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Actually, no. In 1979 gold went up 120%. In 2010 gold went up 29%.

I need to change my dentist.

I just have to assume that Symtrader is a multimillionaire who can throw away $20K without feeling it. An option bet that silver will hit $50 in a year is indeed like buying a bucket of lottery tickets. I am not strongly bullish on silver for the upcoming year simply because it's already had...

All my working life I put the maximum possible into my IRAs and 401ks, which were mostly invested in stocks. (And not at all in options, of course.) I have damn little to show for it. The stock market has gone nowhere in 10 years. The only long term investments I made that have done well...

The bill does propose cutting military spending by $47 billion. The very fact that Rand Paul's proposal seems extreme, yet still leaves us with a $1 trillion per year deficit, shows how utterly hopeless the fiscal situation really is. Anyhow give Rand credit for being willing to slay some...

Share holders in GM were wiped out in bankruptcy. The shares of the new "Government Motors" are recently issued.

Sure, most people should just buy shares in good, profitable, and preferably dividend paying companies and not bother trying to trade. But this site is called "Elite Trader" not "Elite Investor", so presumably everybody here either thinks he has an edge or is trying hard to find one. Certainly...

Jim Simons is of course the epitome of a successful quant trader. But I disagree with his view that inflation is not something we should worry about. Simon points out that we grew our way out of the debts of World War II but there's a big difference between then and now. Back then America...

I figure it's easier to buy happiness with money than to obtain money with happiness.

I have refused to fly since the "gawk or grope" policy was put in place. So if the airlines want my business they had better file amicus curiae briefs on behalf of Ventura's lawsuit.

I agree. The entire mortgage crisis would have been averted if banks, individuals, and politicians had stuck to this rule. (I say politicians because they played a large role in creating the laws and entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that pushed for EZ credit, low down payment...

I presume that you've back tested this system against some of the more notorious crashes, notably in the fall of 2008 and March 2009, when it would be necessary to stop out of the bull put spreads. What sort of results do you get for those periods? Did you use actual option prices at those...

Hah, the last thing we option traders worry about is that we buy some cheap OTM option and then it goes deep ITM! If no one is willing to buy your options at at least their intrinsic value you can always get the intrinsic value by exercising them. (Exercise your calls on SLV, then immediately...

It's always the case with futures that the open interest on the futures is many times the physical demand. Since the great majority of futures trades close before maturity and cancel each other out, this doesn't mean much.

Well we do hear from the GATA crowd that evil bullion banks are keeping silver and gold prices artificially low through massive shorts. Apparently they have been doing this for years, losing money hand over fist during the gold and silver booms -- if GATA is to be believed. Me, I don't think...

I agree with surfer25 and spindr0. TDAmerica has about the worst option commissions you'll find. Shop around. Look at TOS, IB, and other brokers.

If by closing price you mean last sale price that could be hours old or even days old for the less liquid options. So there's no reason it has to be between the current bid and ask.

The stock market went down, and as usually happens in that case, the implied volatility of options went up. Bring up a chart of the VIX against SPX and you will see that when SPX crashes VIX pops up, when SPX trends up VIX goes down. Bring up a one year chart of the VIX against VXX and you...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that when you "roll" a spread you buy back the old spread and sell a new spread for the same expiration month, but at different strikes. E.g., if you buy back a put spread in a market trending up you'd sell a new put spread at a higher strike...

VIX futures are usually (but by no means always) in contango. So when the short term VIX futures are rolled forward the VXX has to sell cheap futures and buy expensive futures, thus losing money. VXX will go up the next time we have a good sized crash, like in May/June last year. Then it will...