OPTIONS 101

Iron Flys vs. Iron Condors

What is an iron butterfly? What is an iron condor? Why/when would you use each? Why/when would you not use each?

 

 

THE BUZZ

Recent market recap: The rise & fall of volatility

Earnings volatility breakdown.

Alternative strategies to capture alpha in volatile markets.

 

 

 

OFFICE HOURS

Question from Andrew Dodson - Let me see if I have this straight re: delta hedging or “gamma scalping” - even though I’m not sure why it’s scalping gamma and not delta. Let’s say you buy a straddle with a long 10 delta. Then the underlying rallies 1 point so you sell 10 shares to make yourself flat again? Then you wait to see if the underlying drops again so you can buy back those 10 shares at a point lower? Is that the gist of it? What do you do if the stock continues to rally and you continue to get long deltas? And why the heck isn’t it delta scalping?If it was gamma scalping you’d be hedging the rate of change of your delta over that 1 point swing in the underlying? Question from Keving - Why doesn't anyone put out the earnings straddle analysis similar to the analysis from the so called analysts? Then we can all fixate on whether a name outperforms its straddle as opposed to beating the whisper number. I think that's more valuable. Why don't more people know about this stuff.