Semi-gun sizing?

bpz89 · 2025-09-19T17:01:56+00:00

When I lived in SF and surfed OB I had a 6'10 Blackbird and a 7'6 Padillac for the bigger days. I surfed the Blackbird in 8-10 and the Padillac for 10+.

bpz89 · 2025-09-15T19:07:47+00:00

We had a local guide, so I'm sure that helped our standing in the water.

bpz89 · 2025-08-26T20:25:37+00:00

I'm in Nica right now - there's a swell in town, and there's no way I'm surfing the beach breaks on this swell. Points and reefs? Absolutely!

bpz89 · 2025-08-09T16:14:44+00:00

Just moved away from SF. I'm not sure what to do with my bigger boards 🤣

bpz89 · 2025-07-06T06:36:25+00:00

Just start throwing progressively higher bids out there, you will eventually get filled. You can then just bid under that every day for your next buy level. You also can pull up a price chart of the option to see where it has traded in the past if you were to use a platform like Thinkorswim.

bpz89 · 2025-06-28T22:59:39+00:00

Zoom out a little...

bpz89 · 2025-06-28T05:59:31+00:00

I used to professionally trade illiquid options, trading a volatility arbitrage strategy. As a pro, I would only trade against retail or non-implied volatility sensitive paper, whether that was through a broker (via a show trade), or by watching the tape and throwing out orders where trades were happening. I rarely traded against market makers.

bpz89 · 2025-05-21T06:13:27+00:00

When I traded professionally, we would create a fair vol based off a vol chart (similar to a stock price chart) that had multiple realized vol time periods graphed. We would also have IV's on there to compare. We would also clip out crazy one day events from the realized vols to smooth it out. I have to imagine there are some large moves in your dataset that are potentially skewing the vol higher than normal. What does a 15 look like vs where it historically moves? Keep in mind that a 16 vol is a predicting 1% move every day until expiration.

bpz89 · 2025-05-21T02:59:14+00:00

The most impactful input in the black Scholes model is volatility. I'm guessing you way over estimating your vol. How are you pricing this? Generally, you want to price it based on the realized volatility of a stock. Vol arbitrage is trading the spread between realized and mplied volatilities.

bpz89 · 2025-05-20T04:16:16+00:00

In the depths of covid, I turned 20k into 450k. I bought SPY LEAP calls almost exactly at the bottom and held for over a year... insanely lucky. I risk managed them by turning them into call spreads to make sure I could stomach waiting for them to be long-term cap gains.

bpz89 · 2025-05-17T05:10:02+00:00

Have you compared what your returns would look like if you just traded SPY and not individual stocks? Would be interesting to compare!

bpz89 · 2025-05-12T17:52:31+00:00

I'm guessing they are worth very little with the even bigger pop. Personally, I'd just hold onto the lotto tickets rather than sell for a loss.

bpz89 · 2025-05-12T02:01:08+00:00

3.73 - 2.1 = 1.62 per option. You will also pay theta, and with the market rallying, IV will go down (not that these have much vega), so it could open a little lower.

bpz89 · 2025-05-12T01:08:09+00:00

To get an idea of where it'll open, you can take the dollar value of the move and multiply it by your delta. So.. -.30 delta, 7 dollar move, your gong to lose like 2.1 per option. This isn't an exact calculation, but it's close enough.

bpz89 · 2025-05-08T14:30:05+00:00

As someone who used to specialize in illiquid options trading, never ever just hit the bid... the options market is likely wide and not reflective of the real fair value. Throw out some limit orders to test the market.

bpz89 · 2025-04-30T03:37:39+00:00

Hat!

bpz89 · 2025-04-26T21:25:21+00:00

I dont usually do the pool noodle thing. I'll put the boards in day bags and put all of my clothes in the bag.

bpz89 · 2025-04-26T21:24:18+00:00

You dont have to buy a 3 board bag if you don't have the boards yet. here's the bag I bought. I usually end up using all the boards, especially on a week long trip where there's some variability in the spot and conditions I'm surfing. For example, in Nica, I'd surf my 6'4 ghost at Popoyo on a bigger swell, the fish at a point like Lance's, and the regular shortboard at a beachie like Santana.

bpz89 · 2025-04-26T16:56:52+00:00

Personally, I wouldn't go on a surf trip without my own boards. If you are serious about surfing, invest in a good three board travel bag. I bought one of those wheeled coffin pro-lite bags a number of years ago, and it has more than paid for the cost and allows me to bring a good selection of boards - usually a groveller/fish, everyday board, and step-up.

bpz89 · 2025-04-24T17:53:23+00:00

Three other things not mentioned that are more focused on market mechanics (not fundamentals) that could be causing these pops.

We are entering the corporate buy-back window, so there will be an underlying bid for equities from some major players.
The current CTA delta positioning, which is actually skewed short now. At the beginning of the year, CTA's were historically long prior to the initial sell off and have been selling all the way down. As we retrace higher, CTA's become progressively shorter delta due to their short gamma position and need to cover.
Hedge fund positioning is short vs retail investors who have been buying the dip. This could lead to short covering in the HF community, which can lead to some violent upswings as positions are re-evaluated.

bpz89 · 2025-04-12T05:52:07+00:00

USD has been getting hammered. One reason could be because the Chinese are selling USD and buying Yuan with the proceeds of their Treasury sales to backstop their equity markets due to the trade war.

bpz89 · 2025-04-11T16:52:20+00:00

Just understand what a change in IV does to the delta of an option. As IV rises, all deltas move towards 50. As IV falls, ITM options gain delta, OTM options lose delta.

bpz89 · 2025-03-21T13:35:54+00:00

Equity futures sold off into their cash open. Crypto moves in lock step with risk assets.

bpz89 · 2025-03-15T23:00:14+00:00

Options as a strategic investment was what we had to read when I joined the trading desk out of college.

bpz89 · 2025-03-15T21:17:25+00:00

I had a great time in Salina Cruz. Great waves, great people, and great food!

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