One of my trades is earnings play using Short Strangle strategy with IV Rank.

During the earnings reporting season, there are always uncertainty to the stocks that going to announce their results. Regardless the earnings results - within expectations or surprises - the implied volatility and IVR most likely will go up each day due to uncertainty right before the announcement. What we can do is to

1) scan stocks with high IVR one trading day before the earnings announcement. I usually look for the stock with IVR 70 or above.

2) ensure the IVR crushed dramatically right after announcement in the last few quarters.

3) only select stock with high liquidity.

4) no dividend or the dividend will be given around 20 days or more after earnings so that I have enough time to BTC (buy to close) the strangle.

5) check the historical gap up /  gap down. Then setup the width of strangle wide enough to avoid potentially tested and try to get at least USD100 premium from this strategy.

6) close the position right after announcement when IVR crushing down. Ideally getting 30 to 50% from max profit.

A strangle is an options strategy involves a put at a strike price Kp and a call at a strike price Kc, where Kp < S < Kc and S is the stock price.

Both put and call options are at the same expiration.A strangle is an options strategy involves a put at a strike price Kp and a call at a strike price Kc, where Kp < S < Kc and S is the stock price. Both put and call options are at the same expiration. 

I had showed you how to scan for IV Rank using IV Percentile on Thinkorswim platform in the last article.  I use the scan to find stocks and ETFs with high IV Rank everyday before market open. I only trade options for stocks and ETFs with high IV Rank, following tastytrade methods.

However, I am not able to tell is the IV Rank for certain stock or ETF trending up or down from the scanning results. It is more useful if we have the visual on the trend of IV Rank in the chart. Tastyworks is not really good for plotting chart as of this time. Luckily I still maintain two platforms and Thinkorswim is just the best way to do that. What I did was to find a IV Rank script and put inside the chart. Here is how I did it.

Are you interested in a book that provides a very comprehensive coverage of the tastytrade method of trading options? Would you like to have a powerful software package that performs most of the calculations you might need to support your trading? I used to view many videos from TastyTrade website to understand their trading methodology. There are so many videos that I have to view on and off and they are not in very organised manner.  I later found a book that is written according to TastyTrade trading methodology. This book is my best reference whenever I want to trade options.

Check out this book, Trade Options with an Edge from Dr. Russell Richards. It is available in E-book form, softcopy and hardcopy at Amazon.com. The software comes with the book. If you have Excel you can run the software. It includes the Black-Scholes option pricing model, greeks, evaluation metrics for new positions, management of existing positions, pairs trading, calendars/diagonals, risk profiles, IV estimation, BPR determination, futures, exploration of P&L response surface, lists of ETFs, tax estimation, and much more. The book pulls together in one place most of what tastytrade advocates.

One of the key options trading strategies for TastyTrade is utilizing IVR (Implied Votality Rank). You can find so many videos related to IVR discussion at TastyTrade website. If you have Dough.com account (you are not able to register as new user now after they release TastyWorks platform) or already in TastyWorks platform, you will be able to find stocks with IVR indicator at the "Grid" page. I used to rely on stocks listed at Grid page to set my options strategy. However, the number of stocks listed in Grid page is very limited. So I need to find a way to "Scan" IVR for all stocks and ETFs but I am not able to do so from TastyWorks platform.
If you google IVR related keywords, you can find many articles talked about IRV and IV Percentile. In fact, Thinkorswim and TastyTrade are using these two terms differently. 

In this article, I will provide an example how you can transfer fund to your new TD Ameritrade account via wire transfer from overseas to US. Beware that the information is accurate at the time of writing of this article. You should always refer to the information provided to you by TD Ameritrade before actual fund transfer.

You can wire your money via Citibank or CIMB Bank if you are located in Malaysia.

Please be aware that your fund transfer may be rejected even it is a small error in your form. The fund returned to you will be lesser than you sent initially after currency conversion both ways as well as processing charges from both US and your bank. So always double check your information before transfer your money.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to fill up application form to apply for TD Ameritrade trading account with sample data. This tutorial is based on overseas application.

The data in the form are just samples and you will need to enter your own data accurately. The selections from tdameritrade.com.sg webpages could be changed from time to time. I can not be held responsible if you fail to get a live account from TD Ameritrade.

Thee are a lot of data to enter. It may take up 30 minutes or one hour to complete the application. So make sure you don't get interrupted during application process.

If you like to trade US stocks, options or futures, one of the best platform you can use is TD Ameritrade. For users from Asia, you can register with TD Ameritrade Singapore.

TD Ameritrade is a company of over 40 years and with more than 100 branches. Some brokerage companies impose minimum amount of deposit to open an account but not TD Ameritrade. There is no maintenance fees, yearly or monthly fees or platform fees for TD Ameritrade. You can start using the tools, monitoring stock prices, trading in simulation mode etc even before funding your account.

TD Ameritrade is a member of FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation). FINRA's mission is to safeguard the investing public against fraud and bad practices. SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities – such as stocks and bonds – held by a customer at a financially-troubled SIPC-member brokerage firm. The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash.

TD Ameritrade is a mature platform with large community. Trading can be done from desktop and mobile (Anfroid and iOS). There are very powerful charting features on this platform. You can also install Thinkscript to enhance your analysis. 

In this article, I will provide an example how you can transfer fund to your new TastyWorks account via wire transfer from overseas to US. Beware that the information is accurate at the time of writing of this article. You should always refer to the information provided to you by TastyWorks before actual fund transfer.

You can wire your money via Citibank or CIMB Bank if you are located in Malaysia. I found that many people were having problems transfer money to fund their trading account; some said the bank told them some rules from BNM that can not transfer more than x amount of money; some said should set up a USD currency account in local bank, only then transfer the money etc. I have no issue funding my account. You can visit CIMB Bayan Baru Branch or Citibank Penang if you are located in Penang. The staffs there have experiences for this type of transfer.

Please be aware that your fund transfer may be rejected even it is a small error in your form. The fund returned to you will be lesser than you sent initially after currency conversion both ways as well as processing charges from both US and your bank. So always double check your information before transfer your money.

If you want to take advantage of the "Bob the Trader" promotion, you need to transfer at least USD2000. Noted that US bank agent's charges might be around USD25 to 30 per transfer. So it is good to transfer at least USD2030 or ask details from your bank.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to fill up application form to apply for TastyWorks trading account with sample data. This tutorial is based on overseas application.

The data in the form are just samples and you will need to enter your own data accurately. The selections from tastyworks.com webpages could be changed from time to time. I can not be held responsible if you fail to get a live account from tastytrade.com.