Friday, February 27, 2009

New Trading range

The market is beginning to behave like it is going to stay in this SPY 74 to 76 range for a while.   Only 15 days left on the March options

Sold one 75 call at 2.82 SPY at 74.63,  sold two more at 3.0 SPY at 74.97   effect debit  71.90
Premium 3.10   60% credit point 73.76

I have been looking a lot at hedging strategies -- the underlying price and time remaining on the option make the delta calculation challenging.   Surprisingly option delta doesn't really start dropping off until about 5 days before the option expires.  The ultra short S&P ETF  (SDS) is pretty interesting because it only requires 25% of the buy/write capital to provide a .5 delta hedge to match the option behaviour.  These ETFs might also provide some helpful delta modulation due to the fact that they carry the "Constant Leverage Trap" -- it actually might work in my favor because it appears to reduce the effective delta on the SPY up scenario.  Selling covered calls on SDS makes my head hurt.  I need to resurrect by Black & Sholes spreadsheet and do some simulations on this stuff.   My intutition is definately not up to the task.

I also need to think some more about taking quick profits.   I have missed out several  times on 30% of maximum profit sorts of opportunities very quickly after I make the trade. I need to consider a guideline there--basically an intraday guideline. 

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