Market Crash

Did anyone know what happened to the stock market? Based on briefing.com In Play, this is what this was reported at 14:38 ET:

---

Floor Talk: This afternoon's abrupt sell-off

The markets rolled over about a half hour ago, with the decline notable for the sharp sell-off in big-cap technology stocks. While there was some initial confusion as to whether something specific sparked it, it appears the following things could account for it: 1) a tier-1 firm came out with cautious intraday comments on the tech sector; 2) a different tier-1 firm came out negative on BIDU, which took down a host of momentum tech stocks; and 3) ECB governor Weber stated that, although the ECB had temporarily paused its rate hikes, in his opinion the ECB may need to raise rates to a "restrictive" level... Dow lost over 100 points in a half hour, Nasdaq lost over 30 points.

---

Baidu dived from 359 to 301, luckily I'm not in this. So did many technology stocks (like GOOG, RIMM, AAPL, ISRG, etc etc) and investment stocks (like GS etc). Look at the index chart below and focus at the 'dive' portion from 2pm ET onwards.

But, I'm into a spread yesterday for S&P 500 (SPX). S&P 500 dived from 1,576 to 1,546 and I'm into this with the weekly options 1,555/1,570 Bull Put Spread. My maximum loss was supposed to be $6,600 and I converted it to a Iron Condor by having another 1,555/1,570 Bear Call Spread to offset the loss towards the last minute. The Bear Call Spread gave me $1,750, making my SPX loss limited to $4,850 (which is still quite high for me!!).

Market Crash!

8 cents profit from an US$1.7K investment!

On friday, I entered a credit spread on $SPY. I 'risked' US$1,725 to earn a measly US$75 profit(which translated to only 4.3%). There's a total of 18 pairs of spreads (i.e. 36 legs).

Unfortunately, the trade was executed on optionsXpress and the commissions summed up to US$74.92! If you still don't understand what it meant, my net profit is only US$0.08!!!

Once again, Stupid me to invest US$1,725 to earn US$0.08!!!

First win on New Trading Platform

Recently, I found a trading platform called MB Trading that requires only $1 commission per contract (for options). I used to trade with (and still using) optionsXpress, but the commission is at least $14.95.

I just tried using MB Trading and managed to squeeze out my first win on this platform. Here's the details:

1. Underlying Stock: FMC, trading ~93.00

2. FMC's stock is spliting 2:1, payable on 13/9 and executing on 14/9.

3. Buy to Open @ 93.06 and Sell to Close @ 93.57

4. I bought FMC Oct 90 Call at 5.30 and sold at 5.70: 7.5% profit in 42 minutes.

Typically, if I trade only 1 contract with gross profit $40 (based on the same trade), I will only make $10.10 (= $40 - 2 comm x $14.95). But now, with MB Trading, I can make $38 (commission summed up to only $2). So if you are a new options trader and trade small number of contracts, it's good to use MB Trading. Otherwise, optionsXpress is excellent for big time traders.

ps: Please note MB Trading doesn't support options spread (MB Trading is incorporating the spreads within 2 to 3 months). Anyway, the spread order (up to 4 legs) optionsXpress also costs only $14.95, so it's not too bad and OX has excellent trading infrastructure.

pps: When I trade, I usually look into the ROI percentage rather than the absolute amount. You may not think $40 is any great; but if you see 7.5% return in 42 minutes, you'll know what I mean!

ppps: Imagine you are buying stock of FMC @ 93.06 and selling it @ 93.57, your ROI is only 0.5% compared to 7.5% through trading options. You do the math.