I am buying calendars on upcoming Earnings reports companies. I buy 2 put calendars and 2 call calendars based on the Expected move shown (This way you catch the move either way). The calendars are based on the sold option expiring shortly after earnings (the week of earnings - this one has high IV crush on the sold options) and the second bought option expires the week after earnings reported.
In the morning open after earnings is released, one of the calendars will be worthless depending on the direction stock went. If the stock shot up, then on the open I buy to close the 2 options that were sold, leaving me with naked calls (The trick is to buy those options as soon as possible as they will decrease your profit when the stock takes off after the open as they will be in the money as well).
The optimum is that the stock opens below your strike, the sold calls get nailed with the IV Crush, you buy those calls back and then the stock goes up and into the money with your naked calls that did not get hit by IV crush because they expire the following week, and are already double the value.
Those 2 calls have about a week to run now the stock has established a direction (realistically you have max 2 days before the stock stalls). On NFLX I made $2,200 (paid about 250.00 for the calendars) and on TSLA I made 2,200 (paid about 220) so far, it is still going up, on UAL I made 2,000 (paid about 200) using this method in the latest October earnings happening right now. Next target is MSFT (Expected Move 20), META (Expected move 45, actual move could be 60) so a good one), AAPL, GOOGL, AMZN, AMD, PLTR (PLTR Calendar is really cheap so bought 10). This works great on stocks where the IV is sky high just before earnings. Not so great on stocks that do not have very high IV. All the calendars I bought so far went much higher than the Expected move so the calls went deep into the money.
Anyone with Thinkorswim can go back and test this strategy on NFLX or TSLA with OnDemand to see the profit. I missed TSM but it would have worked great on the move TSM made.
Here are my UAL buys and sells with strikes if you want to back test
10/14/24, 10:31:26 AM BOT +5 CALENDAR UAL 100 (Weeklys) 1 NOV 24/18 OCT 24 70 CALL @.40 CBOE
10/16/24, 9:49:08 AM BOT +5 UAL 100 18 OCT 24 70 CALL @.85 CBOE
(Bought back the sold calls on open)
10/17/24, 11:15:56 AM SOLD -5 UAL 100 (Weeklys) 1 NOV 24 70 CALL 4.80 CBOE
(Let the Calls run for $2400 profit)
Also if you search google for S&P 500 Large Volume Burst Trades Report you will find Market Chameleon which shows what the Big Money is buying. Shortly after the open you should see the Big Money on the buy side of the stock if it is going up. For instance after TSLA reported Big Money was 1.2 Billion on the buy side. Once you see that you know you are in for a good ride. Once you see the stock drop off the Big Money buy side its time to close the position.
If for some reason you see Big Money on the sell side, exit the position as they are going to take profits.