Recent content by jvanelli

I've been using the DDE socket bridge API for a few months. I believe it has some advantages. You are not limited to running 32 bit TWS. You can also have multiple connections (client IDs) via the Gateway; e.g. you can have the DDE socket bridge and NinjaTrader running simultaneously from...

I don't use options to hedge, but then am not a long term trader of the underlyings (by anyone's standard). Thus for me, to hedge with options makes no sense. It's way too expensive and the time frame is all wrong. If I don't like my underlying position then I just close it. An exception...

But not as easy as it sounds.

My sense is that success or failure trading options invariably depends upon your judgement of direction and volatility of the underlying, and generally speaking, in order to succeed you will find yourself "trading" the latter more than the former. I never had any sustained success until I got...

Yes, at core it is a simple process for a small, retail trader. You must be patient, wait for those moments when one side (buy or sell) is winning the auction, then if you were able to recognize the opportunity quick enough (relative to your time frame), move in with a trade, go for a ride, hop...

Wow! Well, first of all, it is most generally NOT EASY to pull money out of the markets trading. If you ever thought it would be then that was your first mistake. If you ever thought you could read some books and gin up some indicators from those books and proceed from there in some sort of...

When it comes to options the only permanent biases I have are fondness for liquidity and long gamma. Thus I am generally focused on the ES and the E/U futures and I don't sell options naked. I like positive or neutral gamma because negative gamma positions are (in my opinion) much more...

I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are stacked against you in most option markets. Typically with futures options there's next to no action inside the spread, which will often be two or more ticks even in the most liquid markets. So it's usually not a case of the MM pairing you up...

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to do it, I'd go with ATM options on the most liquid market I could find -- probably front month ES futures. But it still looks like a losing play to me.

Been doing options on ES and 6E futures for several years with modest success overall, but I have never had much luck with short term price-directional strategies, thus hard for me to see how one can gain a statistical "edge" with them as a swing trade vehicle. What you can do is limit risk...

Probably combination of large plus vega and declining IVol (implied volatility). Your expiration is distant, which makes vega large. In this scenario, the changes back and forth in IVol will override just about everything else, including delta. Note when trading options you are always trading...