$NFLX MAR20 Iron Condor entry

28jan - earnings couple days ago and had a couple profitable premium selling trades. want to get into an iron condor while IV is still a bit higher than average. the Mar opex is 52days out so better premium received. goal is always to collect about a third the width of the strikes if possible. so today with stock near 350ish.

Sold the 305/315 credit put spread (18delta for 315 strike)
Sold the 380/390 credit call spread (25delta for 380 strike)
Total credit for this Iron condor is $3.42 per lot , IV was at 30ish

probably get some movement based on Disney earnings next week. the 305/315 strikes.. worked out to match the delta I was looking for AND being right under the 50day moving average.

Exit targets are between 25-50% of max profit and / or about 21 days left to opex. about 21 days is the optimum exit point since you have the meat of the time decay and IV crush vs trying to milk for every last cent.

MAR 6 $LULU iron condor entry

28jan - another LULU iron condor. been getting good trades with LULU so far. goal to enter a trade for iron condors is close to 45days to opex so went to MAR 6 opex. a 16ish delta is about a one standard deviation move so just used the deltas for strike selections.

Sold the 210/220 credit put spread (16delta at 220strike)
Sold the 255/265 credit call spread (21delta at 255strike)
total credit for this iron condor is $2.47

stock was near 238 with 38 days to go.

Target exits of between 25-50% of max profit and / or near 21 days left to opex.

15Jan update to the $ROKU feb14 Iron Condor entry

15 Jan update - made an adjustment to this iron condor yesterday with stock near 132. closed the put side for .38 profit and rolled the strikes down to 150/160. credit for 150/160 at $1.54.

adjusted iron condor for Feb14
115/120 calls
150/160 puts
adjusted credit received $2.87

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from 7Jan entry


added new $ROKU skewed iron condor Feb14 115/120 165/175 at 2.33 credit. wide bid/ask so went few cents above midpoint for fill. note 10wide on calls. 120puts 19delta, 165calls 22 delta 38days to opex, earnings are week after opex

doing a lot of trading on Roku since is IV is high. FEB14 is the last opex before earnings. I believe there is greater risk to the downside so for this skewed iron condor the put side is 5wide vs the call side at 10 wide. going 10 wide allows me to get more premium on the call spread

again looking to exit at 25-50% of max profit and/or near 21days left till opex. will be out of all ROKU iron condors (have several going) when earnings hit. I don't include earnings because the point of the exiting at 50%/21day guideline is that you get some time decay AND some IV contraction. including earnings will give you IV increase. so will have limited profits

15Jan update to $LULU Feb21 Iron Condor entry

15 Jan update- LULU preannounced good numbers and stock took off. this week made the following adjustments to this iron condor. closed the 210/220 puts for .98 profit and rolled up to the 220/230 strikes taking in 1.20credit. stock at 243 today , new strikes

220/230puts
260/270calls
total credit received for adjusted iron condor is $2.09

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9 jan - sold iron condors for the Feb21 opex now. , feb21 being near the optimum entry point for iron condors/strangles per the Tastytrade videos. 43 days to opex for this one.


$LULU new iron condor Feb-21-20 220/210/260/270 Iron Condor @ -2.34 Limit , 220-19delta, 260-14delta, stock at 236, IV 24ish


IV is not really high so be more time decay vs IV crush. exit goal is 25-50% of max profit and/or near 21days remaining to opex. this is the optimum point where you have the meat of the profits, the remaining meat has higher risk vs the first half of the holding period.

you were expecting a chart weren't you. youll have to settle for this ass in some LULU leggings

15jan update $LULU diagonal spread, short put, credit put spreads

15Jan update  a good winner and a roll for this.. stay with me here. put your helmet on.. 10jan had:

Jan17 opex 210/225 credit put spreads (2)
sold additional 225 short put for credit
short 230 call as part of diagonal

stock took off and is 9+ higher to 243ish. so I closed the 210/225 puts and the naked 225put for 90+% of the max profit. closed at $2.80 vs $3.20credit received(see below). was going to hold this position letting it decay until I made an adjustment to the 230short call, that was this week. got a roll to the Feb7opex and up to $232.50 for 0.00.

yes its still underwater but I gained a few more weeks for zero cost and on a pullback sets me up to sell either naked puts (below 232.50 ideally) or possibly credit put spreads. a pullback to near 232 area is preferred actually. would like to roll the short call up and out for credit. New position is:

Long DITM 2022 call
Short Feb 7 232.50
profits of $2.80 on the puts 

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10jan - thought I blogged it last month but guess not. touched on it quickly on another LULU entry.
I have a diagonal spread going for LULU, buy a Jan2022 DITM call and sell a front month upside short call for premium. entered on 19 Dec with stock near 219.

sold the Jan 230 call for $4.90

felt pretty good about it, going out a month, nearly $5 in premium, stock 10+ away from the short call strike. so now on 10 jan the stock is at 234ish and with 14days to go till opex. ideally stock pulls back near 230 so I can roll up and out to the Feb opex. whenever the stock is above my short call I always look to add cash secured put lower which makes it essentially a strangle. I had a trade this week at the 225put for a 35% win.

