Long Term Double Calendars

I started something new a couple of weeks back that I thought I'd share.  My idea here is that folks think the market is bound to move in the next several months.  Will the bulls continue to trounce the bears or will the bears finally have another day in the sun and the pullback "everyone" has been waiting for will finally become reality?  Who knows, or at least, I don't know, and I don't really care a ton.  To try and capitalize on a big move, I picked a stock that I watch frequently that seems to be in the middle of its long term range.  That stock is MSFT.  Between 20 and 30 for the longer term, I think feel it can hit either one of those targets in the next few months.  So how to capitalize on that move?  Well, buying long dated options is expensive and time decay (theta) will slowly chew away at your profits.  Also, the further out of of the money, typically means higher premium because of volatility skew.  As you may have guessed from the titled, I've opted for out of the money calendar spreads.  My put strikes are at 20 and my call strikes are at 30.  I have purchased April 2010 calls and puts at the strikes mentioned.  I have helped "finance" this purchase by selling calls and puts at those strikes for NOV.  I received on average an $8 credit and on average paid about $45 per spread.  My thought here is to continue getting on average $8-10 in credits each month which, if MSFT goes nowhere, means I break even.  If MSFT makes a move (and hopefully doesn't shatter through the strikes), the profit will exceed the other options loss and I will close at a profit.

This is going to be tricky for three reasons.  First, imagine that MSFT makes a move up to $27, not a big enough move to take a profit, yet, I'm going to lose a lot of credit on the put side.  Will that be made up on the call side?  I'm not sure.  Second, volatility risk.  Calendars are long vega, if the volatility drops, my credit shrinks and I'm once again, not getting enough to finance this trade.  Third, a massive run up that puts either side in the money.  The short option has more gamma than the long options and may chew up profits fast should there be a fast run into the money.

This Is Only Test

I'm testing with real money, but only using a single contract.  The reasons above leave me enough doubt not to put anything significant into this. I firmly believe that I'd have to try this several times with single contracts to feel any sort of comfort throwing real money at this idea.  Even then, that doesn't mean that it's going to work every time or ever again.

If you've tried something similar, I'd appreciate sharing the pitfalls and nuances that go along with this.