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How about a Diagonal Synthetic Long Stock. :D I don't think there's an "official" name for this combo, I would love to find out though if someone knows it.

www.cme.com/trading/prd/

The reason for this is that it allows you to write straddles if the intial put is assigned, so you can bring in more premium. In fact, it doesn't have to stop there. That is, you can keep writing straddles as long as you're willing to purchase additional shares. In other words, if you start...

Yes, that's right. An American-style call will generally not be exercised early since it is not optimal to do so because of the remaining time value, which is lost on exercise. However, it may be exercised early if it is ITM and the stock goes ex-dividend.

Your example is a bad one, since the call would be worth at least 15 (as it has $15 of intrinsic value) + whatever time value it has, and not 10 as you suggest. In your example, it is obviously better to exercise the call, but in reality this will not be the case, as it is usually better to...

If you in and out of the trade within a few days (I assume, 1-3 days) then front month is better, as they have much higher Gammas. I don't know of any free site that let's you see Thetas in chains, but your broker may have it.

Front-month have much higher time decay than further out. Options lose 1/3 of the time value in the last month. Just bring up a chain and look at Thetas across different months.

Now you're talking. If you're interested in trading a move in the next couple of days then, yes, front-month ATM options give you the biggest "bang for the buck" as they have the highest Gamma.

Basically, it's not that clear cut, the choice of the option/strategy depends on a lot variables (e.g. time frame of the trade, implied volatility, target price,...), so you can't just say that ATM options are the best.

Can't say anything about IB, but I use thinkorswim and there's only one margin, same at Optionsxpress.

That's not true, if you sell an Iron Condor then there's margin requirement only on one side and not both.

Your question is too broad. There's no single answer, sometimes ATM options are the best choice and sometimes they are not. There's a whole range of factors that have an impact on this (e.g. expiry, price target, implied volatility and etc).

I don't trade FX, but from what I gathered FX futures might be a better alternative, since there's plenty of regulation and futures are exchange-traded.

Either way, when it stops working you either ran out of luck or the edge is gone. :D

I'm no expert in FX brokers, but you should read some of the threads here, the impression that I got is that some FX brokers are real crooks, who manipulate things against you. For example, www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48487 Sometimes paying commissions is not a bad...

Don't worry too much about the details of how FX dealers make money. Obviously, it's not as easy as buying on the bid and selling on the ask, as the market can go against you. So they either have to hedge their positions, i.e. balance out their net position so that they don't have to worry about...

It is the bid-ask spread. That is, whenever you want to buy you buy at the ask price and whenever you want to sell you sell at the bid price. So the brokers/dealers always buy at the bid (lower price) and sell at the ask (higher price). That's how they make money. A spread of 3 pips mean that...

Haven't you learnt anything!? Time is money! :D

eassam, This sounds like an assignment/project I did in one of the Finance units when I was at the University. You should really do your own work, besides Daniel is right, you're asking for someone to write up a whole report for you, whcih takes a lot of time and effort and eventually money.