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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffry_Picower

Most people I know wish they were traders. I suspect most traders wish they had a [below average] normal job with security, benefits, and access to credit. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Traders I know, including myself, don't trade because we worked the numbers...

I got the impression from Gallacher and others that option strategies are very hard to test empirically. I prefer thorough testing, but I am condemned to live in the real world.

That's the way I see it. If I have to choose, I'll take the occasional spike over the slow bleed. I don't have a strategy for the slow bleed, and I'm not smart enough to read the future. I wasn't trading options in 2008, so I can't say for sure how I would have fared. I think I would have...

"High" and "low" with regard to volatility don't mean much in isolation. It's all relative to premiums and whether the option writer is being adequately compensated for risk. I can't predict volatility change any better than price change. I don't pay much attention to skew either. I prefer...

It sounds like free money for being long volatility?

I have been trading short volatility, market neutral. The recent explosion in volatility has been costly, and I'm on "vacation" until things calm down.

SIPC insurance covers a maximum of $500k, including up to $250k claims against cash. It does not cover futures or options on futures. Some brokers sweep unused cash into a securities (i.e SIPC-insured) account regularly. It's unclear how well that would protect a futures trader in the case of...

I trade mostly options on futures (FOP) these days via IBKR.

I forgot you're not trading equities when I wrote that. A lot of the problems in equities trading aren't so bad where you have a central limit order book. Bodek was trying to compete in equities HFT and losing. He thought his problem was speed, but he concluded (after a tip) that it was order...

@hft: Have you read Haim Bodek's book? Do you agree/disagree with his assessments? "The Problem of HFT - Collected Writings on High Frequency Trading & Stock Market Structure Reform"...

If I understand what you're asking, you never get guaranteed execution with any variant of limit order from any broker or at any venue. With a limit order, you wait until the market comes to you. You might get a partial fill or none at all. If you want to be sure you have a position...

In 2011 Joris Luyendijk, a Dutch anthropologist, launched a blog consisting of a series of monologues taken from interviews with bankers in the City of London. I am finding some of the entries quite interesting, and I thought they might make for easy holiday weekend reading...

It's been 8 years since my last consulting gig, and I have had no earned income since then. There are a few things I miss about conventional work, either as an employee or consultant/contractor. Human interaction resulting in friendships is one. I think we need to have sustained, as...

If you're not doubling your account every thirty days, you don't belong on ET.:D

I predict that the software development will take longer and cost more than you plan for by several orders of magnitude. If you ever actually get it running, you will never know for sure whether it is right (i.e. bug-free). Then I expect you will find that your system is psychologically...

I guess bragging isn't too bad, especially if it is reality-based. A lot of the bragging on ET is usually either a) paper trading or b) the occasional big win surrounded by losses that conveniently get overlooked. The problem with that kind of hollow bragging is that it gives the newbies the...

As a USA citizen, I am not an expert of visa rules. But as a former computer programmer, I took an interest in the H1-B because many companies use it to displace citizens with cheaper foreign workers. The H1-B is only valid for a specific employer and is issued only for certain technical...

http://code.google.com/p/ib-csharp/

If you can return 20% with any consistency, you can beat most fund managers. But obviously you cannot live on 20% x $50k. After you get the MBA, you might focus on finding a job that doesn't suck too bad. That will put you way ahead of most working stiffs. Then when you have $300-500k saved...