Quote from Buy1Sell2:
There are three ways to win with a short option as opposed to one way to win with a long option. Take a short call--let's say a 1300 ES Call. If the market moves down, you win, if the market does nothing, you win, if the market moves up , you will still win as long as the market doesn't move enough where your collected premium is negated. If you went long on that 1300 call, you only have one way to win and that's if the market moves in your favor. The allure of the long option is that it has limited downside potential. Unless you are way overextended, that allure is not very attractive as part of the speculator's approach. Time decay will kill you. Of course, if your buying insurance such as a farmer wanting to lock in his corn price, or a person hedging their stock portfolio. then that's different. But as a tool for a speculator to make consistent big gains--no way.