Trading Dominion – Portfolio Margin and SPAN Margin Trading Tactics

Use trades specifically designed to take advantage of portfolio (or SPAN) margin in order to increase your returns and ease of management.

Why use portfolio or SPAN margin?

Most people think that portfolio margin (PM) or SPAN margin is just used by traders who want to get significant leverage, and therefore need to be comfortable taking larger risks.

There certainly is leverage with portfolio or SPAN margin, but what most people don’t realize is that, if used properly, you can use PM or SPAN margin in order to construct risk profiles which are much safer than what you could construct with RegT margin. There are even certain trade types which are completely not viable at all with RegT margin, and can only be done with PM or SPAN margin.

This course will teach you how PM and SPAN works, how to construct, and how to manage trades which are specific to PM and SPAN.

We primarily focus on creating trades which have much more safety than RegT trades, such that even in the event of a black swan your overall portfolio is protected.

What You’ll Learn In Portfolio Margin and SPAN Margin Trading Tactics?

• Welcome
• Getting to know you
• Quick personal introduction
• Course overview
• University tour
• OptionNet Explorer discount
• Analysis spreadsheets
• Trading for a living
• Portfolio margin

• Introduction
• Quick visual intro to the first order greeks
• Second order greeks
• Reading the inflection points on an expiration line
• Greeks of a put debit spread
• Delta Power
• Buying cheaper greeks
• Comparing relative spread prices
• OTM options decay faster than ATM options
• ATM structure pricing and IV
• Relationship between volatility and time
• How the T+ is affected by a change in IV
• Options in further out in time expirations are easier to manage
• IV versus HV
• Vertical Skew – part
• Vertical Skew – part
• Trading further out in time
• Measuring skew steepness
• Term Structure and weighted vega
• Put / Call parity
• IB TWS Tool for skew analysis
• Backtesting
• Market circuit breakers
• Walking the option chain
• Foundations summary

• STT introduction
• Standard Space Trip Trade
• Standard STT – sample setup
• Standard STT – let’s do it live
• Optimizing entry
• Legging in
• Middle STT
• Front STT
• Front STT – comparisons
• Road Trip and Space Trip
• Bearish STT
• Bullish STT
• Bullish STT – sample setup prior to the Brexit event
• Trade management – intro and quick review
• Downside management
• Downside adjustments – rolling down
• Downside adjustments – long put
• Downside adjustments – put debit spread
• Downside adjustments – adding another STT
• Downside adjustments – adding a bearish STT
• Downside adjustments –  SD OTM balanced butterfly
• Downside adjustments – hitting pause
• Downside adjustments – hitting pause – comparing expirations
• Downside adjustments – price reversion
• Downside adjustments – hedging off bearish adjustments
• Downside adjustments – using stocks or futures
• Downside adjustments – TOS contingent orders

• Harvesting
• Upside adjustments
• Price layering
• Playing whack-a-mole
• Taking profits
• Quick Hit STT
• Opportunistic management
• STTs on the call side
• Using futures options with a RegT account
• STT – summary

• Black swan examples
• BSH core concepts
• BSH vs teenies
• First BSH configuration
• Second BSH configuration
• Third BSH configuration
• Fourth BSH configuration
• Optimizing the BSH

• Long call
• Peel off existing upside call credit spreads
• Put credit spreads
• Call debit spreads
• Bullish risk reversal
• The kite
• Call back ratio
• Upside calendar
• Upside ratio calendar
• Short diagonal

• Managing your trades
• Price triggered contingent orders
• Study triggered contingent orders
• Importing a TOS grid
• Seasonality indicator
• Standard deviations indicator
• IV and HV indicator
• Volatility term structure indicator
• Triple Keltner and ATR Trend indicator combo
• My main TOS grid
• Butterfly pricer indicator

• Back STT + BSH
• Entering during different IV levels
• Bullish STT + BSH
• Protected jeep
• Portfolio sizing
• Simple Trend Following System STFS – v2
• STTBWB and BSH during the Feb  crash
• Double wide STT and BSH

• Mechanical trend following indicator DSTFSv
• Simple Trend Follows System STFS – v3
• STT-BWB
• Dynamic sizing for the STTBWB and BSH
• 2021-03-24 – Group coaching
• Walk through of the STTBWB+BSH during the Covid crash
• Walk through of the STTBWB+LP during the Jan  pullback
• Hedging with futures

• Final summary
• That’s all folks
• Refer a friend program