_HD still tweaking the strangle and learning a lot. For example my first intention was to buy the strangle the DAY of the earnings report, but like a discount house I couldn't pass up the 35 strike puts for $0.30 puts and bought the $0.70 40 calls for $0.70 calls at the same time the entire position was only $1.00. For MATK I did the same, I took the bulk of the MATK profit BEFORE the report, never bought the puts at all and got a little "bonus" with MATK today. MATK had about 50% increase in volume yesterday and that was the "anticipatory upswing". I will now pick the part of STRANGLE together with the anticipation (i.e. if MATK is showing huge volume as it did yesterday, I won't be picking up the puts during the day why bother if you can make money on the LONG of the stock and the CALLS). I did ZQK on the same premise that it had pulled back already to support and the downside was probably BUILT INTO today's price.
What happened was simply as ADBE started down I saw that the puts were just too profitable to just leave on the table so I just sold them and kept the calls (now those calls cost me $0.70 so its not even sure I'll profit from the calls but I don't really care since I already made a fine profit on the puts and I certainly don't expect to LOSE on the calls maybe break even on that position or better)
QLGC for example had nothing to do with earnings but I just thought it moved quite enough to snap up the profit. I didn't do that with NSM (i.e. buy the calls and puts) so I missed that extra gap 'n snap with that one getting only the "anticipatory upswing" which was quite nice but not the entire move up.
We need to concentrate more on the "mega-anticipatory upswing" or now lately the "mega-anticipatory downswing" and figure if we are close to support, it doesn't pay to keep both positions through the close if one is that profitable. I will let the "anticipation" guide my position for the last day or two up till earnings. VRTY would need to be down over 1.50 (6 to 7% cumulative today and tomorrow) to make the put position profitable enough. Now if VRTY gaps down 'n craps the position will be more and more profitable. If by some magic it turns into a multi-day put play, the profit will increase accordingly.
That turned out to be a better idea than buying the entire strangle the day of the report. With QLGC, SNPS, EBAY and half dozen other earnings plays last quarter I did wait until the last moment. They turned out to be multi-day downside and quite profitable.
AI
Market Data 
Markets 
