We’re glad to announce that our iron condor membership service is now available to be autotraded by Optionshouse, one of the top options brokers around. While we don’t exclusively recommend any one particular broker, we can definitely recommend that you check out Optionshouse. Their customers report trades filled faster and at better prices than some other prominent options brokers, and you just can’t argue with their commission rates: $9.95 per trade, with no additional contract or per share costs.

We wanted to mention those rates because some of you have had questions about the increased commissions that our ETF-based iron condor strategy incurs. With Optionshouse, an iron condor costs about $40 to enter (4 legs times $9.95), regardless of whether you’re using ETF options, options on a traditional index like SPX or RUT, or options on some obscure biotech company!

To start having our strategy autotraded in your account, you only need to:

1. Subscribe to our iron condor newsletter service
2. Open an account with Optionshouse and contact them to set up the autotrade allocation.

Condor Options has joined the Blog Action Day network, and on October 15, 2007 we will join over 1400 other blogs, reaching an estimated audience of over 1 million people, to write about an extremely important issue - the environment.

Our post will include some tips about ways that traders can reduce their environmental impact, and will feature an overview of some ways to invest in environmentally-friendly industries.

If you have a blog or website, why not consider getting involved?

Gold

First, what’s a scared investor to do? Both of these things are true:

1. Markets are verrry volatile, in both the generic sense (they jump around a lot) and the technical sense (they fall down a lot, hence high VIX). In times of turmoil, what happens? A “flight to quality,” of course! And what’s safer than gold? Hence, buy gold!
2. Grant the premise that investing tips from the tops of taxicabs are always contrary indicators. Hence, per this picture from midtown yesterday, don’t buy gold!

Membership

Oh, and the other thing: our prices are going up tomorrow. Reader of Condor Options Reports have known about this for awhile and have had a chance to act on it. Here’s your chance: if you sign yourself up on our waiting list before midnight tonight, whenever a spot becomes available for you, you will have an opportunity to subscribe at our current prices, which are:

After midnight tonight, rates will be

One more time, just so we’re clear. signup now, and you’ll lock in at the current rates. Wait until tomorrow, and you’ll be at the new rates.

Condor Options has been featured in a recent survey of the Top 100 Trading Blogs. You’ll find us there at #30, bringing up the rear of the Options section.

We’re actually pretty thrilled to have been noticed: while we’ve been trading forever, this blog is actually only four months old, so making it onto a list of the top 8 options blogs this quickly is a nice surprise for us.

If you’re a new reader, be sure to sign up for Condor Options Reports, our free newsletter, by entering your information in the form to your right.

This is just a quick post to let you know that autotrading is now available for our iron condor trading service through the excellent options broker thinkorswim.

• If you’re already an active member, just go to thinkorswim’s autotrading page and follow the instructions from there.
• If you’re not yet an active member, you can sign up for our membership waiting list below. Once you’re a member, it’s easy to have your thinkorswim account autotraded.

Lastly, some of you have expressed interest in autotrading with OptionsXpress. We’re certainly open to that. You should get in touch with OptionsXpress about adding us to their list.