I’m going to start selling some closer to the money/aggressive UVXY calls to help reduce basis on SVXY. But because of the lower strike prices I’m spreading them for now.
First batch: Sold $UVXY May 18 20/30 call spreads @ 1.20.

I’m already short 32.50 puts in July so I’m adding cautiously at a lower strike.
Sold $APA Jul 20 30 put @ 1.30.

Bought back:
$GWW Apr 20 145 put @ .05 (sold for 2.65 on 10/24)
$GWW Apr 20 150 put @ .10 (sold for 2.90 on 10/19)
$GWW Apr 20 155 put @ .10 (sold for 3.10 on 10/17)

My remaining positions in this stock are all in July–an ITM short 220 call and several short puts below that, offsetting it.

Sold a mini-ladder
$AZO Apr 20 580 put @ 6.20
$AZO Sep 21 500 put @ 10.51

Closing a profitable position in 3/9 and opening a new one in 3/16.
Sold to close $VXX Mar 9 40 puts @ 2.90. Bought for 1.57 on 2/20.
Bought to open $VXX Mar 16 36 puts @ 1.17.

Rolled 3/16 260/290 strangle up 5 points and out 1 week to 3/23 265/295 strangle for .20 credit.

Only 2 positions expiring today:
$RUTW Feb 23 1530/1540/1570/1580 iron condor
$UVXY Feb 23 20 calls

No assignments but I’m a little burnt on this assignment thing with the SVXY overdose. Speaking of SVXY it was up 8% today. All we need is 15 consecutive days of an 8% increase and it will be over 40 again 🙂 Ahh, fun with math.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Sold $OLED Apr 20 100 puts @ 1.40

Sold $EXAS Jul 20 30 puts @ 1.65 with the stock at 40.32. It’s printing a dragonfly doji.

Bought to close $WBA Apr 20 60 puts @ .40. Sold for 1.43 and 1.85 from 10/9/17-10/13/17.
With earnings estimated before April expiration I decided to close this down for most of the profit.

Big move up after earnings but has come back to the lower end of today’s range.
Selling some premium in April with the IV still elevated (IVR 60).
Sold $STMP Apr 20 230/240 bear call spread for 1.72 credit.
Short strike is near the Oct highs.
Be careful with this one–markets are really wide; both of these contracts have low volume and OI.

On the down move today, bought to close $SNAP Mar 16 20 calls @ .20. Sold for 1.20 on 2/9.

Sold $ROKU Apr 20 30 puts @ 1.35 with the stock at 40.15

Not adding to short UVXY calls for now. Instead I want to try buying some short term puts on VXX and give it about 3 trading weeks to come in some more. Bought $VXX Mar 9 40 puts @ 1.57.

Reducing size where I can.
Bought to close $UVXY Feb 23 26 calls @ .26. Sold for .53-1.20 on 2/2-2/5.
Bought to close $UVXY Mar 16 70 calls .32. Sold for 1.00 on 12/1/17.

Bought to close $DUST Mar 16 44 calls @ .10. Sold for 1.00-1.20 on 12/5/17-12/6/17.
Bought to close $NUGT Mar 16 60 call @ .04. Sold for 5.70 on 9/5/17.
Bought to close $KR Apr 20 18 puts @ .05. Sold for 1.15 on 9/25/17.

Sold $CYBR Apr 20 50 calls @ 1.65. Been writing calls on this stock for quite some time. With this sale, my basis has been reduced by 14.25 (originally acquired at 57.40 so basis now 43.15). Selling the 50s gives me a little more upside as well, with the stock decisively breaking through resistance and just about filling the gap from July.

I’m using today’s small bounce to get out of this short put for tomorrow’s expiration. It’s now above the strike price slightly so I’m out and taking my modest profit.
Bought to close $BIIB Feb 16 300 put @ 2.25. Sold for 3.60 on 1/8.

