jfouche

A lot of eyes on this one ... and a lot of public $ is piling into the near term calls at 500 and higher. I agree a diagonal long position that lets you write those pipe-dream calls to the public is probably the best way to go. Vol is down for you today, too. From a contrarian perspective, I will say I have seen a lot of unsophisticated coworkers signing up with brokers and asking me about AAPL calls...

Nice job. I still think there exists a nightmare scenario for this spread. For example: if front month future at 9.5 [around the all-time spot VIX low], 2-month future stays at maybe 12.5, and VVIX is low enough, then you may have the short put at $7-7.5 and the long put potentially just $4 or $4.50. Maybe an even higher contango is possible if some political events lined up correctly [like a major fiscal event known to happen in May]. Still, the risk/reward definitely is pretty good.

What major brokers other than IB will require a small amount of margin for these? Realistically, if we grind lower in the front month's VIX it does appear we could lose more than IB's margin for the trade. I would definitely not pile up a large # of contracts just because IB permits it -- especially since they are known for rapidly closing out positions when margin is low.

Once you have the symbol, TOS will take any mathematical combination of symbols, though it gets messy. So for example, without testing, weekly straddle on AAPL ATM should chart as: .AAPL130222C460 + .AAPL130222P460