Recent content by dr_sean

First of all, realize that you're going to need to be able to hedge this position on a daily basis (at minimum) if you want to really use Taleb's strategy. Which means it can be capital intensive (esp when doing it for options on stock, vs using futures). Anyways, this is your quick & dirty...

What futures do you want to trade? I'd look into Futures International for grains, XFA or TJM for index & fixed income options. Both will provide you with an electronic platform and at the same time you can call to place orders and often times they'll call to show you what's trading on the...

I am pretty sure there are absolutely NONE and you'll have to remote. good luck.

If 90% of all options end worthless, then the 10% that don't pay for the rest. There's no sustained edge in one side of the market. Keep selling options...you'll keep making money, until one day that stops working. And you will literally lose everything you've made so far--maybe more.

Market makers aren't much different from most traders. They have on different things at different times. If a MM is almost always short or long vega / net options / etc, it's his personal style and in no way indicative of the market making industry. A good MM will never have an opinion on...

biggest thing is probably just that most people don't know about them...same as end of month (EW) contracts. Most retail brokers you pull up a chain on the ES and you don't see the month-end contracts or the weeklies. Good luck trading them, S

on screens they are staying wide but pit is trading them like any other expiration, one custy came in last friday and sold a lot of the 1035p & 1040p's w/ the sep future @ like 43-48, turned out a winner but a risky play. beats the SPX weekly having to battle that opening print...

SP is literally nothing except 5x ES therefore prices are same (quotes on the other hand, can differ obviously). If you're willing to throw up a little size every now and then just call up a broker (XFA comes to mind) the pit trades very tight especially in this market and they'll give you...

Wolverine, Jane Street, Group One, think WH too--all those pay a salary and make their money from order-flow oriented strategies (market making, high-freq, something similar), all very legit. SMB, others like that, just pay you a draw on your profits from daytrading stocks. Definitely...

Best advice I can give is always to think about the net options count and the vega associated in any strategy. E.G. a lot of people look at a call spread / put spread as tougher to do w/ margins & crappy brokers / bad commish & whatnot but really a 5 buck put spread is just rolling up or down...

no name for that that i know of sometimes when you trade the opposite of the butterlfy (2x1x2 instead of 1x2x1) some call it the "dragonfly" Just one thing I'd say is your example is just the Dec 50 straddle vs the 45/55 strangle twice. That in itself will hint that you're trading an iron...

sure, some of them trade Europe/Asia and some of them just have the junior guys watch the CME credit products like Treasuries and Eurodollars overnight. Think like Infinium, Black Diamond, El Dorado, and Transmarket. Mostly futures groups vs. options groups.

found a good link to a couple episodes of Traders they work spotty but you can refresh & track thru to get them to play...good stuff http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzA3NzQxMTY=.html Keep this thread going!

If I was playing for a spot VIX back up to 42-45 in the next 2 months, I would look to be a seller as 2 months is some time and you'll need decay to make $$$. Buy the June 35 / 45 call spread...it's currently marking around 3.5 that's 3.5 at risk to win 6.5, caps w/ VIX printing 45 at June...

normally floor market makers will take about 30 minutes on average...usually having a clerk get them lunch, going downstairs to eat it, go the bathroom, maybe read the paper, and be back up pretty quick. Some are obsessed and won't leave the screens all day even for the bathroom but that is not...