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One of the biggest things I'm taking away from this entire exercise is to better manage the nuclear levels of stress. This method of options is tauted as "less stressful" by Bill Cordier but I'm not sure what the guy is smoking to calm himself down. At least with puts on stocks, if you get assigned you can sell covered calls until the stock goes back up..but here...it's a very different game.
For example, yesterday I sold May CL P25 and C80. Today the price of CL went down ~5%. It didn't affect my premium at all, the last at market close was still .04c but the total margin shot up like crazy...over 300%. I'm still not at my exit point but it really makes me wonder how the more seasoned guys sleep at night. A part of me is simply saying...F this whole thing and go back to my other hobbies but then I'll have to admit that I quit and I can't do that.
I will probably end up buying a put to help shrink the margin requirements on the next move up.
This morning your position on the TOS platform gave a margin requirement of $860 per one 25/80 May strangle.
Ratio of Margin/(Credit) = approximately 4. I don't see a problem with your position. It is quite possible to see
large UNREALIZED losses for a position. But always monitor your risk (aka the greeks).
The losses are UNREALIZED. Remember it is not over until the fat lady sings.
First you say you sold a 25-80 strangle then you say it didn't affect my premium at all and was still .04. What are you talking about? The put or the strangle? The strangle premium decreased by .02 to .08. The put was unchanged.
If you are going to make posts then you need to explain things correctly.
SPAN Margin for a May 25 put was 133 on 2/26 and is 167 on 2/27. I don't see the big rise.
SPAN Margin for the May 25-80 strangle was 339 on 2/26 and is 435 on 2/27. I don't see the big rise.
If you did the trade at OX maybe they raised margin. But the SPAN margin minimum did not increase over 300%.
I trade ES, EW and CL FOPs through stage5trading.com, worth checking out if you are looking for reasonable SPAN margins, good service imho and a futures and FOP focused broker. Use OEC/GAIN, the same platform as De Carley I believe.
1. May I confirm that the round turn commission (including clearing NFA) for 1 ES contract is 3.95+0.56=4.51 ?
So commission to BTC the option is cheaper than to STO the option contract?
At TOS which I use, the commission is the same to open the option and to close the option. (No commission if you let the option expire)
At DeCarley Trading which I am not using, I believe the round turn commission is taken upfront. (I think about 8.30 including exchange and other fees)