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No, I mean the leverage is the same as buying a stock. In other words, very little leverage and you actually need the cash to buy it.

Not everyone is comfortable with futures trading as they don't understand them or for some other reason. QQQQ is an ETF, so it is like buying a regular stock. E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are the equivalent, like ES to SPY. For int'l diversification see CME. Dividends are priced into the...

No, I don't, yet. I don't use historical volatility though, so I may not have the same problem. :) On the other hand, my charting software calculates volatility so no need to know the exact formula.

A retail trader is a guy sitting at home trading his own money. The trader keeps all his profits and losses. A proprietary trader is a guy who trades through a prop firm that gives him greater leverage (i.e. small capital contribution, huge buying power). The profits are split. That would...

You risk is no less no more than what the risk on separate two verticals. In fact, what you have is a vertical, which has two verticals embedded in it. That is, any spread that is wider than 1 strike can be broken down into smaller spreads. Don't know a book on just spreads. Good reads, in...

Yes, the two 3450 will cancel each other out and your position ill be long 3400 short 3500. Why would you want to maintain both positions as separate? IT's the same thing anyway. E.g. If you decide you wanna close out the 3400/3450 spread then just close it out (i.e. sell 3400, buy 3450)...

Whatever! Good choice, btw. Good trading.

For whatever reason you wanna trade other instruments I suggest you get yourself educated about how organised markets, i.e. stock/options/futures exchanges, work and what is the role of brokers.

First of all, OPTION BROKERS DO NOT SET THE SPREADS, THEY HAVE NO INFLUENCE OVER THE SPREADS, THEY ARE JUST THE MIDDLEMEN BETWEEN YOU AND THE EXCHANGE WHERE THE SPREADS/QUOTES ARE SET IN A COMPETITIVE MARKET BY FORCES OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY AND MARKET MAKERS IN LESS LIQUID OPTIONS. If you don't...

HAHAHA, good one No Option!:D I'd say he's long milk futures as well!:D

Why do you think the volatility of futures is related to volatility of spot by the same factor exp(rt)? Volatility is calculated based on natural log returns, i.e. ln(S2/S1), so if we substitute S with F we get ln(S2*exp(rt)/S1*exp(rt-1)). So the difference between the spot volatility and...

I don't see why you can't use the underlying index to calculate the volatility. The two are closely correlated anyway, true there's basis risk, but it's not that great.

Brokers have no influence over the bid-ask spreads.

You want historical volatility or historical implied volatility? If it is the former then just take the prices, stick them in excel and calculate standard deviation of daily log-returns. Then multiply by the square root of 252 to get annualised volatility.

SH*T!:eek: You were not supposed to see that! I'm gonna kill my broker! :D :D :D

Congrats, coach!

Why would a trading platform prevent you from this? If you hit a PDT rule then you have an option to deposit more money.

My point exactly, if you can accurately forecast volatility then you can accurately price the options and buy the underpriced and sell the overpriced options.

You're not getting the point here, this whole thing is priced in, there's no way to make the extra return. If it was that easy everyone would be doing this!

85% of options that are held to expiry may expire worthless, but that's not the same as 85% of all options that exist during the life of the contract. Here's a simple example. Suppose, during the life of an option 100,000 contracts are open, and subsequently 60,000 are offset (i.e. closed out...