Humble

RV has nothing to do with allocation. You can do single, double or 10 strikes - we aim to enter at optimal RV for each spread.

You have to remember that trades in the fund are executed in a different matter since it is an institutional account. In addition, fund has more positions and smaller allocation per trade (usually 3-5%), and also spreads the bets between different strikes and/or expirations. We still don't recommend more than 100k for retail accounts.

Webinar describes some the features of the product. If you are considering to sign up, it could be relevant.

Hello all,Please find the recording of the webinar we gave with Steady Options, below.Watch: A Discussion of the Most Successful Option Strategies over the Last 5-YearsTap for: Discounted Trade Machine Membership

Hello all,Please find the recording of the webinar we gave with Steady Options, below.Watch: A Discussion of the Most Successful Option Strategies over the Last 5-YearsTap for: Discounted Trade Machine Membership

The estimation was based on P/L chart. We don't need to do those calculations manually, any decent software has those P/L charts.

We sent 2 emails to members. One on Jan.10 and another one on Jan.16.

Sorry, I thought you referring to article on our blog https://steadyoptions.com/articles/the-incredible-option-trade-in-vxx-r289/ Could you please point me to the SA article you referring to?

Why you post here and not on the article?

No, you roll one side only. For example: if you have 100 straddle and the stock moves to 102, you sell 100 call and buy 102 call, so now you have 100/102 strangle. Since you sell more expensive call and buy a cheaper call, you get a credit. It basically like selling 100/102 call credit spread.

Take a look: Straddle, Strangle Or Reverse Iron Condor (RIC)? I highly recommend to spend some time browsing our Education Center, it has a lot of useful articles, sorted by category.

I don't know them personally, so cannot comment on this. My comments were strictly regarding their track record (or lack of it) and UOA. As a general comment, the fact that someone was market maker or floor trader doesn't necessarily make him a good options trader. Those are completely different skills.

Well, they founded OptionMonster few years ago. Charged around $500/month. After it failed miserably, they are now running investitute, charging $395/month. Like OptionMonster, they don't publish track record, which is a big red flag to me. Of course they are using the fact that they are TV celebrities to charge those ridiculous prices. Their "specialty" is UOA (Unusual Option Activity). Read my opinion about UOA here. There is zero evidence that it can work consistently. You can spot 10 cases of UOA, and if one of them turns to be profitable, you can bring it after the fact as proof that it works, without mentioning the remaining 9 cases. Very convenient.

But this is exactly what we did! Call or put calendar should not make a difference. Take a look:

Yes.

Just a technical tip: all trades and trade discussion topics are tagged with the relevant symbol. If you click on the tag, you will see all topics tagged with the same symbol.

Welcome to SO!

Thank for sharing. For 1 contract, you would pay around 1.40-1.50 round trip with IB, so this is not too different. But the $10 cap is definitely a game changer. Hopefully other brokers will follow. P.S. To say "Compare that rate to any other firm on the planet" is not entirely accurate. Tradier has $40/month deal and RobinHodd has free trading - just 2 example. But Tom Sosnoff wouldn't be Tom Sosnoff without one of those remarks.

Happy New year to all members! Thank you so much for being part of our community and making it what it is!

We will move if it becomes too specific. For our official portfolio, we are just using the right mix of long and short vega strategies. If you have for example 60-70% exposure (the rest in cash), having 25-30% in straddles should provide a good balance. Also remember that pre-earnings calendars will benefit from sharp IV increase, so they will be more resilient to big moves. One idea could be VIX backspread (something like buy 2 25 calls sell 1 20 call). It should benefit from sharp IV increase at very low cost (sometimes for a credit actually).

Just to mention that those are official trades only - we also have dozens on Unofficial trades in the Unofficial Trade Ideas, and we also launched a new PureVolatility Trades portfolio.

@Yowster Thank you for the excellent analysis as usual. And big thank you to our great community that continues to feed us with great trading ideas. Straddles definitely took a central stage this year, thanks to hedged straddle idea from @Yowster. Not only it improved the average return per trade, but did it with less risk and allowed us to take much more of those trades. Trading VIX spike was ugly in 2017 (we are not alone, see How To Lose $197 Million Trading VIX article), but it also provided us a nice hedge. Big thank you for other mentors for their great ideas @SBatch and others, and of course our partners from Lorintine @cwelshand @Jessefor their great contribution. We had an amazing year, and I'm looking forward to have a great 2018! Happy New year everyone!

Correct.

The portfolio value is always based on percentage P/L, not dollar P/L. The reason is simple: dollar P/L is based on invested capital which is not exactly $1,000. We cannot buy partial contracts, so we always buy "The number of contracts is per 10k portfolio and represents the closest number of contracts for 10% allocation." as mentioned in trade alerts. Sometimes we buy slightly more contracts than 1k, sometimes slightly less. On bigger accounts, it will be match more closely. For example, to fit 2.20 in 100k portfolio you would buy 45 contract, or 9900 debit, so dollar P/L will be pretty close to percentage P/L. I hope it is clear now.

The total credit was 2.59 per spread (1.05+1.54). 2.59/2.20=17.7% or $177 increase.