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Do you want to be a quant for the love of the science, the love of money, or perhaps a combination of the two? Not that any of those motivations are wrong, just be aware that if it is for the love of money, you'll never get rich working for someone else.

The bell curve comes out of the mathematics of probability developed by Karl Friedrich Gauss. It takes a population set (just a set of seemingly random numbers), and determines the mean (simple average) and a standard deviation (the spread of the population sets values). A smaller std dev. means...

Taleb's approach to Black Swan trading was (is?) to take no risk and take extreme risk at the same time. What this means is that he had his funds in T-Bills (no risk) and used the interest to buy OTM options (extreme risk.) I haven't a clue as to how he determined how far out to buy, and if...

Well, delta is the first derivative of the price function, and gamma is the first derivative of the delta function, so I would go with answer A.

"Never bet on a long shot." - Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal

Except the put spread produces a credit for your account, and the call spread produces a debit. Also, which position you should choose depends on where implied volatility is. Buy low, sell high. IV that is. As to which strikes to choose, focus on the ATM strike. If IV is high, and you're...

What kind of statistics? Guassian stats have well known difficiencies in modeling financial markets, and fractal stats are still relatively new in terms of modeling financial markets. Maybe fractal stats will eventually do a better job, but I doubt it.

There is one way and one way only to make price go up, and that is to buy it. likewise there is only one way to make price go down, and that is to sell it. As to what exactly causes peolpe to buy and sell, well, every reason under the sun exists for that.

Only the computer that is attached to the internet needs a firewall/AV. Now, if you have the two computers connected by a network cable or through a network switch, then the second computer would need it as well. There is no exploit that I know of that utilizes the video output feed to target...

Not purely random, because clearly, Gaussian statistics doesn't accurately model the behavior of financial instruments entirely. But impirically, we know that sometimes the markets are more random than other times. So much so, that it can be maddening to try and consistently take money out of...

I am technically oriented, so that's what I tend to do, but I also realize that following price with TA is like drivng by looking in the rearview mirror. Following the fundies like crop reports, and following the weather can help one anticipate what the longer term trend will likely do better...

It is impossible to consistently forecast. Technical analysis will always be looking in the rearview mirror to see what is in front. If you're looking to close a position before the correction happens, you should always react too early and don't rely on hope that the move will keep going...

What is the touching probability? The probability that I used is the probability of the option being in the money at expiration (and expiration only.) Until expiry, the option could go in and out of the money many times.

Well, payout = probability*(reward/risk). Let's examine two positions, buying an OTM call for 0.25 , and buying a ATM call for 1.00. You will close either position if you have a 0.25 gain in the position. The OTM strike will be 1.282 std. devs from the current price. At 1.282 stddev, the area...

If you want to search and sort based on technical analysis, try StockFetcher.com for $8.95/mo., (or free for limited result sets.) http://www.stockfetcher.com/stockdb/fetcher

I don't like to consistently give up 0.10 on options, especially when that spread represents such a large percent of the overall premium.

No matter how much mentoring you have, there are two factors that you will never overcome. 1) You are a retail trader and therefore must buy at the ask and sell at the bid. 2) The most important factor in option price is the price of the underlying. Many options have low liquidity that...

These are contradictory you realize. A dev job at a trading firm may not be any more exciting, but may allow you to make contacts within the firm who can help guide your career. Go for it! If you decide to go the MBA route, where will you the tuition money? From savings, or will you have to...

I think his point is that prices often change too quickly and too randomly to be able to trade profitably. My advice to him is to stop trying to daytrade and take more of a swing trading perspective, or dare I say an investors perspective. Even if you take a longer term perspective, prices...

If you're trading in 5 or 10 lots, liquidity in the option is almost never a problem. However, the amount of money you may have to give up in terms of the spread can be huge (especially in percentage terms.) That's why I say that the naked put can lose money faster than a CC. Obviously, if you...