Short What?

I've had some questions on just what the title of this blog means. I begin by saying that it wasn't my first choice and I may end up changing it in the near future. I originally wanted to name it "Delta Neutral" or something like that, but I couldn't find a suitable combination that wasn't already taken. Delta neutral describes my main options strategy fairly well. I sell an Iron Condor and make adjustments to it to keep the delta's relatively neutral.

My next choice was "Long Theta", which also describes this strategy. The whole idea in selling options is to collect the time decay or theta until close to expiration. However, my wife thought this just didn't sound right and it may be mistaken for a very different type of blog. I decided I'm way to close to this stuff since that didn't even register with me until she mentioned it.

So the third choice was Short Gamma, which didn't sound quite as bad. It doesn't exactly describe what I'm doing, but it's close enough. Gamma is the rate of change or acceleration of delta. Generally speaking it will be negative (or short) for an iron condor if that condor is also relatively delta neutral.

While this represents a large chunk of my portfolio, it's still only a portion of the overall. Hence my thought that maybe this isn't the best name either. I use other options strategies occasionally, but most of the rest of my strategies are straight equites or futures.

So, that was a long winded way to say I may be experimenting with the blog name. All two of my readers may be affected by this. I'll also be looking at different templates to jazz things up a bit. I kind of like the minimalist look, but it's a little drab. Once we get through tomorrow, I'll outline how I trade this stuff.