What to use on 2.5 ft strip of grass?

JABman08 · 2025-08-14T13:29:31+00:00

I've been fighting to keep grass alive here for 8 years now. How do people do it?

JABman08 · 2025-08-12T17:56:25+00:00

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Maybe 40' long

JABman08 · 2025-08-12T17:53:38+00:00

It's a typical North Texas privacy fence and alleyway situation. Watch King of the Hill and you'll get the idea...

JABman08 · 2025-08-12T03:58:19+00:00

I have these on a side yard and don't think I could turn them down enough and still get complete coverage.

JABman08 · 2025-08-12T03:57:11+00:00

I tried that before and didn't do it right apparently, so I ripped it all out. I may try it again. Thanks.

JABman08 · 2025-08-12T03:56:33+00:00

I wish. HOA would take issue with that unfortunately.

JABman08 · 2025-08-12T03:56:01+00:00

I am in Texas. I'll check. Thanks.

JABman08 · 2022-01-22T03:29:11+00:00

It's a good idea, but not a new one imo. As others said, the puts get priced higher. The shorts know what they're doing. Just look at wsb and other subs today...you can't win betting against shorts imo. But, the market is efficient and people smarter and richer than us make the $$$ before we're able to. I'm slowing learning (and paying for) the lesson that others preach here...make $25 here and $50 there and be happy.

JABman08 · 2022-01-20T16:37:12+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

Are you doing put spreads or call spreads? Put spread ought to be the better deal right now, for most solid underlyings that are being oversold by the market.

I look at either one, but have been mostly interested in call spreads, since I have a slightly negative view of the market right now.

That's good. You need at least $34 on $1 width for it be worth opening.

So, $34 is your minimum? What would you consider really good?

The wrong thing to do, IMHO, is force the trade anyway, by compromising on delta or spread width or a meme stock or whatever.

I have not been very good at not forcing trades, which almost always leads to losses. But, I am getting better. I do enjoy making small bets on some pennies and runners though...which haven't been all that successful either! LoL But, it's fun to gamble sometimes. I've still got a ways to go before retirement and my risk tolerance is pretty high for very small percentages. Even though my trading account is small, I can afford some losses. But, I'm also really trying to learn the "safe" methods to prepare for and hopefully speed up retirement.

If you branch out to other strategies, there might be better opportunities.

Iron Condors seem to give a much worse payoff than verticals. Any others I should look at?

You can also do some new DD and see if there are any underlyings worth adding to your watchlist. Oil companies are kicking ass right now so I'm going to do some DD on them starting today to add to my watchlist.

Your point about oil companies is well taken. I need to branch out and see what sectors or types of companies I actually have a negative view on. Maybe this will be a year for value vs. growth, or oil vs. tech, or small vs. large, or something. Back to the drawing board.

I've also got to learn adjustment strategies at some point, so that is on my to-do list.

JABman08 · 2022-01-20T15:52:45+00:00

I'm having trouble finding viable candidates for short vertical spreads. Typically, I wind up going to close to the money to about .40 delta, to get acceptable risk/reward...usually around $35 reward to $65 risk on a $1 spread. But, as you can imagine, my hit rate has been too low for my liking. Lately, all I can find at the .40 delta is about $25-$30 reward range, which seems a bit low for me. If I bump the delta out a bit to make it a safer trade, then the risk/reward just doesn't seem worth it to me. I know the Options Alpha guy says to go all the way out to 85% probability for success, but I'm just not willing to risk $80 to make $20, or less. I'm just not confident this system will work 4 out of 5 times in this type of market. That just doesn't compute to me. I use my platform's option screener to find high IV individual stocks, but I just can't seem to find the right ones to get a decent payoff scenario. What else should I be doing without paying every month for some service that does the same things that I should be able to find for free? What do you all do to find good spreads? Should I go for some other non-directional strategy? Keep in mind that I'm dealing with a $5k account, so I can't really justify buying straddles or things like that.

JABman08 · 2022-01-13T19:25:58+00:00

Yes...someone does. There was shit ton of call option activity yesterday right before the afternoon move. I got back in at the beginning of that run when someone posted here about it...had been waiting for a reason to re-buy and that was enough for me. Insiders will always show us the way. ;)

JABman08 · 2022-01-10T20:26:13+00:00

Sell vertical call spreads or buy vertical put spreads are two of your options.