This week I added:

$LULU sold some Jan-17-20 222.5/210 Put Vertical @ 0.9 Limit for credit , 222.50 at 16delta ... goes with the Jan17 230 short call 2lot on the 210/225.50 credit put spread....see again at opex the stock cant be above my 230 call strike AND below the 225.50 put strike. so if I hold to expiration one of these will be at max profit. my thesis is bullish anyway so I sold ANOTHER short 225.50 cash secured put for $1.35

Total credit collected (.90x2 and $1.35) is $3.20.

Strategy is pretty straight forward, gain some time decay (25-50% of max profit) off that $3.20 and then roll the short call once there is under 75cents of time decay left (extrinsic value)

Closed the $ROKU Feb 7 Opex Iron Condor entry

15jan update - this one worked out per plan. closed at 25days remaining, could have let go a few more to get to the optimum exit point of 21days but my gut made the call. ROKU moves quite a bit so better to take the win few days early. exited at 35% of max profit win on an 11day hold

received 1.94 credit, closed at 1.26


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as noted on twitter on 2 Jan, sold another iron condor on ROKU. have multiple positions going on this one. sucker moves around a bunch. went with Feb 7 options, the Feb14 ones just came on the board thus no open interest and wide bid/asks. earnings are feb20. note this iron condor has a skew on the call side vs the others ive done. the call side is 10dollars wide vs 5 wide for the puts. my thesis is greater risk to downside. 10 dollar wide on the call side brings in a little more premium. not as far out as I would have liked. 34 days to opex

Sold the Feb7 110/115/165/175 iron condor for $1.94 credit

110put delta 17
165call delta 19
IV 70+
stock at 134ish
34 days to opex
would like to exit with $1.00 ($100) per lot profit and or 21ish days to opex.

a lot of lines here for multiple positions. the orange lines are this iron condor short calls. purple is different opex, light blue is a short put and call credit spread with expires this week so will come off soon. red is a credit put spread from a rolled position .

$NVDA iron condor entry for feb7 opex

on 2Jan - entered into new iron condor on NVDA. went with the Feb 7 strikes. feb 7 being the week prior to earnings and as close to the optimum 45days till exp target. I don't really follow the semiconductor stocks, just using the probabilities. IV was 35ish. stock at 239ish

Sold the Feb 7 210/220/257.50/267.50 iron condor for $2.77 credit

220 delta 23, 257.50 delta 18 as of close 3jan

exit targets are 50% of max profit and / or about 21days remaining till opex. would like to get at least $1 ($100) per lot profit

exit for the $LULU entry put sale

6 Jan- as posted on twitter:
closed this Jan-17-20 225 Put @ 1.89 Limit to Close to take the 35% of max profit win from friday entry $LULU. reenter on a pullback

stock traded in 5point range to ending up $2+ at 232ish, the put I sold on Friday was at 35% of max profit after one trading day. good percentage winner for a day, have to take the win on that big of a move on 1-2 days and look to reenter. $1.06 gain , would like to resell another put ideally same opex on a 2-3dollar down move.. still holding the 230short call/diagonal

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3 Jan - my go to trade has always been the diagonal spread. have had good results with those. an even better trade I like putting on is to sell downside put as well making it a strangle. in a strangle you sell a downside put and an upside call. im not comfortable with that naked call sale and many traders do not have that option level approval to sell naked calls. regardless, the point of my diagonal spread is ideally to have a move up towards the short strike, collect the short call premium and repeat with another upside call sale. that's the best case. many times eventually the stock starts moving past the short strike like LULU is now. was at 233 on 3Jan so im waiting for more of the time premium to come out of the short call before rolling to the next time period.

