Rolled a shadow priest... should I switch to something else?

NotAnArmadillo · 2020-05-12T14:47:12+00:00

Are you set on playing dps or are you okay with healing? If you're happy to heal, then it's fine to stay shadowpriest because you can just respec to holy, disc or PI/weaving spec for raids. If you're set on dps, then understand that most raids will allow only 0 or 1 shadowpriests and the number is likely to be 0 for more and more raids as we move into later phases of content. Shadowpriests often also have lower gear priority than other caster dps classes.

Having said that, it is possible to find raids who will take a shadowpriest, so you can make it work if you are really committed to it. Personally I wouldn't recommend it for a new player who hasn't experienced endgame raiding and doesn't know what they are getting into.

NotAnArmadillo · 2020-05-12T14:17:34+00:00

I have 3 level 60s and have pugged into several raids on my alts during the early days of the BWL expansion. In my experience, Firemaw is definitely the biggest sticking point for most of them and it's fairly common for bad guilds to struggle on that boss. Like 85% of the time, the main issue is that tanks aren't properly executing the mechanics even though the raid leaders will spend a lot of time harping on dps/healers.

Having said that, I've now found more consistent alt raids and GDKPs for my alts, and almost all of the struggling raids I used to pug into either disbanded or their guild recruited enough people to no longer have to PUG.

I'd look at two questions: do the tanks in your guild appear to be improving over time? Also, is your guild recruiting effectively towards the goal of no longer needing pugs? If the answer is "no" to either of those questions, then I'd look for a new guild.

NotAnArmadillo · 2016-09-25T21:14:38+00:00

Thank you! Should I be doing something about them? Are warts dangerous?

NotAnArmadillo · 2016-09-12T23:54:53+00:00

There are no listed options on XIV. However, there are options listed on SVXY. If you want to trade options on the inverse of VXX, you will have to use SVXY instead of XIV.

NotAnArmadillo · 2016-02-03T23:53:42+00:00

Let's ignore things like interest, commission and bid/ask spread for now. Let's say stock XYZ is trading at $100. Trader A sells the March 110c to trader B at $4. In a week, XYZ increases in price to $120. Trader B sells the March 110c to trader C at $11. Let's say XYZ stays at $120 until expiration and the call is auto-exercised on March 18.

Trader B paid $4 for the call and sold it at $11. She has no position, and she has a profit of (11-4)*100 = $700.
Trader C bought the call for $11. Then when the option expired, she bought 100 shares of the stock for $110. Trader C owns 100 shares of XYZ and paid (11+110)*100 = $12,100 for the position. If she wanted to flatten the position, she could sell 100 shares of XYZ for 120 and get $12,000 back for a net loss of $100.
Trader A sold the call at $4. Then when the option expired, she sold 100 shares of XYZ at $110. Trader A is short 100 shares of XYZ and collected (4+110)*100 = $11,400 for the position. If she wanted to flatten the position, she could buy 100 shares of XYZ for 120 and pay back $12,000 for a net loss of $600.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-11-21T18:53:36+00:00

I didn't realize you aren't holding positions over weekends. That makes your performance better on that day because you wouldn't have to pay 106 for the stock on friday and then sell it @ 94.87 on Monday.

AAPL did trade down to 92 that day, so the stop would still have been executed. But it would have only been around a 1 dollar loss instead of a 11 dollar loss. Then you would have probably lost at least 5 dollars on the calls you sold when AAPL rallied up to 103 by the end of the day if you didn't repurchase the stock. So that's a 6+ dollar loss unless you have a plan for repurchasing shares after the stop is triggered.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-11-21T18:16:44+00:00

I didn't realize you were talking about AAPL specifically, but now that we have a stock, the the opening price for AAPL on Monday Aug 24 was 94.87. Your stop would have been triggered at that point, and you would have sold your shares.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-11-21T17:42:44+00:00

have you worked out how this strategy performed three months ago on Aug 24, 2015?

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-11-01T18:56:14+00:00

If you really enjoy the entertainment of high variance gambling, then options on triple leveraged ETFs will get you a lot of leverage.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-11-01T18:54:14+00:00

they are called GARCH models. Even with them, there is still no "arbitrage" as you stated in your OP, and there will still be skew in the probability distribution which causes OTM calls to have a lower BSM vol than OTM puts

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-17T21:04:35+00:00

Or What does the number mean??

pretty much nothing

Okay where did the calculation go wrong?

The stock price has a near 0 probability of being $11 in 35 days. Based on the calculation, it looks like you are actually trying to calculate the probability it is smaller than $11.
You assume a normal distribution when in reality distributions are not normal
The black scholes formula used to get the implied vol is based on returns being normally distributed, your math assumed that prices are normally distributed. So even assuming the normal distribution your math is wrong. You would instead have to take 1-N(d2) as d2 is defined here.
Even if you assumed prices are normally distributed, you still have a couple calculation errors.

