Humble

Think of it this way: theta tells you how much your trade gains or loses every day (all other factors equal). If it is say $10, it is important to see if the $10 applies to $100 trade (in which case you lose/gain 10% per day) or $1000 trades (in which case it is only 1%). But if your delta $5, then percentage doesn't really tell you much. Same for gamma and vega.

You are reading it correctly for the greeks. Percentage is meaningful only for theta not other greeks. 2.5% is total theta divided by the stock price, as in the first example. Our Education Center has section dedicated to the Greeks, with some videos. I recommend reading the articles, and you could also ask question in the comments section of the relevant article.

That developer was me.. lol.. For some reason your profile had wrong theme, I just switched you to the correct theme.

@equuscan you please check now?

I don't know why you see what you see. Can you please check if you see those extra spaces here? What other members see?

We actually do it with our straddles - When We Roll Straddles

@Amosthanks for posting. We do trade options on futures (VIX), and can definitely try something new if proved a good strategy. I cannot backtest it on CL since ONE software doesn't have options on futures. Here is one potential issue I see: since this event happens each Wednesday, it is a well known public event and I would guess that options would price it, in the same way as they price earnings. So holding straddle through the event is like holding it through earnings. But we can also try RIC which we do for earnings. I will also check USO which tends to track oil pretty well.

Congrats! But don't forget that this was as good as it gets. Take a look for example at 170 calendar which is 10 points from the stock - it is trading at 0.20. This is what your ATM calendar would be worth if IBM moved 10 points. 10 points is ~6%, not uncommon for IBM. So you are right, those are good for occasional speculation with small allocation.

NFLX is too unpredictable and has history of big moves. I would not sell premium for stocks like NFLX.

As I mentioned, the P/L chart doesn't account for IV collapse of options, only theta, this is why the P/L range is wider.

Understanding options software is part of the learning curve, but it's well worth the time in the long term. You might also consider the ONE software, our members also have discounted prices - P.S. Kim is good enough, I'm a simple guy..

@AmosYou are absolutely right, it should be -23 not -14. Good catch. So the $206 (expected gain) was even closer to the actual result of $205. We don't really need any cheat sheets since the software already provides all the data.

I would not trust the p/l chart too much as it does not account for IV changes after earnings. Don't forget that Aug IV will decrease as well.

Thanks for sharing. We are always looking for new information here, and encourage members to post and share. Most members here are using IB, for best combination of commissions, execution and platform. But .35/contract does sound attractive and might be worth checking.

IBM is not the best candidate because the implied move is only 5%+, and there is not too much margin of error. I just checked last cycle performance of one week calendar. You could buy it for 0.30, and next day it was worth less than 0.05. That't 85% loss. And even ATM calendar was worth around 0.60. Which is 100% gain - but probability to realize that gain was very low.

Thanks for sharing Tom. Got the following response from Dan: "In Dec of 2012 SOM changed our program from lifetime access to year-to-year. Our users simply have to pay $300 per year to maintain full member access. When we rolled out this new policy we did not strictly enforce it to all members. Because Mr. Klaiman was on the cusp of the change we grandfathered him in without having to pay those additional fees. We could have forced all members to pay, but we did not feel that was the right way to conduct business. Mr. Klaiman has not had to pay this annual administrative fee for the last 4 years, that an additional $1200 of savings that we have passed on to him beyond his original savings." This is definitely not accurate, since the fee was introduced in 2014 and not 2012, and it was not legal to implement it to existing members, only new ones. They also have a new clause in their agreement: "Sheridan reserves the right to terminate site and materials access to anyone whom it deems to be a competitor in options education." This clause was not in the agreement that I signed, but they use it now to ban everyone whom they consider competitors. It must be frustrating for Dan to see his community going down the hill, but I guess he has only himself to blame.

optionslam.com has all the info that allows you to find stocks that move less than IM on average. We also have a member who wrote a program and is posting charts every week showing history of moves in the last 4 cycles.

Thanks for sharing. I think looking at high IV alone is a bit simplistic. You need to find stocks that have consistent history of moving less than the implied move. Those will be good candidates for a calendar. In fact, we already started looking at this strategy, as possible complimentary for SO model portfolio, with half allocation. it is possible to find ~0.20 candidates for ~$50 stocks, but I doubt you will be able to find any for $200-300 stocks. If you can, lets us know.

Thanks for sharing David, Could you give an example of a high priced stock where you can get a calendar for 0.20? Also, don't forget that while the maximum loss is 0.20, it is still 100% if the stock moves a lot more than expected. I always perfer to think in percentage terms, not dollar terms.

Fixed, thank you.

This is what I see: Not sure why you see a different screen. In any case, it is not different from different version of the forum and I don't understand why this is even an issue. You need to have some spaces between the text.

ONE software that many of our members use has this information.

I registered to Sheridan Mentoring program in 2012. Like others, was told that my $6K fee includes lifetime membership. Then in 2014 I got the following email from Dan: "I love teaching and helping the Community and I wish I could provide this for free, however, in order to maintain and improve our Community a small annual administration fee of $300 will be implemented. In order to maintain your access to the live and archived content, please pay by, October 31, 2014 (use below link)." Which basically means that if you don't pay the fee, you will be banned from the community. Obviously the $6k fee that he collected from 2,000+ members over the years was not enough.. (that's $12M total fees, not including all the extras he charges for single courses and seminars). To me, it was breach of trust and breach of contract, and enough reason to leave the community. Kind of explains why the community went down the hill in the recent couple years..

I'm not personally familiar with other programs. I know that SMB has solid reputation. I would like to share my latest experience with Dan Sheridan. Yesterday I visited Sheridan online forum. To my surprise, the forum is very inactive, with about 20 new posts per month (to compare, we have more than 40-50 a day). I posted three comments which disagree with Dan's opinion. All three comments have been deleted. Dan then emailed me and asked to call him. I replied that I'm a bit busy (which I was - unlike Dan, I'm actively trading). Then I get the following email from Dan: " Kim, I asked you to call me to discuss this. Since you are to busy to talk, for now, I have taken you out of the community." I'm posting a screenshot of the email because some people might be skeptical that this is even possible. I paid $6,000 for a lifetime access, and now I'm banned because I was too busy to call him.. It turns out that this is typically what Dan does if he perceives someone as a competitor. He did it with Seth Freudberg, Mark Sebastian, Tony Sizemore, John Locke, Kerry Given (aka Dr. Duke), Casey Platt and I’m sure quite a few others. So I'm in a good company.. Regardless of my personal case (which is a good reason by itself not to join the program), I feel that at this point I cannot recommend Sheridan Mentoring anymore, for the following reasons: 1. It became too expensive, and covers only 12 months of membership, compared to previous lifetime membership. 2. One of the main benefits was the community, and the community is pretty much dead right now. 3. The courses became very repetitive and don't provide much value anymore. The only reason to join this program might be the mentoring. But paying $7,000 for 12 mentoring sessions sounds a bit expensive to me.

My intention is to close the SPX July fly and the VXX diagonal by tomorrow the latest. So we will be left with two RUT trades which have very flat P/L lines and are not expected to be too impacted. Plus we will have the Aug fly which is delta negative, and VIX puts hedging it. I might also open another VXX diagonal. I think we are well positioned. IV is expected to go down after Brexit.