Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
The only dumb questions are the one you don't ask, so no need to apologize.
Can you give details on what you sold (strike, expiration, etc)? It could be the settlement price was a bunch different from where you sold it (the market actually moved), or that maybe they credit the premium to you, and deduct the current price (and maybe the way your broker shows accounting doesn't make numbers balance), or maybe broker settlement price is wrong.
So at the time I sold NASDAQ 2420 put with delta of -.02 with DTE of 21 for approximately 1.4; I remember after I sold those the /NQ futures did go up sharply with the whole market and i was up a small amount. Today it says that it closed at 5.25. dont understand how the put went up as /NQ was going up. Unless some surge in volatility occurred at the last second
I use to have this same problem when I was selling options at IB. When the markets closed, the settlement quote would often be very different than where it actually settled. Just like the example you gave, IB would often quote a settlement price that was never touched during the session. I called IB and asked them why but after 6 weeks of calls and sending in daily before and after screen shots, all they can come up with was they use the quotes supplied by a third party. The person I spoke with at IB agreed with me that the settlement prices were wrong but he could not ever explain why.
And yes, the quotes will correct itself around midnight. To this day I still have no idea why this happened. I would often check 2-3 other sites to get the correct settlement quotes. But my margin numbers would often be wrong for until the quotes adjusted.
Now that I switched over to OX, hopefully I will no longer have this problem.
V: The last quote might have been the actual settlement price and not the real bid or ask. The last 'price' of the day that is used to calculate you actual $ value may vary more often then not. My 900 wheat calls that were worth $6.25 the day before expiration were often quoted way off the real bid ask because the volume was 0 for the day. Weird things can happen after hours with option quotes for those strikes that have very low volume.
Loving this thread, so thank you all. Noticed a lot of comments regarding IB's margins not being that friendly, but for the way I trade they actually work out fine (e.g. In some cases premium > margin). I trade a system I created that is at a high level a combination of trend following + seasonal filtering + enter on volatility spikes, for which instead of selling the system signalled option naked I sell it with a reverse diagonal spread (or in the case of a sideways market generated signal, a reverse double diagonal spread - here's when I can sometimes get premium > margin).
Because I sell the short OTM leg 3 or 4 months out, and buy the further OTM leg 2 or 3 months out but end up closing all legs at least a few weeks before expiry of the nearest option I benefit from the reduced margin of the spread to the significant benefit of ROI. And lastly even though I'm option selling I'm always a few options long in the spread for cheap black swan protection e.g. If I'm short 30 OTM June CL's I'm long 33 May further OTM CL's, yes it costs a little but helps me sleep like a baby.
Just thought I'd share this as in Canada there's not much choice with option on futures selling brokers so this is a way I've found to counter the margin problem with IB.
Crude for me doesn't propose too many dramas below the 90 level for the near term. I think all the technicals were massively overbought and have been for awhile and all that was needed was some average supply numbers to come out for a sharp sell off. I am expecting to the trendline from June last year to hold. One thing i do look for in Cl for trend reversals is a wash out like in september where it dropped $18 in 6 weeks. the $100 level was breached for a couple of days and straight back down on $6 bar. We haven't had that here.....
GC has certainly felt some heat lately. I am trying to get long but am not ready yet. Although fairly new to option trading, I am looking at trading GC on a directional move - so any advice on a spread of some sort would be greatly appreciated. GC has some major moves that come out of wedges, it gets coiled up like a spring and the moves coming out are strong indeed. I hope to see some consolidation around the 1525 - 1550 level and shoot higher.
I currently have some April/May CL 75 & 77 puts, some AD 99 March puts and some NG May 4.20 calls, but looking at a couple of directional plays shortly in GC and possibly Corn
Guys, really enjoying this thread. Some of the things I have picked up from Ron and a couple of you senior guys has been invaluable. Not forgetting Scotty here in Brisbane either......