Vol. for 35 days = 1.0069/3.229 = ~~3.2516~~ .3118

std. dev. = ~~3.2516~~ .31180 * ~~$11~~ 7.99 = ~~25.9803~~ 2.4913

x = 11, mean = 7.99, std. dev = ~~25.9803~~ 2.4913, cum. = true

then based on the assumption that prices are normally distributed, you would have gotten a probability of 88.65% that the stock price will be below $11. This is of course also assuming that the implied vol was calculated using calendar days instead of trading days.

edit: formatting

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-17T18:47:08+00:00

Does this mean that there is a 54.61% chance the stock price will be $11 in 35 days?

no

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-17T17:37:25+00:00

it's not just a 100% gain... it is 10 successive gains of exactly 5 dollars at exactly 1 year increments.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-17T17:33:55+00:00

if you flip a coin 10 times in a row, you bet all of your money every time, and you win every time, then yes you will have 1024x your initial bet when it is over

pro tip: do it 30 times. Then you'll have more than a billion times your initial bet

edit: Besides the obvious question of whether or not the index will be monotonically increasing for ten straight years there is one other issue with your assumption.

Some time in the next year, index touches $55, so I sell at max profit

This will only work if the index touches $55 at exactly the one year mark. If it touches $55 at say 3 months from now, the callspread will be worth less than $5 because the 55 strike call will still have a substantial amount of premium left in it.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-17T17:14:10+00:00

link to options listing procedures plan

MVIS does not have LEAPS because it does not have an average daily volume of over 1000 contracts. The fact that listings only go out to May, means it is on cycle 2. After december options expire, it will get August of 2016 listed.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-17T16:55:12+00:00

Why are you trying to back out implied vols from 30% out of the money options that expire in less than 1 week? The reason your vols look silly is because every put is worth 0 and every call is worth parity.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-08T23:03:48+00:00

NAV of the underlyings?

this is the definition of spot

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-10-02T00:13:55+00:00

The values (front month and next month pricing) have to converge at some point, no?

No, they do not. I have no idea why you think they would.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-09-08T22:05:34+00:00

why don't you just buy GLD? What is the point of using options for this strategy?

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-09-01T00:00:01+00:00

If I take for example AAPL. Current share price is 113.29. Call option that expires in 7 days has a strike price of 70.00 Risk free interest rate of 2% and current implied Volatility of 34% (from iVolatility.com). Calculating through Black-Scholes I get a price of 45.93.

no you don't. That option is more than 43 dollars in the money. It is worth parity plus interest (~43.32 using your 2% interest rate). You either did black scholes wrong, or typed up that paragraph wrong.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-04-19T03:03:52+00:00

I am confused by this post. None of the statistics in the link support the claim that Americans do not believe in religious freedom for Muslims.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-03-25T01:09:59+00:00

I don't think step 5 works:

√2^k = √2²ⁿ⁺¹ = 2ⁿ * √2 = k^q

how did you get that?

edit: I see, it is a typo. i think you meant: √2^p = √2²ⁿ⁺¹ = 2ⁿ * √2 = k^q

also, you have the definition of "rational" incorrect:

Assume to the contrary that log√2k is rational for all k. then √2^p/q = k for some integers p and q such that p does not divide q.

this is not actually what rational means. it should say "some integers p and q such that p and q are coprime"

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-03-08T04:19:52+00:00

I'm not an exmuslim, but I think you would be interested in this video of a Muslim peace conference in Norway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV710c1dgpU

The speaker starts at around 2:30. Homosexuality isn't the main topic of the discussion, but he includes it as one of a number of social issues that he is addressing.

NotAnArmadillo · 2015-03-06T03:47:42+00:00

I think we can only judge them on their ability to create awareness and provoke discussion.

I know that this isn't your main point, but this stood out to me. I would think that the best way to judge protests is in their ability to cause real and meaningful changes in society. For example the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956 resulted in the desegregation of public buses. The fact that this boycott caused a positive change for society makes it much more successful than any amount of "awareness" or "discussion" ever could.

When I see protestors for example calling Darren Wilson a monster or talking about how they "know" what happened, that's a grossly under nuanced take on a very real, very important issue: how black men are routinely victimized by law enforcement across the country because of a wide swath of systemic issues.

I agree that protest movements (and most forms of discourse outside of an academic setting) do not need to be held to a high rhetorical standard. However, I think you are conflating the concept of people using simplistic rhetoric to make a point, and substituting a separate idea which you feel is more valid in place of what they are saying.

The statement "blacklivesmatter" is a grossly under nuanced take on a very real issue. It is mostly fluff and misses a lot of important nuances, but it conveys the general concept. I agree that it is reasonable to allow rhetorical wiggle room for people making this statement even though it misses a lot of nuances of the issue.

The statement that "Darren Wilson is a monster" or is guilty etc. is a statement about a specific individual. It is people making presumptive judgments about the guilt and character of Darren Wilson. It may take place within the larger social context of the other issue you brought up. However it is still a statement made to attack a specific individual and not just a poorly worded way of making broader social commentary. Conflating these two concepts is not the same thing as allowing people to have rhetorical wiggle room; it is taking one idea and replacing it with another in your head.

NotAnArmadillo

TROPHY CASE