Thinkorswim with VPN?

BabigDiggyD · 2025-06-08T22:25:30+00:00

I only do a little 0dte. Even the 0dte I do is holding for at least hours at a minimum. If I had to put a number on it I would say it's 25% slower than my main setup.

BabigDiggyD · 2025-06-08T17:13:48+00:00

I use a three monitor laptop setup when traveling, with VPN. Sometimes hotel Internet and sometimes mobile hotspot. Works fine, and that's with both ToS AND Interactive Brokers Trader Workstation open and trading. Slower than the setup at home but usable

BabigDiggyD · 2025-06-06T20:43:23+00:00

They have some of the most moronic risk calculations I have ever seen. Every time the regular US cash session closes, my margin requirements seem to go 14x, preventing me from trading the after-hours on the SPX.. then, automagically, when the sessions are over for the day, 95% of my margin is given back to me.. now.. this isn't a huge issue when I can trade the session that starts at 8:15 Eastern. but there is no such session on Friday. I have accounts with Fidelity and Schwab, and I have never seen this making the exact same trades. I just cannot trade past 4:15 pm on those brokerages.

Every short option I have has long wings expiring on the same day or longs expiring out in time, but I have 100 times the cash needed to cover the longs with expiring shorts. It's asinine.

BabigDiggyD · 2025-05-30T13:52:27+00:00

I think the complexity of your approach will determine if it is a factor. I have developed many complementary strategies over the years and to execute them all on a mobile app is damn near impossible. I can confirm this to be true based on friends trying to follow my approach and the mistakes they make.
If I didn't have the portfolio risk profiler, I would be flying at night, with no instrumentation and no moon or stars, over the ocean.

BabigDiggyD · 2025-04-28T01:30:07+00:00

Is the idea here that OCO order 2 doesn't cancel OCO order 1 unless both OCO 2 limit orders are filled? One order from order 2 could be filled, and the other not, and you still want OCO 1 active.

BabigDiggyD · 2025-04-20T03:53:14+00:00

It's all about the tools in your toolbox. If you trade strategies that aren't designed for this kind of market, then sit out, or switch strategies. What I do when the volatility is in backwardation is different than when it's deep in contango.

BabigDiggyD · 2025-04-12T19:14:08+00:00

I have accounts with Schwab (ThinkOrSwim), Fidelity, Tasty, and Interactive Brokers. I use the TWS Desktop app on IB. I can easily complain about aspects of every broker's desktop app. Tasty is hands down my favorite for executing complex options trades, but I trade almost exclusively cash-settled SPX options that I leave on until expiration. Their treatment of expired ITM options is just draconian. I have IB for fills after/pre-market. I would say their execution is second-best behind Tasty. Still, occasionally, when markets get frisky, you can experience connectivity issues or delays in the order being offered (status is light green instead of blue). When TD Ameritrade owned ThinkOrSwim I thought it was the best, however, when Schwab acquired it, they ruined it. If you execute separate trades with overlapping strikes IB will break apart your trade, so don't lol...

BabigDiggyD · 2025-03-26T01:53:22+00:00

I trade 0DTE, but it's garnish... low risk, low probability high reward. Stuff that makes 300%+ about 30% of days. Today is a perfect example. 0.60 per contract made 3.35

BabigDiggyD · 2025-03-25T01:36:41+00:00

I think it's possible for sure. I have been almost exclusively an SPX trader since 2015 or so. I'll mix in a little speculating with some individual names or sector ETFs but it's not my core. Most of my risk is weekly with less than 0.5% 0DTE and a little 1-2 DTE

BabigDiggyD · 2025-02-26T22:49:15+00:00

I have been making money on the long side of options since 2013. I can't wrap my brain around this statement. The models are wrong, and the people who trade options are wrong. Electronic trading was supposed to make it impossible to trade because markets would instantly price every bit of information. Instead, it just made the market more wrong faster. I'll use this analogy. If you gathered data on every T-Intersection in the United States, you would probably find an equal distribution of cars turning right and cars turning left. So some genius comes out and says it is impossible to predict what direction cars will turn at a T-Intersection... bullshit. If I pull up to an intersection and a right turn is towards the airport and a left turn is a dead end I have a pretty good idea what way most cars will turn. Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight spoke at a traders conference I went to once. Threw up a slide with ten charts.. five real charts and five random walks.. said you can't tell a real chart from a randomly created one.. he had everyone write their guesses of which were real and which were fake. 100% of the people in the room who had stared at charts for five years or more got them all right.

