It's great news for me personally that the VIX dropped substantially over the past two days but frankly speaking my fear gauge is going up.
I believe that this is just a false market rebound based on false hopes that the major distracting geopolitical factors are going away. The leaders of Russia will not accept defeat in Ukraine. That's the bottom line. That's how they are wired. I hope that I am completely wrong but the more resistance the Western backed Ukraine shows the more brutal tactics the Russians will demonstrate. It's a disaster.
But enough of the politics and let's focus on the market side of things. With the VIX dropping a fair bit, the option values also dropped allowing many option traders to cover their positions. At the moment it's best for option traders to remain highly cautious and only go into deals that they are very confident about.
What's my selection for today?
#BIDU seems very tempting but due to the geopolitical situation between the US and China I don't feel comfortable trading it even though the stock has seen ridiculous up/down movement over the past week keeping the IVR quite high.
Instead, I would go super cautious with #UAL ( #UnitedAirlines ) with a very wide strangle.
The stats
Trade Type: Short Strangle
Strike: $30 / 50
Expiry: 14 Apr
Delta: -7.1
IV Rank: 52.9
Premium: $0.81
Cap Req: $414
Annualised Prof at Expiry: 255%
Let me know your thoughts.
This trade can be closed today for a nice profit.
Closing at $0.54 for an annualised profit of 595%.
Question; when it’s time to sell (close a deal), can I cash in instantaneously at anytime or will I have to wait until it’s sold.