Conservative Options trades

Quote from danshirley:

"Chasing small premiums and ignoring time risk is reincarnated monkey business."
I am not sure what 'reincarnated monkey business' is supposed to mean (i suspect it doesn't actually mean anything) but the issue is expectation of return.

If one is making small bets with high probability of return one can do as well or better than making bigger bets with smaller probability of return.

The issue is not the time so much as the statistical expectation which is function of both time and price.

The time risk in a longer term option position is certainly no greater than that involved in buying the stock and in most cases is considerably less.

Just a sugeston for all of you monday morning quarterbacks: if you have better trades why don't you post them on your own thread? I hear lots of criticism...but no trades.

Just for your info: I don't particularly post these trades for anyone but myself. I use the postings to follow my trades as I move about during the trading day. I use them to remiind myself of what I am trading and why. So your approval or disapproval, until I see some evidence that you can do better, are of little interest to me.

Get your own life...or in this case your own thread.
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First of all, the fact that you post here for yourself to follow your trades is bull. Why the heck would you need to post them in public, just open up a word document and write your thoughts in there.

And second of all, take a deep breath and relax. Noone is attacking you or trying to approve or disprove anything. If you post things in a public forum then the underlying assumption is that you are looking for some feedback or at least open to discussion, if not then don't post in public.

All I did is ask about your reasons for a couple of your trades. I'm not saying that your trades are wrong, I would just like to know your reasoning for choosing a 450-day iron condor, and trading the synthetic call vertical rather then the natural.
 
"First of all, the fact that you post here for yourself to follow your trades is bull. Why the heck would you need to post them in public, just open up a word document and write your thoughts in there."

No it is not 'bull'. I don't carry a note book PC around with me so where woud I put this word document?

I use this space exactly for what I said I use it for. In fact I am not interested in the arrogant, self agrandizing input from any BB freaks. To quote W.C. Fields: Go away boy...you bother me... more importantly you are cluttering up my thread with useless crap. Beat it.
 
Quote from danshirley:

"First of all, the fact that you post here for yourself to follow your trades is bull. Why the heck would you need to post them in public, just open up a word document and write your thoughts in there."

No it is not 'bull'. I don't carry a note book PC around with me so where woud I put this word document?

I use this space exactly for what I said I use it for. In fact I am not interested in the arrogant, self agrandizing input from any BB freaks. To quote W.C. Fields: Go away boy...you bother me... more importantly you are cluttering up my thread with useless crap. Beat it.
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Welcome to my ignore list!
 
Quote from danshirley:

"Double check your calculations. Bull spreads do not increase in percentage yield across the board as time lengthens."

Apparently sometimes they do. As of close last night the time profile for the 26/28 spread is:

Month..........%..........days.............Annualized
Nov............2.56%.......23..................41%
Dec...........17.65%.......51................126%
Mar...........33.3%.......142.................85%
Jun...........48.15%.....233.................75%

So that if I were opening that trade today on the same criteria I would chose the Dec expiration.
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Apparently they change is the wrong conclusion. What you posted above is the proper relationship, eg. near term month is worthless and pct yield decreasing over the coming months. You got it wrong in your previous post.

Using the stale inaccurate quotes of Yahoo, etc. will also give you bad numbers.
 
Quote from danshirley:

If one is making small bets with high probability of return one can do as well or better than making bigger bets with smaller probability of return.
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Interesting twistiness. No one is suggesting that you make bigger bets with smaller probability of return. The statement was that you have no expectation of any return in the next few months. If you don't like the facts, ignore them.
 
Quote from danshirley:

The time risk in a longer term option position is certainly no greater than that involved in buying the stock and in most cases is considerably less.
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So the risk involved in buying stock justifies a bad option position?
Interesting way to rationalize an option position.
 
Quote from danshirley:

Just for your info: I don't particularly post these trades for anyone but myself. I use the postings to follow my trades as I move about during the trading day. I use them to remiind myself of what I am trading and why. So your approval or disapproval, until I see some evidence that you can do better, are of little interest to me.
More...
If you want your own feedback, send yourself an E-mail.

If you're posting them for yourself, don't respond to other posters.

If the replies are of little interest yo you, why are you responding to them? If you can't control yourself, use ET's handy dandy IGNORE button.
 
Found the ignore button...wonderful

Just to be clear:

I post these trades strictly for my own use. They are not meant to be used by anyone else, and they certainly are not meant as advice of any kind. I do not give advice...ever.

I make these posts so I can use the postings later in the day to review and actually make trades.

I am not interested in engaging in prolonged debates over trading methods etc. with any BB denizins. It does not amuse me.

If you want to say something please do...but don't clutter the thread with your opinions so that I can't find my trades.

I will just click the ignore button.

I come from the MSN boards (which are being discontinued) where this was a well understood courtesy.

Thanks
 
Moving right along:

With the market in such shakey condition I have waited on two trades until the market stabilizes (next week? ... I hope):
AMN: Dec 55/50 Bull Put Spread

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=3m&l=off&z=m&q=c&p=&a=&c=&s=amn

GILD: Dec 40/35 BPS

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=3m&l=off&z=m&q=c&p=&a=&c=&s=GILD

I have not done the GIS trade either, but not so much because of the market conditions as because the rabble got me so confused I will need the week end to review the possibilities on this trade. You can see that GIS has not been effected by this pull back very much at all:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=3m&s=GIS&l=off&z=m&q=c&c=

Which is consistent with our view of GIS as a 'safety stock'.

note: I have put almost everyone that has posted here on ignore (except myself of course) and probably will continue to do so, simply because I cannot afford the constant distraction not to mention systematic harassment. I'm trying to make money here not play BB games with a bunch of personality disorders.
 
from the close on Friday Oct 23rd to the close yesterday, Friday Oct 30th the Dow fell 2.6%. This provides a sort of stress test for our recession resistant stocks. How much did they fall?

Stock.......% drop
BAX..........-1.8
CHD.........+2.7
CL............+1.2
CLX..........+0.1
GIS...........+1.5
JNJ...........-2.4
MCD.........-1.4
PBCT........-3.5
SLGN........-1.6
TEVA........+0.4
WGL.........-3.5
WMT.........-1.5
-----------------------------------
Avg:.........-0.8 %
So our recession resistant group only fell an average of 0.8%. It's interesting that all of the consumer staples stocks actually gained during the week. The biggest fall was from WGL which is an NG utility.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=WGL
 
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