Are options a waste of time and money? (pun intended)

Sergio123 said:
It's usually done with a defined risk call credit spread. The market could also rip 'you a new one' while you are short the shares in the underlying. Without long calls you theoretically have infinite risk.
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A credit spread doesn't fully protect you from assignment risk. If you are bearish then wouldn't it make more sense to purchase a put debit spread? That way you have zero risk other than the debit.
 
Sergio123 said:
You would need to time the selling of the underlying before the down market, otherwise you could have held on to all of that risk without any profits to show for it. If you at least keep rolling covered calls while holding the underlying then you at least made cash flows along the way while holding and not have to worry about timing the selling of the underlying.

What is it that you don't understand about rolling to perpetuity?

I don't ever sell shares unless they have been taken via covered calls or I need to exercise a long put. Both of these scenarios are very rare. I usually try to roll out and extend the trade either bearish, bullish, or neutral. It has to be one of the three.
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This guy gets it.
 
wxytrader said:
A credit spread doesn't fully protect you from assignment risk. If you are bearish then wouldn't it make more sense to purchase a put debit spread? That way you have zero risk other than the debit.
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I will do that too. I try to pay the least amount up front as possible.

My ideal trade is to recieve an initial credit, have capped risk, but also have non-capped profit potential.
 
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Yo I think it’s fair to be frustrated with your trading performance or experience. However, vol trading is probably one of the juiciest sectors from a strategy standpoint. You’re right that few people get it, but those that do, are doing pretty well (though very few of those people are “backtesting on tos”, probably spend a lot of money on data and additional resources, and have many years of experience trading the securities). It’s totally fine for you to seek another strategy and asset class. :-)
 
wxytrader said:
What are you trading? DTE? What's your trading plan for the upcoming week? Sounds like a broken wing butterfly...
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Just go to the site and check out the history and this month's expiries. I'm a REAL trader no higher education, just a bloke who did the 20+ years' hard yards after 2 years paper trading https://optionsinvesting.co.uk FYI-I forgot equity options long ago. Trade the index-there's a lot of them .
 
longandshort said:
Yo I think it’s fair to be frustrated with your trading performance or experience. However, vol trading is probably one of the juiciest sectors from a strategy standpoint. You’re right that few people get it, but those that do, are doing pretty well (though very few of those people are “backtesting on tos”, probably spend a lot of money on data and additional resources, and have many years of experience trading the securities). It’s totally fine for you to seek another strategy and asset class. :)
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You guys aren't making crap vol trading. The risk reward is garbage so no way its sustainable. I am still waiting for one example. I simply posted that all these premium strategies are much ado about nothing. As I heard someone else say its like picking up a penny in front of a steam roller. :)
 
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