TD Ameritrade has been rejecting my calendar orders this year ("strategy is not being accepted"), so I devised a strategy which I call a "synthetic calendar" to get the calendar entered. It consists of a credit spread with the short strike at the desired calendar short strike and expiration, matched with a debit spread with the long strike at the desired calendar long strike and expiration. In essence, offsetting credit and debit spreads using the same strikes but different DTE. After the two spread orders have been filled, close out the long calendar spread, leaving only the short calendar in place. The double spread trade will initially have a very low delta and vega, and virtually zero gamma, so there is very small price movement or volatility risk, which means you can wait a day to close the long calendar to avoid the PDT rule. The obvious penalty for using this workaround is the extra commissions and fees. See the attached for an example SPX put calendar entry.
TD Ameritrade Calendar Entry
- Thread starter Jim
- Start date
Not sure why some traders are getting that message I can place that trade as a calendar without any problems on TOS
Are you placing that order in TOS directly or are you using ONE to place the trade ?
You could also buy the long side first and after it's filled you sell the short side of course you would want to make the price below market so it does not fill right away in case it goes against you while you set up the short side
Are you placing that order in TOS directly or are you using ONE to place the trade ?
You could also buy the long side first and after it's filled you sell the short side of course you would want to make the price below market so it does not fill right away in case it goes against you while you set up the short side
Direct order with TOS. Per Tom's suggestion, I will paste any future rejected orders I get in the forum. Re: your suggestion to just buy the long option first, for more expensive assets or small accounts or insufficient buying power, that may not be practical/doable. In the case of the SPX calendar example I provided in my post, buying the long option first would cost $4,295 per contract. Thanks for the suggestion, though.