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The pay interest on account balance. Not every broker does that.

<quote><b>33 pair to choose from... </b></quote> This was good one. Add mupltiple subaccounts to explot different trading strategies.

That's because they try to minimise their own risk. If a company allows for their customer to have a negative balance it simply does not know to manage it's own risk properly. I don't think it tells much of how Oanda treats its customers.

Right. Just to check out what is out there.

What brokers do you guyes know that do not have the approval process for different levels of option trading? As far as I know IB & thinkorswim do not have the approval levels? What are the other ones?

It's interesting to see how different people have different criterias in picking up a broker. To me for example Oanda is attractive not because of their 2.5 pips spreads on EUR/JPY which I could care less but because their perk like second by second interest calculation gives me the feeling that...

Yes, but it's very trivial point to be worth of discussion. Any game between 2 players is a 0 sum game.

Yes, in this sense it's a 0 sum game. But it's true also for all other games. I don't know of any game which is not a 0 sum by your definition - total sum of profit and loss of the players is 0. In this sense it's very trivial point. The more interesting question is whether it's 0 expectancy...

I challenge you to compare it with something else beyond financial markets which is in your mind a 0 sum game. One more thing - how do you personally define a "0 sum game"?

Exactly, but game is not determined by the outcome of one play. The expectancy of the game is determined by repeatedly playing it over long time. If I placed my bet on black in roulette and I guessed it right it does not make a roulette a positive expectation game.

If you can make money by repeatedly playing the game it can't be a 0 sum game by definition. You can't beat roulette by betting interchangebly on black or read because it's a 0 sum game. So how come you can guess in S&P the direction but you can't guess it in a 0 sum game like roulette by...

Fine you don't want to compare it with roulette which I believe you agree it's 0 sum game I invite you to compare with any other 0 sum game you know(which by definition has 0 expectancy in the long run meaning the outcome of this game over time will be 0 no matter how you play it). If looking at...

If underlying whips back and forth then yes underlying intrinsic value for this period is 0 & options are a 0 sum game. Commodities probably have intrinsic value of 0 in the long run because they sweep back & forth in the long run. But stocks do not. So for stocks it should not be a 0 sum game.

This is not true. At the expiration only time value of the option goes to 0. The value of the option contract does not go to 0 at the expiration. The fact that the time value goes to 0 is irrelevant. There is only one criteria of 0 sum game - whether it's beatable or not in a long run...

One search does not hurt other.

My problem with this claim is that mathematically it's impossible to make money in 0 sum game ( as in my example with roulette). As I showed in previous example options can not be strictly 0 sum game because of the presence of the underlying with its intrinsic value. Only if intrinsic value of...

In a zero sum game one can't profit in the long run by taking the same action. Let's take as example rolette that has only black & red number - no green field for simplicity. This is a zero sum game and I am going to bet always on black ( I am going to take the same action all the time) If...

You know how - on the exchanges. The same way one buyes and sells underlying. I believe the fact that those contracts are traded on the exchanges does not change the fact in your logic that options are zero sum game. Or does it? It should not.

There is no way one can make money in a zero sum game. It's hard for me to embrace this idea. Can someone give any other examples of zero sum game besides the markets where people actually make money?

I am not sure I understand it. If the underlying is in a bull market both buyer and seller of the option contract make money. Seller of the contract makes money because he it bought at the lower price. The buyer of the contract is going to make money because he's going to sell it at the higher...