SPY and January Expiry's

I was considering putting a SPY bear call spread in for January expiry this morning but got looking at the chart first. I was liking the spread between 115 and 118 strikes again, the same spread that I have now for Dec EOM (which is doing nicely given the market wallowing of late).

Here is the chart:

Given that the Jan options are only 15 days later than my current trade and there are holidays to suck up some more of the time value it looked good, a 40 cent credit spread. The trouble comes in when the price position on the trend is taken into account. It is at the low of the channel (similar to gold in my other post today) and, if a decent rally occurs to follow the trend my trade would be in jeopardy...as it is the Dec EOM could be.

My best strategy is to wait until the price rises to at least the median of the regression channels which will allow me to select a higher strike to sell which allows me more margin for fluctuation.

Worth noting that the blue old gap levels are providing an interesting bit of activity as the S&P levels hover on the upside of them.

Patience.

While I am waiting for that to set up I placed and filled a trade yesterday with Optioneer at my minimum target for a January expiry. I was actually surprised it filled as I allowed no lenience, I figured if I got it I got it.

Should the SPX fall another 15 points I will place another trade and perhaps get a nice close to 30 day expiry.

Jeff.