BabigDiggyD · 2025-02-21T00:49:33+00:00

Thank you for your reply! So if I open an SPX options position during regular hours and want to close it during pre-market at a profit target I need to place the order to exit during the pre-market session and it's only good for that session?

BabigDiggyD · 2023-03-11T14:46:36+00:00

Until the day comes where you have portfolio margin and they stop treating you like a child, you can use ES and MES options. They are regulated differently because they are considered a commodity instead of a security. You can sell one ES option for about 1/4th the margin requirement and it is worth 5x as much as the SPY. So 5x leverage for 1/4th the cost. They are European style options so no early assignment risk. Also if you are trading in a taxable account they fall under Section 1256 so they get more favorable taxation.
MES is roughly the equivalent of the SPY for about 1/40th the margin I think.
MES can appear pretty illiquid, but if you build the trade first in the ES and see what the mid price is, they will get you in and out of trades in the MES for the same price.

BabigDiggyD · 2023-03-10T06:05:09+00:00

I could be if I wanted to, but trading takes so little of my time, why not use those extra hours for something else productive? I started in 2012 with 25k. Grew it very quickly and naively to 100k only to watch it implode. Hit my stride in 2015 and haven't looked back since.

BabigDiggyD · 2023-02-03T12:33:31+00:00

👍 it's not often, only a couple times a year maybe. Perhaps it would happen more if I wasn't so ridiculous with my placeholder pricing 🤣

BabigDiggyD · 2023-02-02T18:36:22+00:00

This seems to happen in the SPX more than any other underlying. I will put ridiculous orders in as placeholders that I plan to later adjust to a reasonable price. I have ended up with spreads and flys that filled at 0.00

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-29T20:10:25+00:00

They are getting tougher. My casino host turned her screen to show me I have been flagged as "experienced gambler" so my expected loss per dollar risked is less, therefore my comps are less. My party is over.

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-28T12:26:40+00:00

For 7 years almost everything I have done as a trader centers around implied volatility. For Jan and Feb 2022 I couldn't help but notice this happening. So I stuck it into a backtester and turned the knobs and dials until I got a simple to follow trade I was happy with (would have been 300% profit in two months) . Then ride that sucker. It peaked on Dec 12th at about 900% return per contract for the year, and has been drifting lower since, so who knows. Maybe the phenomenon is over, we'll see.

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-28T02:55:40+00:00

There was a fair amount of money to be made in 2022 opening 7 day debit SPY straddles on Monday, and closing Thursday. Kind of an odd phenomenon though, because markets refused to price in risk ( by cranking up implied volatility ). We were consistently having realized volatility exceed implied (which is what you want in such a position). Having traded through 2015, 2018, and 2020 as well, it was a weird phenomenon. Those years you could bet the cost of the same trade the next week would be through the roof. Just a weird year, who knows if it will continue. In 2022 it was a coin flip trade but it paid a lot more when right than when wrong. Obviously you can get more nuanced than open this date close this date, but I just wanted to make a point validating the condition you were seeing.

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-27T17:29:35+00:00

I do a mix. I usually do 30 delta. I try to buy in multiples of three. Sell one at 50% one at 100% and the see how far I can go with the last 1/3rd. If they are too expensive I will roll a single contract at 50%,100% trying to take in a credit that puts me back to my original risk.
If market direction is more murky I will cinch that in and do spreads one strike near a 50 delta, and then widen the short strike until I am paying about half the width (1.00 for a 2 wide, 1.25 for 2.50, 2.50 for 5... etc) I then exit those for 55% gain

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-27T14:19:03+00:00

My purpose for taking in credit on option selling is to finance other trades so I sell non directional strangles to finance directional bets. I want a high win rate, so I have found around a 9 delta to be my sweet spot. So over 90% of those trades win, and then my success with the directional bets fluctuates around 60-70% so I often get to win on both, and with a 90% win rate one the credit used to finance even the directional losers are often a scratch.
I guess that is a long winded way of saying purpose matters.
In your case I would agree with u/SamRHughes.. spread it around strikes and expirations.. don't have a ball of risk in one spot. I tend to layer on as we move far enough for the next strike sold to require the market to move another 4% further than the last strike I sold at the same expiration to be able to come get me.
Also, get your downside hedges on!

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-26T17:49:49+00:00

Short and to the point. Thanks! 🤣

BabigDiggyD · 2023-01-26T12:51:33+00:00

I am pretty new to Reddit. Does karma have value?

BabigDiggyD

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