By Ted Nino
One of the most solid, steady, robust, reliable, and profitable strategies available to us option traders is the iron condor spread.
When the stock market is calm and quiet – you don’t have to do much at all to quickly realize a profit with these trades. In fact, it’s so hypnotizing that it’s actually sort of difficult to stick to your rules and take the darn thing off when you pass through your profit target for the month.
But, I guess the same thing could be said for our other bread and butter monthly income strategies as well – like the butterfly spread, the diagonal, the calendar and the double calendar. At least during those beautifully lazy, calm, quiet trading months.
What sets the iron condor spread apart from the others is how this trade performs during extreme market conditions.
Ever since the crash in late 2008, theta positive, monthly income option trading has been a challenging endeavor to say the least Yeah – they work and they can still bring in good income – but as anyone who has traded them in the current environment – they all take a lot more ‘work’.
However – the iron condor spread – has, and continues to work incredibly well – even with volatility levels going off the map. I’ve traded calendars, and butterflies, and diagonals – and a lot of other option strategies through this more wild time in the market – and I have to say the strategy that stands out head and shoulder above the others is the iron condor spread. It’s the most robust – the most consistent – the easiest to manage – it absorbs big moves the best. It’s the trade the has given me the least amount of problems – and the most amount of profits.
And yes, even though I do love butterfly spreads – and I do love calendars – and double calendars – and double diagonals… well, yeah, they’re okay too.
I just prefer – in a big way – the iron condor strategy.
Oh lordy.
Just thinking and talking about it gets me all sniffly and teary and ’emotional’.
Hold on one moment please. Allow me to get my composure here…
Okay – what it all boils down to is this…
If a good for nothing, toothless, smelly, pants-on-the-ground, gansta kicked open the door to my trading room, shuffled in and demanded at gun point that I choose just 1 trading strategy to trade for the rest of my days – without blinking an eye I’d select the iron condor strategy.
Iron Condor – I love you.
Oh geez…where’s a kleenex…
This author has over five years of expertise working with iron condor adjustments . You can get the solutions to your questions about architecture, such as concerns like “is options trading really worth the investment?” at his site which includes the specified section of trading iron condors.