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    Inexpensive Options Brokers

    Reply to Dave S. It's a simple download from the broker.
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    Inexpensive Options Brokers

    Reply to FullyArticulate: Did not say name of company because afraid of undermining their publicized rates to their customers. This was not a formal offer made by the company to the public. I have no affiliation with the company and receive no commissions (my understanding also is such a...
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    Building options screening tool from scratch

    Hi Try PowerOptions. Be careful though if the results look too good of the option plays, e.g. to see if an underlying dividend obligation, if it is a non-standard options (see the Options Clearing Corporation website), etc.
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    Inexpensive Options Brokers

    Good point. I acknowledge having personally having 3 brokers (chosen from about 20 plus online brokers). I have had times before that a broker made sudden changes in margin requirements, and only because of having another broker lined up did not have to dump stock. Also, no sense of being...
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    Inexpensive Options Brokers

    Reply to Murray, Yes, all 6 option markets (on 6 lines) each with bids and asks; they simultaneously act as order boxes as well, up to 4 order boxes on the screen at once.
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    Inexpensive Options Brokers

    The broker I mentioned has amazing execution speed, price improvement, and top quality customer service e.g. e-mail response time and flexibility for the customer needs. No such $15 OptionsXpress fees. The option rates for my group's volume get as low as $.50. They offer price improvement...
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    new trader

    It is common for "newbies" to be led to believe they can make a steady income with covered calls and it would provide them a nice margin of safety. The reality is that collapses in stock price, which everyone knows does happen often enough, will damage writers of covered calls almost enough...
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    PFE Div Factored in?

    This is what I was saying, unlike def, in the other thread. It could be they specifically take away the regular premium as well. The net affect is an increased spread between bid and ask.
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    new trader

    Extra note regarding condors regarding the above message to Runtrade: If you were a money maker/ specialist, with tons of money and well diversified among many stocks, you could afford to sell calls and sell puts (and you would also get the asking price). This would form for them like a short...
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    new trader

    Reply to Runtrade: When you mention consistant profits , beware of the calendar spread and covered call myths. For the most part I would not look at option trading as a method of gaining consistant income, rather to leverage positions and limiting risk. On that note, the private message I...
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Thank you to cnms2 and Don for the math.
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Response to MoralHazard and DON87109 (for paragraph 2): American vs European style has to do with if options can be exercised before expiration. European style does not have the same dividend issue (except for at expiration). In-the-money calls should be worth more hypothetically, because...
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Dividends make calls cheaper only if out-of-the-money. If in-the-money they should be more expensive because of the dividend, but that is true only for the ask price from my experience. Since you sell at bid you might get only a slight increase.
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Response to def, I know of a case that a person got an extra $.10 estimate for the premium and had to pay $.40 for the dividend. It was part of a spread strategy; the numbers looked good on the surface, but the dividend hit a month later. The loss was over $50k. Perhaps, def, when you...
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    new trader

    I can't tell you much about futures, but IF you know what you're doing, equity options can be very profitable.
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Response to cnms2 See my response earlier to def for 2 important corrections to def's message regarding t-1 and regarding that it is only incorporated partially into the option price; best proof is, get a list of dividend paying stocks and see how much you can get for selling in-the-money...
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Reply to qazmax: Regarding experience: it seem that a classical way for experience to help you is when you experienced this first hand. I don't know why the Options Clearing Corporation insists on giving someone credit for owning the stock the second he exercises his options to have to...
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    new trader

    Beware, because while option trading can often be very prudent, statistics show a high percentage of new option traders lose all their money quickly. If you think you came up with a good strategy, and are about to implement it, start small, like 1 option contract (literally), and wait it out...
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    Reply to Arnie Guitar: There are very many amateurs who don't know. Some only found out the hard way.
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    Beware: Call writers must pay dividend

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------- It could be your right (i.e. that it is only after factoring in the cost of buying the puts when writing the covered calls), but if yes, it would seem to me a great strategy to write bear credit spreads right before...
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