I Lost It All Trading Iron Condors
Hi everybody and welcome to San Jose Options. In this demonstration we will be discussing the dangers of Iron Condors. The Condor is an excellent income strategy, but there are ways to do it correctly and ways not to do it. The purpose of this article is to make every option trader aware of the risks that are involved in trading option spreads if you do not know what you are doing. In particular, trading iron condors close to expiration is very high risk and can lead to catastrophic losses to your trading capital.
In this article you’ll find an embedded video. This video is a good demonstration of how NOT to trade Iron Condors.
Specifically, this video is on trading an Iron Condor on the SPY with less than one month to go for expiration. The problem with this strategy is that the underlying symbol does not have very much time or wiggle room. Often times the option trader will bring his trade into the last week of expiration, and the underlying will be right next to the short strike which is extremely dangerous. This is a typical Iron Condor that is taught in 99% of the courses on the Internet. This is the Iron Condor that can ruin your life.
As this option trade nears expiration it becomes more and more risky. The Delta on the position can change extremely fast because the Gamma is extremely high. This means that the trade is outrageously volatile as it gets closer to expiration, and again, if you are near the short strike just a few days before expiration date, then you will be extremely stressed because you will be in a horrible situation. Please watch the video at the 6 minute mark to see what I am talking about.
To wind things down, I hope you have learned some new things about the Iron Condor. I hope you can see that it can make money, but it can also be very risky. Trading Condors into expiration can be very stressful. If you are interested in learning a better way to trade this option spread, then I highly recommend San Jose Options mentoring program. They have developed the best Iron Condor that I have ever seen. You won’t regret giving them a visit.