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billsafari, Very cool info. Thanks. cactiman

I prefer to avoid playing earnings reports if possible - too much of a coin toss. But RIMMs report date was announced after I set up the Bear Spread. Think I'll let them flip the coin and see what happens this time, just for the heck of it.

Spindr0, Good point. Though doing non-vanilla/multi-trades like that might give me a nervous breakdown! Thanks, cactiman

Billsafari, I imagine IV/HV are a numerical value for: "lower left to upper right rapidly trending stock (up 700% in 3 years!)..." "How far it can move by January 20th (7 weeks) based on its past behavior?" But I'll check IV/HV out. Thanks. cactiman

I am bullish on RIMM..... I've had Bear Spreads going on RIMM for a while now. Why are you bullish?

Here's a typical "Stock Surrogate" Bullish Trade for me: 1. DPZ: a "lower left to upper right" rapidly trending stock (up 700% in 3 years!) with good fundamentals (IBD Composite Rating of 93). 2. How far it can move by January 20th (7 weeks) based on its past behavior? I see plenty of...

Quckless: Thanks for taking the time to explain! Like I said, I have nothing against The Greeks, and if any of them can help and don't add unnecessary complications I'll gladly make use of them. Will study what you wrote and try to apply it. Thanks again. cactiman

I agree with you 100%. It's one of the great things about modern Online Trading. Everyone can find a way, or ways, which suit their own personal Trading Psychology. BTW - As you may know, Trading used to be much more limited and expensive! One was forced to be a long term "Buy and Hold"...

Pelagos: You may have misunderstood. I didn't write the long article about the History of Greece - a member called Sybilgotgame did. I wrote the comment below it, because I too thought it was off topic. I guess he agreed, because his History lesson has been removed from this Thread. As to...

I have nothing against them and realize plenty of great traders use The Greeks. I know what Delta is, and heard Theta has something to do with Time... that's it. A limited understanding to be sure! I just don't think they're necessary to make money trading Options, which seems to be the...

The term "pseudo-science" comes to mind...

I agree. Built in risk control. You can only lose the cost of the option/spread contract. Way less than the cost of 100 shares of the underlying stock.

Methinks you're on the wrong website!

Thanks stoic, I feel better now!

All I read about here are "The Greeks"! Is there anyone out there who looks at Single Options and Vertical Spreads as Surrogates for Stocks? Anyone who analyses the Underlying Stock Chart for its Trend + Support & Resistance Levels, and researches the Company to see if it has good Earnings &...

Thanks for sending the PM. Trying to read it, but no luck so far. Made you a "Buddy", but still just get this: "Your administrator has disabled private messaging." ????????

Thanks for your post. Not sure what this means: (?) "try adding more longs instead of a 1:1 ratio on those verticals" As to: "credit spreads are high prob but also high risk as you have seen already. if you trade them enough, you will always have a time bomb waiting to destroy your acct"...

One uses Stops to prevent such large losses of course. As soon as I'm down 2% of my Total Equity on a trade, I exit. The point is, if you set them up properly, you win 80-90% of the time with Vertical Spreads. You can't do that with any other type of trading that I know of.

Haven't tried Box Spreads yet. Got killed on a SPY Iron Condor this week though. The big gap-up move on Wednesday went right through the Bear Call Credit Spread on Top, and SPY never fell back down. Ahhhhhh! My own fault of course. Shouldn't be trying to play a tight range (to make a few extra...