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that wasn't my intention. my bad. deleted it. The conclusion I drew from the two other pieces of advice was that resistance IS in fact futile. :rolleyes:

The PMCC discussion was a bit of a detour; my apologies. My objectives with the PMCC index ETF portfolio were to a) beat the "index", and b) do so with lower volatility. I did not succeed. My original question for the thread was more general. I'm seeking to understand/master basic options...

heheh, well, vertical spreads it is! There are certainly plenty of knobs to turn... Thanks for the help.

For the record, it's not that I'm losing money; I'm just not convincingly beating the index. And if I can't beat the index, then I want the P&L volatility to be lower...but it's not. First plot below was my Merrill account (now closed) that had the 11 sector ETFs plus GLD, TLT, VGK, FXI, and...

I should have mentioned that I've been trading the poor man's covered call (just a diagonal call spread with a long-dated deep ITM long leg) for a year or so, in two $25K test accounts. Mainly trade the PMCC on index & sector ETFs. My results have been middling; by that, I mean that I don't...

haha, well, I was happy to have someone else fill in the blanks on this matter. As an oil company whore, I'm not allowed to weigh in. :D

@Robert Morse and @taowave thank you for the replies. One thing I like about options is that even a putz can cheaply make a negative directional bet. With stocks, don't I have to sell shares short? (For some reason, shorting has always intimidated me, but maybe it need not?) Also, I'm having...

There's a guy on YouTube who lives in Saskatchewan and drives a Tesla. I asked him how (Canadian) cold weather affected battery life. He said he suffers a 40% loss of range (500 vs 300 km). This jives with some numbers I've heard anecdotally here in Colorado. 300 miles drops to 180-200 miles...

I tried asking this question earlier, but I think I asked it wrong... Even though I've been messing with options for a couple years in my spare time, these forums have made it abundandly clear that I am a beginner. And I have taken that to heart. I have some DIY tools that allow me to test &...

Remember when everybody used to make fun of GM & Ford cars as being so crappy that rental car agencies accounted for much of their sales? :rolleyes:

I guess we can all aspire to be professionals(?). Or they hope we do. Do you find that IBKR provides most of your useful data feeds, or do you use additional data sources?

Got any books that stand out in your mind as useful? I'm always on the hunt. In options, it's slim pickings.

Cool, thanks. What is OCC PM? I'm reading a Mark Minervini book, and I know people dish on him here, but his thought process seems similar (fundamental & momentum analysis to find "alpha"). Selfishly, I'm curious if you could give some more color on your general R&D thought process (no...

I just moved the money from my Merrill-Lynch test account into IBKR. Looking forward to digging into that platform. It looks powerful, but complicated.

Basic question #5 in the "taking one for the (B) team" series. How do you measure "success" in an options trade? The question sounds trivial, but maybe it is not? Any real broker would give you a modeled profit vs share price curve, as a function of time. This assumes that the IV structure...

Well, this is my pat on the back for the day: I actually do something that real trader would consider common sense. Maybe this is going to work out...or maybe it's not! :D

trade 2: IWM short iron butterfly, expiring 12/17/21, wing width $5. directional assumption: slightly down. highest RSI since June.

The "proxy option" is not a profound concept; just a quick way to model an option's price as time passes and the underlying price changes. Say you own an option with 120 DTE that is $50 ITM. What will that option be worth with 90 DTE if the underlying moves up $20? You could a) model it with...

SPY Short iron condor expiring Dec 17 with $5 wide wings; nearly an iron butterfly. directional assumption: flat to slightly down mildly short vega/delta. long theta. gamma-neutral.

I wouldn't bother reading it if I was you. If it's coming out of my keyboard, it probably ranges between Crap and outright disinformation :D. Technically-correct-but-uninsightful is a stretch goal