I’m curious, is there a way I can put in an order for my options to sell at close at whatever price before the bell automatically? I use shwab. I just want to buy options and let them run and close out at whatever price. I’m missing huge wins because I watch too much.
Yeah you can do that both in the app and think or swim but I recommend think or swim. It's probably the most powerful brokerage app/website you can use for retail. You can set up timed market orders and sell at 3pm or you can do it via OCO bracket orders in think or swim - I recommend the OCO, it's basically a neat flowchart system of various orders attached to an option. It has time as a condition too
Thank you. I’ll do a deep dive on OCO.
Market on close. You’ll get screwed though
OP wants 3pm not 4 though....
Use a conditional order to sell to close at the market at 2:55 pm CT. For example, set up the condition to submit the market order as follows with TOS: https://preview.redd.it/rpldyp8nnogh1.png?width=608&format=png&auto=webp&s=429c1c3c001aa15ba6277edb5e15e97e9b3b04bd
You might want to go with index options that are cash settled, that way you don’t risk having Schwab close your contracts early if you have more than your account balance can handle if exercised. It sounds like you don’t want assignments either, just the gain or loss by close. The cash settled contracts will settle in cash, you don’t have to worry about watching them or closing them. Tickers like SPX, NDX, XSP, XND etc. You can Google a list of other cash settled options.
Is it necessary to sell-to-close near the close? If the option will expire ITM then it will be automatically exercised. If the option will expire OTM then the option has no value. A STC market order may give you funny results like a debit.
Good way to get screwed by the market makers. Go watch some option quotes the final hour/minutes and you will figure out the MM’s know how to scalp you. Even OTM they can screw you. Ever see a bid of 0 and an ask of $2.50 on an OTM option the last hour before expiration? See it all the time.
I've done the same thing, got emotional and sold meda about 3 months before the option was after earnings for a 3000 loss because it was tanking, if I held on I would have made about 4000 it turned and went straight up another 150 dollars, I have to learn the lesson the hard way
The biggest gains I've missed weren't because of bad entries they were because I kept trying to "protect profits." Sometimes the hardest part of trading is getting out of your own way.
Put in a bracket order to either take profit with a sell order at 50% of max profit or a stop loss that turns into either a limit or market order just like a stock.
In tos, try creating a closing sell limit order that triggers order submission based on time. Because it's a trigger, then you can try setting the limit price to be relative to the option's bid or something (not a fixed/manual price) You can also step it up by doing an OCO advanced order where the alternative order trades shares instead of the option to flatten your position (still would be good to do a trigger like time, although share price trigger could also make a lot of sense, too). This could give you a more liquid exit and potentially more time (due to after hours trading) and more opportunities (eg, gamma scalping. Can be flattened with manual exercise instructions which could also be submitted via tos, although I'm not sure about mobile for that) Keep in mind various things can go wrong (eg, trading halts, system errors, etc)