Selling Options on Futures?

January 28th, 2014, 06:04 PM

ES margin going up 5.5% on Thu.

NG up 20% more.

January 28th, 2014, 08:23 PM

I think people can sign up for Dough.com for free. With it, you can get great info on your options positions or potential trades. I think it uses info from Thinkorswim so your margins may be different and thereby complicate your analysis.

Dough is a recent platform just rolled out by the same guys who originally created ThinkorSwim -Tom Sosnoff, Tom Preston, et.al.

January 28th, 2014, 10:09 PM

ron99

To show what can happen on far OTM ES puts here is what happened Aug 2011.

You'll notice that the initial drop of ES futures in late July barely affected the options. It was the 2nd leg down that extremely inflated option prices.

On 8/3/11 the ES futures were 1254. The 900 put was 0.55. 44 DTE.

On 8/8/11 futures were 1111 and the 900 put was at 12.00!

The 1000 went from 1.60 to 26.25.

The 800, 450 OTM, went from 0.15 to 5.00!

So a 143 drop in 5 days can severely affect puts that are even 450 OTM and only 44 DTE. But this is a very rare occurrence.

Hi ron - I was curious if you know how much the margin requirements changed during this time for those ES puts?

January 28th, 2014, 10:15 PM

Mo111

Hi ron - I was curious if you know how much the margin requirements changed during this time for those ES puts?

Sorry I don't know. The CME only has arrays available to compute the margin from 12/31/12 till now. 2011 isn't available.

January 30th, 2014, 08:55 AM

EIA Natural Gas Storage Report Expectations 30-Jan-14 for week ending 24-Jan-14

The largest survey I see (38 respondents) shows
Average -230.1
Median -230
Range -220 to -239
Std Dev 4.2

This week last year -191
5yr Average -162

Actual report will be available at Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report - EIA at 1030 EPT

At time of writing 7:53am EPT, NG market is already down over 25c, so expecting yet another 'interesting' day.

kevinkdog · January 30th, 2014, 09:01 AM

SMCJB

EIA Natural Gas Storage Report Expectations 30-Jan-14 for week ending 24-Jan-14

The largest survey I see (38 respondents) shows
Average -230.1
Median -230
Range -220 to -239
Std Dev 4.2

This week last year -191
5yr Average -162

Actual report will be available at Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report - EIA at 1030 EPT

At time of writing 7:53am EPT, NG market is already down over 25c, so expecting yet another 'interesting' day.

You have some good insight into this market, so I'm curious what you think. Is the fear of running out driving the market? Or is it some big speculators driving it up, a la Amaranth in 2006?

As a small fry watching this, it seems like this crazy volatility and price fluctuations are more than people just reacting to cold weather forecasts...

January 30th, 2014, 09:25 AM

kevinkdog

You have some good insight into this market, so I'm curious what you think. Is the fear of running out driving the market? Or is it some big speculators driving it up, a la Amaranth in 2006?

As a small fry watching this, it seems like this crazy volatility and price fluctuations are more than people just reacting to cold weather forecasts...

I'm a Spread/Arb/Quant/Relative Value trader so I don't have strong directional opinions.

Not sure there is a difference between a fear of running out and speculators driving up! One leads to the other.

Talking to people in the industry, people seem very concerned about their ability to buy real physical molecules. It's almost a "well, we may run out but I'll have already bought mine" attitude. Nobody wants to be the person who doesn't have the physical if the proverbial S hits the Fan. While they may not be the people buying and selling NG futures, that sure does give the financial bulls confidence.

While I did quietly laugh at Ron's comment yesterday about manipulation, one does have to wonder what is driving prices when we are up 50c one day and then immediately down 25c-30c the next day on nothing at all. (while Feb may not be down quite as much as H, Feb prices are down 20c with H printings -27c)

January 30th, 2014, 10:26 AM

SMCJB

While I did quietly laugh at Ron's comment yesterday about manipulation, one does have to wonder what is driving prices when we are up 50c one day and then immediately down 25c-30c the next day on nothing at all. (while Feb may not be down quite as much as H, Feb prices are down 20c with H printings -27c)

Slowly but surely I will get you over to my side.

NG trading Friday(+.452)/Monday(-.335) and Wed(+.524)/Thu(-.294 now) are prime examples of markets being influenced more by trading of specs than trading on fundamentals.

Friday was last trading day for large traders to get to the 1,000 position limit for the last 3 days of trading. Prices skyrocket. Next day prices crash when temps are about to be below zero in many places for several days.

Wed is last trading day and prices skyrocket. Next day prices crash. That's not fundamentals.

January 30th, 2014, 10:30 AM

SMCJB

EIA Natural Gas Storage Report Expectations 30-Jan-14 for week ending 24-Jan-14

The largest survey I see (38 respondents) shows
Average -230.1
Median -230
Range -220 to -239
Std Dev 4.2

This week last year -191
5yr Average -162

Actual report will be available at Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report - EIA at 1030 EPT

At time of writing 7:53am EPT, NG market is already down over 25c, so expecting yet another 'interesting' day.

-230
Wisdom of crowds!

February 1st, 2014, 10:37 AM

I know some of you still have some NG calls on so I'll continue to post this at least for the next few weeks.

6-Feb EIA Release EARLY Estimates.
First estimates coming in, still subject to a lot of changes.
First survey I have seen had 13 respondents and an average of -268.2 & a median of -270
Range was -250 to -382 with standard deviation 9.7

Last year same week -129
5 year average same week -151

Selling Options on Futures?

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Selling Options on Futures?