Here is a trade I just put on in my personal account.

The stock is NLY. The trade is a simple Put credit spread

Sell to Open Oct 16 Puts (.40)

Buy To Open Oct 15 Puts (.26) for a credit of .14 cents per spread.

Trade has a 74% probability of success. And can make 16.2% if left to expiration.

NLY is a financial company but a very boring stock. I love owning this one as well because it pays a little over 10% dividend right now.

So here is how the trade works: If NLY is above 16 on expiration day (right now it is trading at 17.68) I make the whole 16.2% minus whatever commissions I paid to get into the trade. If NLY is below 16 and above 15 I will be assigned the stock if I don’t exit the trade. Again, I don’t mind owning this stock. if NLy is below [...]

Just did a Put Credit Spread on Apple in my personal account.

Sell the Feb 320 Puts, Buy the Feb 310 puts for a credit of .95 cents

Total risk per spread, also the margin, $905.
Maximum return per spread: $95 for a potential ROI of 10.49% before commissions.
19 days left in this trade before expiration. 83% probability of profit according to thinkorswim.

This trade is a little too risky for the OptionGenius portfolio so I am posting it here. Why risky? Because it is not too far away from the current price of 338. There is support at 320 which is good, but if the market turns over, Apple will be one of the first to slide.

If Apple does drop, I will probably exit the trade when I am down 10-15% which is $135. I don’t know if I will have time to post any adjustments on the blog so trade at your [...]

Here’s a trade I put on yesterday in my personal account. It is a straightforward put credit spread on CME.  Great for papertrading.

It is my belief that the markets will rally into the end of the month. Even without the rally, CME should do fine. It has been performing nicely the last few months and it confirms to the requirements of my new credit spread trading system that I am testing.

Sell to Open July 280 Puts 
Buy to Open July 270 Puts

Right now, you can get .85 cents credit for the trade which is $85 per spread. The max loss is $915 and so the Profit Potential is 9.3%. There are 30 days left in the trade until expiration.

The idea is to let it go to expiration and let it expire. If CME drops I would take this trade off when I was down about 15%.

The last couple free trades, PCLN and OIH worked out nicely. Good gains in both. So here is another one.

IWM

Sell May 65 Puts, Buy May 63 Puts for a credit of .28 each spread. Get out if you are down 10-15% of the margin. if it goes well, either let it expire or buy it back at .05. I prefer to buy it back because it is 45 days from expiration. Normally you do not want to sell cedit spreads with this much time but with the volatility so low, either you move closer to the money or you go out farther in time to get a decent return.

This trade has a potential profit of 16%. This is an interesting trade because IWM is the etf for the Russell 200 index. Earnings season is coming up and that will affect IWM. Also IWM is at a 52 week high. How [...]

Here’s another trade that looks good.

OIH seems to trading in a range so a condor or butterfly might work here, but I am just looking at selling some puts for now.

Sell the Apr 115 puts and buy the April 110 puts for a credit of .56.

That’s about a 12% roi.

Again, trade at your own risk. I am not using real money on this trade.

I’ve been working on a new trading system for credit spreads. This pick came from that system. So far the system has been hitting 90% winners.

PCLN: Sell Apr 210/200 Put spread for .82 credit.

Max Profit $164

Max Loss $1836

Potential ROI: 8.9%

You should take the spread off when it gets to .10, or if you are down 10%.

This is just an example, trade at your own risk.

Got the following question this week:

First, thank you for providing a great service. I have been trading options for about a year and have learned a lot from your tips and alerts.

Now, I have a question about position sizing.  I am trading $100k of my funds using your alerts. When you send out an alert I multiply the number of contracts by 10 when putting on the trade. My question is: instead of just multiplying the contracts, can I use a combination of increasing the contracts and/or increasing the width of the strikes?

For example, if the alert was to sell 2 SPX 1200/1210 Calls, instead of selling 20 10 point spreads, could I sell 10 20 point spreads? What would be the pros/cons of doing something like this?

