#SPX0dte I have been testing a new strategy and just completed my second attempt at doing it live.

Recently we’ve seen fairly significant moves in SPX toward end of day. For a couple weeks I’ve been watching ATM strangles with 5-point centers. Once these drop below 6 or even 5 bucks (after 1pm ET), it is a fair bet to BUY one and then wait for a move. The idea is to cover the full cost of the trade plus some profit on the first move, then try to get as much as you can extra profit from the other side.

Today I bought $SPX Dec 9th 6060/6065 strangles for 4.70 at 2:17pm ET.

I had to wait over 20 minutes for a move, and in that time it dropped to 3.85. Loss of less than a dollar… if it had gone more than a dollar in the red I may have stopped out. But then the spike down happened and my put option sold for 6.00. So I was 1.30 in profit. Now I can choose to wait for a total bounce and perhaps even get a double. On some test days this DID happen. But when I saw no immediate strong bounce, I closed today’s for .90. Sure enough, SPX took a further drop so .90 was nice to catch. Had I been willing to sit with the risk longer, I could have sold put side for as much as 7.00 (at least so far), but I think these trades are best when goal is 1.00 to 2.00 in profit. For this one I got 2.20.

On Friday I bought a strangle for 5.60 and got the down move almost immediately. It didn’t go very far and started to recover, so I sold put for 6.00. With .40 profit I decided to wait for a full recovery and sell call if it got to 4.00. It didn’t; the drop continued so it expired.