In my last blog, I outlined the trade that I had developed over the past week, the iron condor on SPX with the weekly options that expired today, the 2030/2040 put spreads and the 2130/2140 call spreads. I sold the 2030/2040 put spreads on Thursday of last week, based on the strong bounce off of $2050 that day. Earlier this week, that position looked very solid and I added the 2130/2140 call spreads. I was patting myself on the back. I was confident my put spreads were "money in the bank" and the 2130/2140 calls were far enough OTM to be quite safe.
But then the Brits surprised us and the markets went crazy. When I checked the S&P futures early this morning, they were around $2025. This was after a close at $2113 yesterday - wow! SPX opened this morning and traded down to $2056 in the first ten minutes of trading and the VIX spiked as high as 26% intraday and closed at 25.8%. But intraday trading in SPX was pretty steady and calm throughout the day. This was even more surprising when considering the huge volume spike, up over 100% on the NYSE and NASDAQ. If today had been a normal trading day, I could have easily closed those 2030/2040 put spreads this afternoon for a modest debit. But not today, the market makers didn't want to let me out for a reasonable debit. I would have closed at a loss.
My credit was $325 per contract, so breakeven for the entire position was $2036.75. At that price, my 2040 calls would lose $325 per contract and the position would break-even. About 2-3 minutes before the close of trading today, SPX was above $2040 and I was poised to achieve my maximum gain. I felt like Charlie Brown as Lucy pulled the ball away, and SPX traded down to $2037.41. My 2040 puts expired ITM by $2.59, thus leaving me with a gain of $66 per contract or +10%. That was frustrating, but on a day like today, a 10% gain is blissful.
The iron condor positions in my Flying With The Condor™ service were actually helped by today's pullback; both the July and August positions are up several percent. There is a lot to be said for trading far OTM iron condor positions with 60+ days to expiration.
Where do we go from here? I don't claim to be a global economist, but I don't see what substantially changed today. By Euro Zone rules, this British exit will take many months if not a couple of years. Maybe I am missing something, but I think it was the surprise that spooked the markets. If I'm right, we will see some buying opportunities over the next few weeks. But then, maybe the sky is indeed falling...