Sold $REGN Aug 17 240 put @ 5.70 (delta 11).
My ladder is now:
Apr 300 put
May 280 put
Aug 240 put

With the stock now back above the strike (after spending a good part of the last couple of trading delays below it), I decided to close this position for 75-80% of the max and not risk another dip before the end of the week.
Bought to close $EXAS Feb 16 45 puts @ .40. Sold for 1.85 on 1/17.

Bought to close $DUST Mar 16 45 calls @ .15. Sold for 1.20 on 12/7. Reducing some exposure.

On Feb 8 I sold a 200 put in Sep for 5.60. Just added to Sep at a lower strike.
Sold $CMG Sep 21 180 put @ 5.10. Delta 11.

Decided to take this off more than a month early for more than 90% of the max profit.
Bought to close $GUSH Mar 16 44 calls @ .16. Sold for 2.05 on 1/11.

A lot has been written and theorized about exactly what happened Monday night but this article has some deeper analysis that I hadn’t read elsewhere. It goes into detail about the different reasons SVXY survived and XIV didn’t. One factor that was interesting (and they admit it was their deduction): the fund managers for SVXY waited for the futures to come down after the spike at the close Monday before covering their short position. Good strategy in hindsight but they took a risk. Interesting read.

http://www.barrons.com/article_email/where-volatility-goes-to-die-1518237491-lMyQjA1MTA4MDE3MTIxNjEwWj

I hope you all are having a good weekend. Thanks for all your posts. Like many of you I’ve been assigned a lot of this stock and plan to implement some of these strategies to work down basis and eventually let it go at much better levels. It will take some time but we’ll get through it. Thanks again Jeff for The Bistro. I’m glad we are all here.

$NUGT Feb 9 41 calls
$NUGT Feb 9 42 calls
$UVXY Feb 9 26 calls (was watching this closely to potentially roll out as it topped 29 but decided to wait and see what the end of the day brought–I got lucky)

No assignments, at least today. This week has been an assignment sh**storm with all the SVXY I now own. Still looking for us to go back into contango on the VIX futures next week with a lot of help from the expiring Feb contract on Wednesday. If volatility calms a bit next week a flat curve/slight contango should be in place by Thursday. Then maybe we can start looking at laddering in some SVXY covered calls.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Borrowed this idea from TastyTrade.
Sold $SNAP Mar 16 20 calls @ 1.20 with the stock at 18.96. IV rank is high at 74. I’m looking at the decreasing volume and slowed momentum after earnings this week. Would seem to need another big catalyst to push it back up to the highs from Wed. Will be watching closely. Planning to take it off for .60 (50% profit).

From Apr to Sep
First fill: Sold $AMGN Jun 15 140 put @ 2.40

Sold $DRIP Apr 20 24 call @ 1.70 at the highest strike with DRIP at 17.99

Sold $KOLD Apr 55 call @ 1.20. Highest strike.
Looking to replace the Feb 50 and 55 calls which are likely to expire next week.

Defined risk so I don’t have to worry about margin effect.
Bought:
$VXX Jun 15 25 puts @ 1.27
$VXX Sep 20 puts @ 1.30

Once volatility calms down and we go back into contango these should start getting profitable quickly.

Sold $CMG Sep 21 200 put @ 5.60 with the stock at 265.37. Delta is 13. Strike is 25% lower than current price and at a level the stock hasn’t been in almost 6 1/2 years (Oct 2010).

Sold at the highest strike (35, a level above the Dec peak):
$DUST Mar 2 35 calls @ .40
$DUST Mar 9 35 calls @ .60
$DUST Mar 23 35 calls @ 1.00
$DUST Apr 20 35 call @ 1.60

Trimming back by closing a couple of positions I put on yesterday (with UVXY over 25) for a good profit as volatility came in.
Bought to close:
$UVXY Apr 20 45 call @ 2.90 Sold for 8.00
$UVXY Mar 23 45 call @ 2.00 Sold for 6.00

Up over 1.00 (9%) in what doesn’t look to be connected to VX futures movement (UVXY and VXX are also both up pretty substantially).

