim/

Hi, Paul, I had sent you a private message about this to you (butterflies, debit/credit spreads, tight iron condors, etc. might provide best risk vs. reward and reasonable probability of profit), and also commented on the GMCR trade on another thread about this topic. I've seen multiple times in the past few quarters where their callers, and even they themselves (Tom Sosnoff, Liz&Jenny, etc.) admit that their biggest losers are earnings plays where they sell strangles (e.g. LNKD in the previous quarter, WYNN, NFLX, AMZN, GMCR & DIS this week, etc.). They are constantly repairing earnings losers by rolling out in time. The challenge of this trading style is managing theoretical unlimited risk on some of these trades, and then having to deal with unexpected moves that are 2-3x+ standard deviations. Some alternative suggestions (outside of SO) would be to stick with ETFs to sell premium in, rather than volatile earnings results. If you want to trade stock around earnings events, you could also look at buying shares on oversold earnings results, or selling puts in something you want to own.

After trying to trade several earnings cycles of trying to sell and buy premium, and also holding shares through earnings (even with a collar hedge), I'm beginning to realize that it's a fool's game/amateur hour and it is a bad way to manage risk in a portfolio. You can't get consistent results whether or you're buying or selling premium, and the market reaction to the numbers, company's revised guidance, analyst's interpretation of the results, etc. is completely random. You could think that it is based on the market's expectations on the upcoming release. Even if someone gave you the revenue and EPS before the release, you'd still have a hard time knowing how the market will react to it.

Let us know how you do with this over a long period of time. It is a low probability game, comparable to watching unusual options activity and buying low delta premium. I guess your odds are better than the lottery or a scratch ticket, good for you on this big winner.

I would agree that TastyTrade's main premise is to trade small and often, which is basically luring people to create more transactions with TOS/TDA. I would imagine that their main revenue source is from their "partnership" with TOS, "Bob the Trader" and any money made from trading. They suggest selling straddles and strangles with IVR is high in non-correlated products and managing winners at 25% of max profit for straddles and 50% for strangles.

I think Dough is more meant for beginners and an intro to options, and providing a somewhat simpler web interface into options trading compared to TOS, and allow newbies to follow other traders on their trades for free to understand different strategies and management of positions. They also want people to watch Tastytrade, and there are some portfolio visualizations available if you have a TOS account. There's also an iPhone mobile app for Dough. I'll stop now before sounding like a I work for them...

I usually would use collar trades to hedge against long stock, typically if I am holding shares through earnings or an event. I typically do it for a credit, so I would be selling a call for more than what the put I am buying costs, so if the stock doesn't move much, the p&l would likely be flat or up a little, depending on the entry on the stock. More info: http://www.theoptionsguide.com/the-collar-strategy.aspx

Another option is if you haven't negotiated your fees with TOS yet, is to go on Dough and complete DoughJo, and then contact Tastytrade. They will give you a number to TOS help desk and they will give you a better rate (1.5 per contract) without a ticket charge.

Commissions add up a lot over time, especially with this type of trading style. I would advise you to look at your commissions statement each month or end of year and see how much you could save if you moved over. It will make a big difference in your P&L (after fees). TWS mobile and webtrader are not hard to use. I keep a small amount in TOS for charting purposes.

VIX weekly options starting Oct 8th: http://www.optionmonster.com/drj_blog/article.php?page=drj_blog%2Fvix_weeklies_coming_oct_8th_on_sonar_report_today_105996.html&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+optionmonsterDRJsBlog+%28optionMONSTER%3A+DRJ%27s+Blog%29

Let us know the results and outcome.

Here's the revised P/L: Long 7 3-week Call 252.50 spread @ $1.30 Long 7 3-week Put 212.50 spread @ $1.05 Long 1 July 31 Call vertical spread – long Call 260, short Call 290 @ $2.92 Long 1 July 31 Put vertical spread – long Put 205, short Put 175 @ $3.23

I've scheduled another meetup for August 22nd at the Chelmsford Pubilc Library for 10am-1230pm. I was able to get a conference room with a projector. You can contact me if you're interested in joining us.

Would IV for Sept go up and the prices for Sept go up if Sept 16th earnings is confirmed, or do you think that's already priced into the Sep options that it's going to be on Sept 16th? I don't see a big difference in Sept (21.67%) options pricing compared to Oct. (21.08%) in TOS.

I got out of the put spread today at 1.89, which I had sold at 2.07. It looks like the calendar did a better, but I'm happy with some profit on it.

VVIX is the vol of vol. It doesn't look like it trades or has options.

What I mean is that there is uncertainty leading up to the FOMC announcement and right after the announcement the VIX and IV collapses in SPY and TLT. Take a look at the VIX chart on each day of the FOMC announcement, the VIX pops leading up to the meeting announcement. http://mam.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=466474&cust=mam&year=2015&lid=0&prev=/byweek.asp#top http://mam.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=455475&cust=mam

Yowster, so if you were to put a trade on today, you would look at something like the Long Aug1 17 put and sell the Jul4 16 put? There is no downside risk. Do you close it for a loss if you get a huge pop in the VIX and VXX, or just let it ride until your short leg expires knowing that VXX will eventually come back down due to contango drag in the VIX term structure?

I believe that VXX is American style stock settlement, not cash settled. http://sixfigureinvesting.com/tag/vxx-options/

Yowster, what do you use as your entry point for your diagonal in VXX? Are you basing entry on VIX? What ever happened to the VXX broken wing fly that the forum was looking at before?

UVXY (Ultra VIX short term Futures) has gone from a high of 281.4 on 10/16 to a low of 26.28 yesterday.