02-02-2011, 03:26 PM
Breand, the interface in Etrade is confusing as well, took me a while to figure it out. Now I have it down pat, though. With e-trade at least, the key is to use a "net debit" when buying. That means you specify the maximum difference between the prices you will pay.
So if you are buying at call at $345 for about $42.90, and selling a call at $375 for about $29.60, you'd say to price it at a "net debit" of say $13.30. That means the broker will make sure you never pay more than $1330 per contract. To sell them you just reverse it.
I sold the first of my spreads today (for QQQQ), and it seemed to go fine. I've gone into it in a big way, now have spreads for AAPL, POT, MSFT, AMZN, SBUX, FFIV, INTC, HAS, QQQQ, and RBCN. Some are doing better than others, with POT really zooming up right now (thanks to Egypt).
So if you are buying at call at $345 for about $42.90, and selling a call at $375 for about $29.60, you'd say to price it at a "net debit" of say $13.30. That means the broker will make sure you never pay more than $1330 per contract. To sell them you just reverse it.
I sold the first of my spreads today (for QQQQ), and it seemed to go fine. I've gone into it in a big way, now have spreads for AAPL, POT, MSFT, AMZN, SBUX, FFIV, INTC, HAS, QQQQ, and RBCN. Some are doing better than others, with POT really zooming up right now (thanks to Egypt).
Ex SWG, L2, CoH, Wow, and War
Currently PvPing in the stock market
Currently PvPing in the stock market