Down over 25%

Sold the new highest strike–$UVXY Apr 20 45 call @ 8.00.

I was short a Feb 47 straddle which was doing fine until a few days ago LOL. With the stock down below 45 and bouncing a bit, I am rolling the 47 calls down to 45 for .70 credit to go inverted 47/45. Total premium taken in so far is 2.91 so I’m still at a good profit if XRT finishes between the strikes next week. If it keeps moving down I’ll roll the whole position out to March and try to un-invert it.

According to Yahoo Finance, is 11.61.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ESVXY-IV?p=SVXY-IV

Trading in the low 40s.
VIX futures in strong backwardation:

Replacing some current and upcoming expirations in $AAPL. Sold:
Jun 15 130 put @ 1.60
Jul 20 125 put @ 1.40
Sep 21 120 put @ 1.65

This blew through the strike so I’m rolling today’s $SVXY 114 put out 1 week and down 4 points to Feb 9 110 put for 1.10 credit.

Sold $PYPL Jul 20 62.50 puts @ 1.30 with the stock at 78.22.

Sold $UVXY Mar 9 26 calls @ .74. Highest strike.

We’re awfully close flipping to backwardation. http://vixcentral.com/ At last read, months 1 and 2 were only .05 apart.
If that happens in any meaningful way we should really see an acceleration of SVXY to the downside (and UVXY to the upside).

At the highest strikes available. Sold:
$DUST Sep 21 32 call @ 2.70
$DUST Jan 17 2020 40 call @ 4.50

Sold these this morning (so far):
$SVXY Feb 16 85 put @ 1.45
$SVXY Feb 16 83 put @ 1.40
$SVXY Mar 2 75 put @ 1.30
$SVXY Mar 16 60 puts @ 1.04
$SVXY Apr 20 50 put @ 1.25
$SVXY Jun 15 40 put @ 1.28

$UVXY Mar 2 20 calls @ 1.10
$UVXY Mar 16 30 calls @ 1.03

Sold $UVXY Mar 2 20 calls @ .66 with UVXY at 11.04. Highest strike.

Rolled $NFLX Mar 9 275 calls out to Mar 16 260/290 strangle for .70 credit. Watching closely. I may pull the rip cord if this goes much higher.

$AMZN Jan 26 1255 puts
$BA Jan 26 350 calls
$BA Jan 26 355 calls
$BA Jan 26 330 puts
$BA Jan 26 310 puts
$FB Jan 26 172.50 puts
$SVXY Jan 26 110 puts

No assignments.

At some point this WTF market has to pull back. Maybe when it gets to Jeff’s 2900 level. 🙂

Have a great weekend everyone.

Taking this mostly profitable position off before next week’s earnings report.
Bought to close $FB Feb 16 160 puts @ .34. Sold for 1.25 on 1/12.

Sold $WDC Jul 20 65 put @ 1.20

Going out to August to get some premium at a relatively low delta (these are at 21).
Sold $AAL Aug 17 puts @ 1.17 with the stock at 52.95. IV is still elevated (IVR 57).

Still going really slowly on this.
Sold $SVXY Mar 16 70 put @ 1.20.
Will add at lower strikes and/or higher premium.

Rolled $NFLX Feb 2 265 calls up and out to Mar 9 275 calls for 1.42 credit with the stock at 269.71.

With the strike getting breached at 261.25, I rolled $NFLX Jan 26 260 calls up and out 1 week to Feb 2 265 calls for .35 credit. Let’s see if this thing can’t slow down.

Borrowing an idea from TastyTrade (Liz & Jenny).
Sold $LUV Feb 16 58/67 strangle @ 1.15 with the stock at 62.33. Earnings tomorrow morning.

On the 10% move down, sold $UAL Sep 21 50 puts @ 1.10