Buy-writes on SPY quarterly options --ROQ series and XLK

Update --SPY/ ROQ buy-write: SPY upticked to above 92 after I took this position and the options were assigned at expiration. I'm looking for the next quarterly option opportunity in September.


Back in the market today. Definitely some downside risk, but we are off the recent highs enough I felt like I should be getting back in. By accident on Fidelity's option chains I noticed a set of options expiring at the end of June, not the usual expiration date. It turns out these are CBOE quarterly options with the end of March, June, September, December expiration. Other than the spreads being a little wider than regular SPY options, everything else looks pretty equivalent. The premium on SPY 90s was about 1.05 (~1%) for options that have 7 calendar days to run--compared to July 90s with maybe 2.2 for options that have 25 days to run--not a tough decision to make. The spread on the options was wider, maybe .05, but I was able to almost spit the bid-ask with a buy-write debit order.


Debit buy-writes are executed by humans, so the execution time is underwhelming, but if the market is not too volatile I use them because you can get around the retail restrictions on option pricing (.05 cent increments above a certain level) and you don't have to stress trying to do two sequential orders. Overall Debit was 88.30, SPY at 89.35, SPY 90 Call ROQFL at 1.05


My June XLK options were assigned this last weekend at 18--fine by me. XLK obliged by dropping to around 17.5 this week so I jumped back in. The XLK buy-write was a $17.29 debit order--which also was within a penny of splitting the bid-ask. It took about 20 minutes to fill the order, so I don't think I left much on the table. Bought XLK at $17.55 Sold to open XLKGR July 18 at $0.27.