subject to bullshit con artist trying to suck you in.
I think this is true for any leveraged instrument. I've paid for a few classes on trading I later realized were just scammy. They all revolved around getting people to imagine owning a Ferrari by levering up their neck using options, futures, or options on futures.
I trade both every day, but mastering delta1 take years/decades
I'm not sure what you mean by delta 1? Are you claiming to run a delta 1 trading desk that hedges huge equity swaps with options or something?
--
My personally opinion is as follows:
It comes down to taste. What do
you like doing. Neither is safer than the other. For futures:
1. High leverage
2. Approximately the same liquidity
3. Regulated Markets
4. 24 hours
5. Algorithmic strategies are easy to automate
6. Margins are actually "performance bonds" so you're not paying interest to borrow
7. Favorable tax treatment
8. Commissions are usually dirt cheap
(4) is big because after hours can really hurt you in options trading. Especially with the chop in today's market.
Options have the following benefits:
1. Extremely dynamic positioning ability
2. High leverage (purchasing long calls on SPY for example could yield leverage similar to futures given enough of them)
3. Large number of assets to choose from - you can write an option on anything that moves
4. Regulated Market
Both have a few similarities:
1. Pricing is a derivative of an underlying
2. Scammers and get rich quick schemes exploit them
3. They both expire eventually and require rolling
4. Both require a lot of liquid capital to stay within good risk tolerance
To me, options are very complicated. A winner can turn into a loser for a lot of reasons. Imagine trading weeklies where you're essentially trading pure vega if you hold to expiration. Sometimes it's difficult to explain why a winner turned into a loser. Additionally, unless you're trading really tight straddles and other delta-neutral type strategies you have to be right on direction and time. In many underlyings a trend takes a while to establish. I feel like the options market is a MM's game, and retails have no place in it.
Futures are far simpler. You have exposure to global markets, they trade "like stocks" (in the loosest sense), and there's a ton of liquidity. Strategies are easier to test because you're not working with the derivatives of a stochastic calculus equation.
I think below around 15k capital options are probably your only choice if you're going to manage risk effectively and you desire derivatives. Anything above that and you're better off trading futures. If I had less than 15k, I'd probably trade ETFs on margin and then switch over to futures when I had saved enough money.
Sorry, sorry, carry on.