Q: Towards the back of the video, you indicated an adjustment of adding 300 shares of QQQQ stock. You had 60 contracts open. If I wanted to know how many shares would be required for one contract, would I divide the 300 by 60, or 30, or 15? I would assume divide by 15, since for the iron condor you used needed a long and short for the puts and the calls, or 4 contracts for one condor.
A: Adjusting for theta scalping positions has nothing to do with the number of contracts in your position, it has to do with deltas.
In the video you reference I was probably ‘short’ 300 deltas that’s why I needed to buy 300 shares.
In order to determine the number of shares when theta scalping you need to know your deltas.
The delta will tell you what you need to get back to a delta neutral position
For example if you’re short 300 (displayed on TOS as “-300”) 300 deltas then you would need to purchase 300 shares to be ‘neutral’ and if you were long 300 (displayed on TOS as “+300”) then you would need to sell 300 shares (short) to be delta neutral.
However, and this is important, it is not alway wise or preferable to be perfectly delta neutral. You need to know the bias of the market at any one time. For example the market bias since March 9 has been ‘up’…
you would have done well by understanding the current market bias and trading accordingly by being slightly long (positive) deltas at all times.
The market bias can be either:
1) Long (up trending)
2) Short (down trending) or
3) Neutral (trading range bound)
The bias changes week to week, month to month so it’s important to know the current market bias that’s why the daily market videos I do are so important to all option traders. You need to know the bias.
Hope that helps