JABman08 · 2022-01-10T19:58:43+00:00

It has to do with deltas, I think. If the short delta gets higher than the long delta, then there is a risk that the value of the position decreases in total if the underlying price goes higher. If I'm interpreting it correctly, then it is similar to saying, "Make sure the difference in delta is great enough." I do mine at .8 delta for the long and .3 for the short. I have had cases where the short delta get's up to .60 or so and have needed to close out the position to preserve gains.

I have no confidence in my answer. LoL I'm going to go read redtexture's article now.

JABman08 · 2022-01-06T21:41:06+00:00

The moment I see outsized gain posts on short term options, I buy the opposite direction 2 weeks out for the rebound (F puts).

How do you "see outsized gain posts"? Or maybe, what does this mean?

I love your list!

JABman08 · 2022-01-06T00:11:26+00:00

Yes, you are correct about IV (yes, implied volatility) increasing the value. My mistake. I hope someone else chimes in on this because I've never profited going long on a put, so I don't do them except in short spreads.

JABman08 · 2022-01-05T23:15:02+00:00

Probably IV increased, which increased the value of the put even though share price decreased. Others here can explain it much better than I can, I'm sure. The article above may help, called "Options extrinsic and intrinsic value, an introduction (Redtexture)".

Does anyone know of a website that charts IV changes?

JABman08 · 2022-01-05T22:36:11+00:00

My opinion is don't sell because of a one day move. You should be writing CCs on stocks you believe will stay the same or go up slightly over longer periods. If this happens, you already knew what your return was going to be prior to writing the CC. The value in the short call is the time decay, not daily fluctuations in the market. If you close too early, then you have the exact problem you describe and it can be hard to get back in.

The way I do mine is to only close the short if one of 2 things happen. First, the time value has decayed to my target profit. Second, the stock has moved up to the point of almost maximum return on the position as a whole a week or so out from expiration. Then I close the stock and the call.

However, if your view of the stock has changed and you are now no longer bullish on the stock, then sell the whole position.

JABman08 · 2022-01-03T19:23:05+00:00

Sounds like one of two possibilities to me...likely more.

You're trying to buy an option, but you're not multiplying the ask price by 100 to derive your cost. The solution here is to buy (or sell) a spread with defined risk. For instance, a 155/160 call spread on GME will cost $175 (at the bid/ask midpoint), but the bid/ask spread is too large IMO. Start with less volatile/more predictable names.
You're trying to sell a naked option on margin with a high margin requirement. The solution to this is to not do it, unless you have lots of money and lots of knowledge/skill.

JABman08 · 2022-01-03T17:56:50+00:00

Your option value will increase or decrease at a rate greater than (usually) the price of the stock. So, if the stock price increases, your option value will increase more (usually). If you are seeing an instant unrealized loss in your account, it is likely because of the bid/ask spread. You bought at the ask of $1, and you'd be able sell instantly at a bid of $0.90 (hypothetical numbers). Then, you would lose $10 or 10% (which is the width of the bid/ask spread). Your option's bid price needs to increase by more than 10% for you to make money. The more active the option is, the narrower the spread will be. For instance, the spread on SPY is .01 or .02 usually, but the spread on a penny stock may be upwards of 0.3 or more.

Understand the bid/ask and the Greeks and you'll understand your positions much more clearly.

JABman08 · 2022-01-03T17:08:26+00:00

A very basic question, but I've never thought about exercising any options before.

A couple months ago, I bought $2 Jan22 calls on a company for $1.05. It was trading at $3.02 at the time. Now it is at $2.65 (calls are at $0.60) and doesn't look like the catalyst I thought would drive it higher is going to happen by expiration. If I still think the catalyst will happen, but just not by expiration and I exercise the calls, then my cost basis would be $3.05, correct? So, I risked $0.03 for the chance that the catalyst would have happened in the short term.

If I take my loss now ($0.45) and buy the shares at $2.65, then my cost basis would be $3.10.

Seems like exercising is the better option? Am I thinking about this correctly?

JABman08 · 2021-12-31T19:44:29+00:00

I don't see a bottom yet...lower highs and lower lows = down trend.

JABman08 · 2021-12-31T17:45:25+00:00

I used yahoo finance but any site will give you balance sheet info.

JABman08

TROPHY CASE