It seems to me, if I widen the strikes, then when I need to make an adjustment, I could sell the near strike [...]

An astute member brought Amazon (AMZN) to my attention a week ago. After some uncertainty, I think AMZN is going higher or at least will not come back to the level it was at before earnings. At least until after DEC expiration. So that makes a Put credit spread a good  bet.

Sell the Dec 115 Puts and Buy the 110 Puts. My software is showing you can get this for .64 credit each.  That would be a 14.4% profit. DEC expiration is 12/19. If you can take the trade off for .10 debit, do so.

The expiration day breakeven on this trade is 114.34 and it has a 92.84% probability of success.

Are you wondering which is better: option trades that result in a credit or trades that result in a debit?  Simply put, you’re asking whether you should choose a credit spread or debit spread strategy.  Let’s consider both options in more detail. 

A credit spread (also called a net credit spread) involves the investor selling one option then buying another option.  The second option is in the same class and also shares the same expiry date.  However, there are different strike prices between the two options.  In this instance, the new investor gets a net credit for entering this position.  He is looking forward to the spreads either narrowing or expiring in order to get a profit.  A credit spread is basically a conservative strategy in investment.  It is designed to earn a moderate level of income while also limiting your potential loss.  In this circumstance, you are buying and selling [...]

Here is a question that comes after reading Lesson 2 in my 9 Lesson course on selling options.

When you say, to buy back the option before, the expiration date, don’t you incur additional costs, that reduce your profits even further ?

Good question. In some trades like the Calendar spread you have to buy them back because you don’t want to get long the option. But in an iron condor or credit spread, you can wait and let the options expire. If you buy them back you incur commissions plus whatever you are buying it back for.
 
In many cases it is a question of risk vs cost.  if there is a lot of time left before expiration, you are probably best buying the trade back in case there is a move against you and you end up losing money. On the other hand if you let it expire you can save a few dollars and maybe 1 or 2% points on the trade. 
 
So lets say you it will cost you $20 to buy back a trade, but if the trade moves against you, you could lose $1,000. Do you take your profits or hope for that last $20. Even if the trade moves just once against you in 4 years, you still lose money.
 
Make sense?

Here is a real life example.

On October 12, 2009  I did a credit spread on AAPL. I Sold the Nov 165 Puts and Bought the Nov 160 Puts as protection for a credit of .50 on each spread. There were about 40 days to expiration.

On this trade if the puts expired worthless I would make 11.11% before commissions. (Credit of $50 divided by max loss of $450 per spread = potential return of 11.11%) 

Well AAPL just had earnings yesterday and the stock shot up to about 200 today. This morning, I was able to buy back the credit spreads at .07 each.

So I made .43 per credit spread in 8 days.  That is 9.5%

Why did I buy the spreads back? I could have let them expire worthless. If I did i would make another .07 per spread. But there is still 31 days left to expiration. So I decided to make my profit and money and look for another trade.

Who knows? Maybe AAPL will settle down and I will sell another credit spread on it this month for more credit. Or maybe I will do something else. All I know is that I don’t want to risk losing $450 per spread (anything can happen and APPL could drop in price) to make another $7 per spread.

Yes I did pay the commissions by buying the spreads back. But on each spread I paid $2.50 in commissions.  $2.50 going in and $2.50 coming out which is a total of $5 in commission per spread. So instead of mkaing $43 per spread I made $38 per spread which is still 8.44%.

(That’s why having an option friendly broker is so important. I pay $1.25 per option with no trip charge. If you are paying $10 plus $1 per option or some other crazy commissions then you ae playing a game that is stacked against you. Get a better broker.) 

In my opinion, take off your spreads when they are close to worthless if there is alot of time left. Take your profits. Everyday your money is out of the market is a day you cannot lose it.

This is not to say I never let my spreads go to expiration. Sometimes I do, but not too often on a highly volatile stock.