Edwin

You can also trade SVXY, which has options available to trade with it.

Hi, I'm organizing a meetup on Saturday morning. Details are in this link: http://www.meetup.com/BostonTraders/events/224036679/?a=ra1_te

Hi, is anyone on here in the Boston or Massachusetts area that wants to network and share trading strategies? Please let me know. Thanks Edwin

You don't want to use VXX or UVXY, they have significant contango drag with the VIX futures, unless the you think the VIX term structure will go from contango towards backwardation in a short time period. It basically means that when the front month VIX futures are less than the 2nd month VIX futures, they are in a contango state, and VXX and UVXY is constantly selling front month VIX futures to buy next month VIX futures (which is going to be more expensive) on a daily basis. So when VIX futures are in contango, VXX and UVXY will constantly go down. That's why it has to periodically reverse split, because they constantly go towards 0, unless there is backwardation in the VIX futures term structure, where VXX and UVXY will pop and go up 10-30% in a short time period. There's more info about this on the following sites: http://vixcontango.com/Site/Introduction#InsideVolatilityETFs http://sixfigureinvesting.com/2013/04/how-does-vxx-work/ http://seekingalpha.com/article/3012686-how-does-uvxy-work http://seekingalpha.com/article/3327635-caution-needed-in-the-current-volatility-market http://vixcentral.com/ The risk reward on the 16/13 August put spread is a max profit of 210, and max loss of 90 per spread. The breakeven is VIX at 13.90 at August expiration. I'm expecting that VIX won't stay at 12 between now and then, just based on the fact that there's a fed meeting at the end of the month, non-farm jobs report the first week of August, there's additional economic data coming out, a ton of earnings reports, etc. I'd still make something off the spread if there's just a small temporary pop in the VIX. In addition to that SPY & SPX IV Rank is at 0%, and VRatio (VXV/VIX) is above 1.2. That doesn't mean that it's definitely going to be a winning trade, but I like the odds that VIX won't stay at 12 and under for the next month.

Thanks

I talked to IB again, and they said that only non-margin accounts are available for Australia.

Will, thanks for sharing. I asked IB, and they said that I couldn't keep my margin account if I were to move to Australia. They said they have nothing available for Australian citizens in terms of trading on margin. I guess I'll ask again.

Thanks for posting this info. I know this is off-topic from the VIX trade, but does anyone have a good chart of US inflation that is up to date? Surprisingly I can't easily find one on Twitter or searching on Google. According to this site, we're at 0% inflation. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/ I hear Yellen keep saying the Fed's target inflation is 2% before raising rates. If we're not close to 2%, why do I keep hearing people on CNBC keep commenting that they are raising rates in Sept and Dec? Because of the yield curve, and the fed funds rate is implying such?

I believe if I keep my US citizenship, I would still be paying taxes here. If we were to move, I'd likely get rid of my US citizenship and get an Australian citizenship, so I was hoping to find an Aussie broker that allows US equities and options trading.

Isn't short the 11.5 and long the 10.5 a 1 debit spread, not a credit spread? I am short the 16/13 put spread for a 2.07 credit. There is an FOMC meeting at the end of the month, a ton of earnings, economic data, and a jobs report the first week of August. I can't imagine all of those factors will keep the VIX this low with some uncertainty in upcoming events.

Thanks, I didn't realize such a service exists.

Yowster, Do you trade off your smartphone at all using Mobile TWS? Thanks Edwin

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure if they will hunt me down if they find out I would be physically moving and changing my mailing address.

Hi, I'm possibly moving to Australia from the US, and IB told me that I wouldn't be able to keep my margin account if I were an Australian resident. Does anyone know if Aussies are able to trade US equities and Options and know of which brokers in Australia allow this? Thanks ahead of time.

There looks to be more liquidity in the monthlies than in the weeklies, would you consider doing Aug/Sept or Aug/Oct spreads with fewer number of contracts? Sorry for the double post, I read through the FAQ/Useful Links, and am asking the same question about strategy of trading the weeklies vs. liquidity being better for the monthlies vs. the weeklies. https://steadyoptions.com/forum/topic/1790-trading-pre-earnings-calendars/page-2

Funny thing is that someone bought 3,000 Sept 665 NFLX straddles (for 95.55) today at 12:04pm, which is over $28M in premium, and 3,500 Sept 435 AMZN straddles (for 49.27) at 12:10pm, which is over $17M in premium.

Sosnoff is laughing that Goldman is recommending to clients to buy and hold NFLX and AMZN straddles through earnings. He's going to have his research team go back and check performance on those. It'll be interesting if they actually present the results. I suspect that they would present it as though these two underlyings are anomalies. It looks like through the backtesting charts does show gains holding through earnings.

Tastytrade and our SPY/TLT trade related, Tastytrade did a study on selling SPY and TLT strangles the day before the FOMC announcement. Slides: Start at slide 7: https://s3.amazonaws.com/tastytradepublicmedia/show/117/episode/19929/slide_decks/en/ReadyToStart061715Bullish_in_WMT_NTWK.pdf?1434573777 It starts at 13:30 of the I'm Ready to Start segment today: https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/i-m-ready-to-start?locale=en-US#

Kim, thanks for setting this up. I just watched this youtube demo from last year, are there some new features in the product?

The Liz & JNY show discussed calendar trades going into earnings for NFLX and IBM today on TastyTrade under Options FAQ segmen (6/5) https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/options-faq?locale=en-US

I would take it with a grain of salt. The video on Feb '14 is only backtesting IWM and EWW, the first video is on SPY, and the second video is on AAPL. They are advocates of selling premium with IVR is high and selling premium through earnings. They have done studies that contradict the strategies that are on this forum, such as buying straddles and calendars going into earnings, and they do back tests that blindly ignore backtesting that is done here. They conveniently pick data that supports the strategies that they advocate. They are good for investing/trading general awareness, beginner education, and dough is a good and easy interface for beginners to learn trading options. Here's more TastyTrade videos on Calendars: SPY & XLP (5/19/2015) https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/market-measures/episodes/whats-not-hot-trading-calendars-05-19-2015?locale=en-US 8/15/2013: Using Calendar Spreads in Your Options Strategy (SPY) 4/27/2015: Calendar Spreads Best Practices: https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/best-practices/episodes/calendar-spreads-04-27-2015?locale=en-US

5/6 After close earnings has been confirmed.

Here's the Tesla news: Tesla Motors to Unveil Home and Utility Batteries April 30 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/tesla-motors-to-unveil-home-and-utility-batteries-april-30 $TSLA is trading +2 in the pre-market up to just under 213.

I was filled at 2.39. Mid in TOS was showing 2.65 at the time.

Thanks for posting this, I got 1205 puts at 2.39.