Search results

How to end up with a million dollars from daytrading ... Start with two million.

In the book Long Term Day Traders, a number of very successful traders are interviewed by the authors: Linda Bradford Raschke (the only woman to make Jack Schwager's famous Market Wizard book) - is reported as making 70% of her money from the short side. Oliver Velez (Pristine Capital) - says...

An option ATM (at the money, i.e. the option strike price is equal or about equal to the price of the underlying) has a delta of about 50 (0.50). Only when its deep ITM (in the money) does the delta reach 100 (1.00).

Markets don't crash up. ;)

293 is a goodly number of trades, plenty from which to draw conclusions. 7 years is a pretty good sampling period too, but it would be better if was possible to include 2008 & 2009. I have a somewhat similar system trading option credit spreads. I spend most of my energy looking at the...

The equity curve looks good. How many trades was this? (it may have been stated and I missed it). The past 12 months have been largely a bull market, have you done backtesting to know what the results would be during a bear market?

I trade the RUT (Russell 2000) index and there are 2 tax advantages in trading cash settled indexes like the RUT or SPX: 1) taxes paid - Section 1256 where a significant portion of short term gains are taxed as long term gains and 2) tax reporting - you do not need to report individual trades...

I import data (quotes, trades, etc.) into Microsoft Access and do analysis with queries (SQL - structured query language) and functions written in VBA (Visual BASIC for applications). I've also found Access to be useful to write one's own option backtesting software.

Wow, this sounds great! Where can I order it? I'd like to buy several copies ... :-)

You might consider not letting the options go into expiration, where you lose all control. You could close the position before it expires, giving you control over the closing price. I sell credit spreads and never let positions go into expiration week where there can be wild and unpredictable...

One possible edge is the passage of time. Direction can be (or is) very difficult to predict, while we know a day will go by every 24 hours. Option credit spreads make money given the passage of time. Markets can do 5 things: go up a low, go up a little, stay flat, go down a little, go down a...

I've read 100+ books on trading and this is the best one on how to deal with the mental aspect of losses: I also agree with other posters who advise using a contingent order to use a stop limit order to control the size of the loss. I do all my orders as OCO (one cancels the other) with one...

The best way to become a profitable trader is to make mistakes, learn from the mistakes and try not to repeat them. It is the least painful if you make the mistakes with a relatively small number of shares or contracts. Your first concern should be controlling losses not imagining the profits...

You should also look into Tarot cards ;)

I tried discretionary multiple times and it just didn't work for me. If you read Schwager's Market Wizard books there are a fair number of both types of traders. I have a programming background and found that systematic works for me. I agree with the poster who emphasized backtesting. I...

Again, these answers (including mine) are just guesses as to what will happen. The best thing to do is live experiments with small orders (i.e. 1 contract) to see what really happens. And you will need a number of orders over time, perhaps 20 to 30, to have any statistical significance as to...

I'm afraid that idea might work in theory but not in practice and you wouldn't get filled. I'd say the bid/ask/mid are reality and what we must work with. But, you could always do an experiment with 1 contract and see how it works out.

I do put credit spreads on RUT and try to buy/sell on the mid using limit orders. Sometimes I'll get an immediate fill and other times it will sit there. I'll examine 'market depth' and see what the recent activity has been. After 5-10 minutes of waiting, I'll give up a nickel or so and that...

MC starts at $99/mo and can be cheaper if you commit longer term and pay in advance. TS is $99/mo but can be free if you do a reasonable amount of trading and generate offsetting commissions. TS is also free if you open a Forex account (recent development). TS does a nice job of bundling...

It's just a variation on linear regression. :)