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And it's especially tough to make headway sailing straight into the wind with your spinnaker up! But that's what I see here all the time. People like flying that spinnaker, so the wind direction be damned!

Me neither. The trick to successful trading of options or anything else is to take advantage of the opportunities the market gives you. Sometimes that means going long, sometimes short, sometimes both simultaneously (spreading). Contrary to what most people here desperately want to believe...

Thanks Mark. Maybe it WOULD be better to make these modular - ten-minute modules, mix and match. I'm not quite sure how that would work but I'm very open to suggestions.

I've started a new option blog complete with educational option videos. Well, one video so far. It's all free and I have nothing to sell so I think I can post the link - it's http://www.masteroptions.com Comments are of course welcome, along with questions and suggestions for future vids.

What evidence do you have that the VIX is up "when the market is mildly optimistic?"

What's the story with Quebec residents not being able to use TOS?

My best advice to the aspiring option trader is to disregard Mr. Gallacher's dumb advice. He's apparently catering to those who hope to make money trading options without really working at it. That's a smart way to sell books, but a terrible way to approach trading. Just for laughs, take a...

Right, this seems to be a tough point to get across here! People here seem absolutely determined to believe there is an inherent edge in one strategy vs another. I guess people have some need to believe there's a holy grail - the perfect option strategy - the one that's a winner no matter what!

Even if it were true, it would mean nothing. There's also the matter of how much you make on your winners vs how much you lose on your losers. If you make money 4 times out of 5 - but that 5th time you lose ten times what you made the other 4 times - you'd still be a loser.

I think your broker screwed up. Go to http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/cont_detail/0,3206,1322+14455,00.html and read the wheat options contract description, which says: "The buyer of a futures option may exercise the option on any business day prior to expiration by giving notice to the Board...

The update is on the bottom of page 85: "10-10-08 04:33 PM I just got update on the fund. Unfortunately for their investors, they went bust. This week they realized 85% loss from the top of their assets. The thing that amazed me, is that some investors took out large loans and dipped...

Trading stocks or futures is two-dimensional. It goes up or it goes down. You're either long or you're short, right or wrong. Options have multiple added dimensions. Direction of the underlying is just one dimension; IV, time and gamma are additional dimensions. So I don't think the...

If I were to go back on the floor today, I think the one pit I'd most like to be in is crude options. Playing the skew is my favorite game, and the crude skew rocks and rolls. One day the calls are pumped and the put skew is flat, a few days later the puts are pumped and the calls are flat...

Yes, it's so much about psychology, isn't it? The public thinks the floor traders are like Mr. Spock, but most are just dumb shits driven by the same herding instinct as everyone else. I still use that psychology when I call in an obscure spread order into an options pit. I wait until a...

Sounds like my experience - one day I was trying to leg a spread, when an order came in from outside for the exact spread I was trying to leg - at the same price - AS A SPREAD. The locals filled it. So I left the pit, called in an order anonymously to do the same spread I was unable to leg in...

LOLOL - yeah, CRT was INSANELY secretive about their stupid sheets! I did once get my hands on one - a CRT trader dropped his sheet and I covered it with my foot until he was gone, then I stealthily picked it up and pocketed it. I took it home and was so excited that I was about to learn the...

Keep in mind that if he only has a position in one strike and is delta and premium neutral, then he has either a reversal or a conversion, in which case he locked in his profit or loss when it was executed. What I think you mean is this. Imagine a local buys 110 calls at a lower IV and...

Leaning on another strike is ideal, but not always possible. Most of the time IV doesn't move that quickly, so if you buy or sell premium, the probability is that an opportunity to offset your long or short premium will come along soon. But during those times when IV IS moving rapidly, how...

Also, there are different rules and customs at different exchanges. On the CBOT floor for example, if you say "ten bid," without specifying a quantity, you have no obligation to take more than one lot. So a transaction might go like this: Local: Ten bid Broker: I sold you a hundred Local...

Technically, those on the floors you mention are not "market makers" as they have no obligation to make markets - just the ability to make markets if they choose. They're "locals." As a practical matter though, if they don't make two-sided markets the brokers won't routinely deal with them...