Sold the Jan2020 225 put at $2.95, delta 30

selling a short put with same opex adds more premium to this position and turns it into a strangle (the 225 short put and the short call at 230 from dec19). see what I did there. the stock cant close above 230 and below 225 at the same time. so at opex one of these will expire at max profit. ideally it drifts lower below 230 and I can repeat the sales. I went 225 on the put to get a little more premium because again it cant close both above 230 and below 225 at same time so I can "risk" at higher strike. also consider the premium collected (4.90 from call, 2.95 from the put = $7.85). so really my breakevens are now:

downside of 217.15 (225put - 7.85)
upside of 237.85 (230call +7.85)

scenarios at opex (unlikely I will hold till opex though):
1.stock above 230 - take full profit on the short put and roll up and out the short call to next month
2.stock between 225-230 - take full profit on both the put and call and resell both next month
3. stock below 225 - hold the 2022 long call, take full profit on the short call, resell another short call, roll the short put out or down and out either way for a credit.

scenarios before opex
1. stock goes sideways - take profits on the short put at 50-75%, take profits on the short call at 75% of max profit and resell next month
2. stock moves $4-5 in either direction rapidly -(4 or 5 dollars either way should trigger my % profit targets) if down take profits in call and look to resell on an up move, if up then take profits on the put, and look to resell on a down move.

the base trade of all this is the diagonal spread, the short put is just some added premium till opex. im not trying to thread the needle for an opex closing between 225-230, just playing the percentages and probabilities. because I have the DITM call I don't have undefined risk to the upside. very high probability of making money on this "position". purple lines are the strangles, white lines are an iron condor ive got going for Feb7

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on 19Dec I entered into a diagonal spread on LULU.

Bought the Jan2022 200 call at 61.65
Sold the Jan2020 call at 4.90

stock near 223 at the time. essentially like a covered call but using the Deep In The Money (DITM) call as the base instead of stock. much less buying power needed.

Closed the $AAPL short put and credit call spreads

10 jan- on Wednesday I closed all 3 legs of this position

took profits this morning at 30% + of max profit. rather take the winner now (specifically the short put) and have that buying power for the next down whoosh $AAPL
put made money and the credit call spreads made money
intial total credit was $5.12, closed for $3.45 for a 31% of max profit winner for a 5 day hold

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3jan - was hoping for a more meaningful selloff from the smoke checking of the Iran terrorist. Yesterday sold the Jan24 320/330 call credit spread for .82 credit as stock was crossing 300. using Jan24 since its the last expiration before earnings. im ok with a down move since my diagonal spread short call is way underwater at the 270 strike. wanted to add a naked short put to the credit call spread and make what the Tastytrade people call a Jade Lizard. I prefer Poor Mans Strangle.

Again I only sell puts in stocks im ok owning if I get put the stock for some reason. even if stock goes below the short strike you can roll it and sell additional credit call spreads against it to bring in more premium. keeping the same expiration of Jan 24 was looking to sell a 30ish delta. Had order in for higher but adjusted the price prior to closing lower.

Sold the Jan24 290put for $3.50 , delta 31, 20days to opex
sold 2lot the Jan 24 320/330 call credit spread at .81per lot from yesterday. 21delta for the 320s

total credit is $5.12 

target profit is 25-50%. taking profits early based on the Tastytrade videos ive watched where after 50%ish the risk of movement against you increases vs only having minimal remaining premium left to collect. ie take the meat of the profits and then redeploy the buying power. you see how quickly prices can move on geopolitical issues. white lines on chart are profit ranges at expiration

Closing the $ROKU short put and call credit spread entries

6 jan - closed all 3 legs today
closed all 3legs today on the runup $ROKU, not sure what the news was. lost some on the credit call spread, made more on the short put. rather have it not breach the call strikes with opex this friday , 17% of max profit

didn't see anything significant as to why the up move. NFLX as well. regardless stock at 143 and with 4days till opex was threatening the 145/150 call credit spread. so instead of having it breach and having to roll and adjust for weeks I went ahead and closed the position. hindsight 20/20 the short put would have done better by itself. mark to market loss on the credit call spread but better profit on the short put. closed at $2.75 after taking in 3.32. makes it a 17% of max profit winner. not large dollars but proving the concept still before sizing up. frees up buying power for the next one.

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31dec - on 26 dec I sold a cash secured put for ROKU the Jan10 130 for $2.60 , 15days to opex, 20 delta when stock was 144. stock is down 12points since then at 132ish today. in order to add some more premium to this trade I sold a credit call spread same opex at .72 , the 145/150 . 23 delta at time sale. IV for ROKU is increasing so not getting any vol crush.

revised credit for this poor mans strangle (short put/ credit call spread) is $3.32 (2.60 + .72)

9days till opex. blue lines on chart are this trade, purple are another iron condor