deftone

I wish there was an inverse Cramer ETF as I find the opposite of what he says is true more often. Guess we should buy Calls now. But, I think Greece will drag the S&P 500 down or flat a few more days more until the agreement is fleshed out.

hi look at this article. it says volatility spikes after OPEC meetings. we have an OPEC meeting tomorrow. http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/3235276-friday-is-judgment-day-in-crude-oils-financial-cold-war anyone planning a trade around this? we should see some interesting, nearly guaranteed movement. what Oil company could be Straddled, or is it too late ? I would backtest, but I'm too new at this....

yeah, ONE is a bit expensive for myself as I may not use all the features.

does ONE have mobile apps? I don't see it on their website. also, does anyone see a market for a more simplistic piece of software, that costs much less? I think many people want a better way to calculate than Excel or paying $100 a month. a way to track the portfolio with a bit of backtesting for prediction on future trades, with a simplistic scanner.

I thought you might find this interesting. TastyTrade previously did not like Calendars and swayed viewers against it, as seen in their older videos. At the beginning he states how very much against it he is (you can skip the rest past the first minute): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywu1AueH2b8 In this video he spends the whole video attacking Calendars in general: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgSbfGXdDx4 But, their newer video is showing they are surprised how Calendars work as of Feb 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWR0pWmhlYo In this last video they claim Calendars 1 Strike OTM had a crazy high success rate of 68.97%. Whereas before they say they studied and said it was never worth it. Do you have any thoughts on this, especially the last video, where he shows the backtesting stats making Calendars look amazing, but only for 1 Strike OTM, at minute 2: https://youtu.be/NWR0pWmhlYo?t=2m19s Given their service is about Options, I'm surprised that they are surprised and previously hated Calendars, and I'm surprised by the results myself.

Another thread mentioned that Interactive Brokers newest build now better displays pricing, is that correct? And then you'd only use ONE for backtesting at that point. However, I downloaded what I believe is the latest IB software and its still a disaster for readily displaying where I am in profit & loss.

Love this of trade. Maybe we should discuss what stocks will be target slow droppers and have a running list? I know some that drop slowly, but move up and down in a narrow channel ( Twitter, Yelp ). But, they may spike any day. Bestbuy is also kind of lame that way. But at least they move slowly for now. Oil drilling company stocks drop slowly each time oil dips below $60. But, maybe these are all too risky.

You see that today? From $620 to $630 down to $615 all intra day.

This is wise. I was trying to find other ways to play directionally, but I think you guys have it all worked out that non-directional is superior. You are right to short some options because you can't go 100% Long, you can lose your account with Netflix in Long Options outside of earnings

Here's a great example of its craziness and how its so risky. Buying a $1375 620/615 strangle on Monday, will net you a tiny loss today despite me trying to sell it at both the upper and lower underlying spectrums its been since then. Its as if the Implied Volatility is either too high and so any movement has no effect on it, or it simply ignores IV for pricing if its less than a $20 move. The problem with that, is its only moving about $6 a day with wild swings. If you buy stock for months, sure you might get rich and that's the only play here, but at the risk of losing your account. We've seen Netflix drop 50% before easily. You can make some cash on the calls. i.e : 620 call : $725 Monday is $1075 today. But, if you call it the wrong way, for example : 615 put : $650 Monday. is $272 today. Catastrophic loss with only a 1% movement of the stock up and down. Very little movement (less than 1%) and huge Options price swings. With poor non-directional payout.

Although its bullish I'm very afraid to trade it directionally. I have a hard time understanding the current trend or expected evaluation that Netflix is worth $1000 per stock. I guess I should learn how to backtest properly and see how applying Straddles and Strangles to Netflix work out. Trying to get a guess on whether applying a Straddle before a split would be worth it. I can see a split also cause a price drop if we have a hit to the market around the same time (S&P500 at its greatest height).

This tool looks interesting, though not sure how accurate, its free and I can see when current or a future volatility is out of the normal quickly: http://www.ivolatility.com/custom/pbc/ they have a bunch of other stuff too: http://www.ivolatility.com/ The CBOE also has a few tools from ivolatility: http://www.cboe.com/tradtool/ivolmain.aspx

Are we considering to take advantage of the Netflix stock split? They are assuming that by splitting it up, they will increase the overall value due to retail investors and others who can only afford low stock value. i.e it could go from $600 to $50 overnight and split up. Look at its growth (from an article). The growth is insane in the last month. Its speculative, but there's tons of money to be made here, even non-directional such as a Straddle?

LOL! Yeah, I bet this year she makes big cash. And will lose it (all?) come October or whenever rates go up from the Feds.

Looking at the S&P500 this year, what would've you done? Its stayed within a range of 2050-2100 at nearly all times. This is really bad for the parts of our portfolios that are indexed, passive or market invested for a long term directional profit (i.e retirement) What would've been the most profitable play if you could go back in a time machine, on the S&P500? Tons of Iron Condors ?

that's awesome. goes to show the people complaining about fills are just complainers.

Are you using the new Options lab screen? Its really interesting. https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/software/tws/usersguidebook/mosaic/option_strategy_lab.htm