Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake
I was doing quite well with Iron Condors a few years ago. I only traded the indices rather than individual stocks. Unfortunately since the "crash" I gave up on Iron Condors due to the volatility that has taken hold in the "post-crash" market.
Prior to the crash it was pretty easy to make consistent profits (mostly on the S&P and the RUSSEL) because the market didn't jump all over the place every time some small piece of economic data was released. Sure it moved on the major reports however these days you get the same size moves on even the most inconsequential report or even some news story of political unrest in some country that has absolutely no impact on the U.S. economy.
Yeah, the premiums were a lot lower back then due to the lower volatility however I'll take lower premiums that are consistent winners month-after-month over larger inconsistent premiums any day of the week. It's all about risk/reward. Even with the most complex repair strategies I've had a really hard time making any money with IC's since the crash.
Have you been trading them in the post-crash market? If so any particular tips?
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To be quite honest, I've only done 3 iron condor trades. All with SPY weekly options within a 4 week period earlier this year. Here's a sample trade for March that I found in my email.
Put Side:
Sell SPY March 126 Put +.64
Buy SPY March 124 Put -.37
Net credit = .27
Call Side:
Sell SPY March 135 Call + .10
Buy SPY March 133 Call - .03
Net credit = .07
All 3 trades were successful, but the last two were pretty stressful to wait out,so I've decided to just stick with writing covered calls on EEM every month,as boring as that may be, until I have more non-investment related income coming in and can trade with more confidence.