It's All GREEK To Me....

cactiman · Dec 10, 2011

All I read about here are "The Greeks"!
Is there anyone out there who looks at Single Options and Vertical Spreads as Surrogates for Stocks?
Anyone who analyses the Underlying Stock Chart for its Trend + Support & Resistance Levels, and researches the Company to see if it has good Earnings & Sales?
Anybody influenced by Ken Trester, who doesn't even use the Greeks and has made a living trading Options since 1973!?
I failed Statistics 40 years ago, but can make money trading Options.
Am I all alone? A Dinosaur? Any other Old Timers out there?

rosy2 · Dec 10, 2011

Quote from cactiman:

Is there anyone out there who looks at Single Options and Vertical Spreads as Surrogates for Stocks?

yes. for personal investing/saving I use options instead of stocks. seems safer.

stoic · Dec 10, 2011

IMO "The Greeks" are by and large useless. And despite my invitations to the advocates of the Greeks here, no one has shown any real world real time evidence to the contrary.

You're not all alone. there's lots of us old timers out there, plodding alone making realistic returns.

Most of the posts here are from the wanna-bees who get some kind of kick out of posting a lot of gobiligoop jargon about IV this, skew that.....and gamma scalp this. They think it makes them sound like experts.

ForexForex · Dec 10, 2011

Quote from stoic:

IMO "The Greeks" are by and large useless. And despite my invitations to the advocates of the Greeks here, no one has shown any real world real time evidence to the contrary.

You're not all alone. there's lots of us old timers out there, plodding alone making realistic returns.

Most of the posts here are from the wanna-bees who get some kind of kick out of posting a lot of gobiligoop jargon about IV this, skew that.....and gamma scalp this. They think it makes them sound like experts.

ET is full of those boneheads, they are now into "Dynamically Hedging". This is the latest thread with some of that crap: Short strangles on stocks

3754 people like this.

njrookie1 · Dec 10, 2011

There is nothing wrong using options to trade the underlying. I think it in terms of a delta/direction bias. Options help to reduce volatility of the equity position, or an option strategy can be structured to have a built-in stop-loss or scaling in/out feature.

I am new to this too. However I just feel that there are more things that you can do with options. Sometimes you can express your view about market movement more naturally with an option or a combination of option contracts than using the underlying.

Just my 2c.

njrookie

daveyc · Dec 10, 2011

we all know that only millionaire traders are here on this board. but, seriously, the greeks are critically important to an options trader.

spindr0 · Dec 11, 2011

Quote from stoic:

IMO "The Greeks" are by and large useless. And despite my invitations to the advocates of the Greeks here, no one has shown any real world real time evidence to the contrary. You're not all alone. there's lots of us old timers out there, plodding alone making realistic returns.

Most of the posts here are from the wanna-bees who get some kind of kick out of posting a lot of gobiligoop jargon about IV this, skew that.....and gamma scalp this. They think it makes them sound like experts.

Once upon a time everyone thought that the world was flat and that you'd fall off the edge if you went too far. And some ignorantly believed that the sun revolved around the earth. I bet Galileo and Columbus spouted a lot of gobiligoop jargon about this and that as well...

There are many ways to scalp a buck. If you have minimal understanding of the Greeks or haven't found a way to utilize them, that in no way invalidates their usefulness to those who have done so. In your opinion, they're useless and for you, that's acceptible.

spindr0 · Dec 11, 2011

Quote from daveyc:

we all know that only millionaire traders are here on this board. but, seriously, the greeks are critically important to an options trader.

Geez, we've been demoted from billionaire trader status to millionaire traders? What's happening to the neighborhood?

stoic · Dec 11, 2011

Quote from spindr0:

And some ignorantly believed that the sun revolved around the earth. I bet Galileo and Columbus spouted a lot of gobiligoop jargon about this and that as well.....

At least Galileo offered validation to the Copernicus heliocentric model. Something I have yet to see here.

Let's see.....mmm.......I want to write a book about option trading....... I could tell people to study the underlying, apply the strategy that is most likely to profit, and fits their risk tolerance, based on their expectations....mmmmm...........OR...I could write about complex formulas and multifaceted calculations based on theoretical models with out of the ordinary names..........that's the ticket....make them think they'll have an edge with my book............that'll sell!!!

cactiman · Dec 11, 2011

Quote from stoic:

IMO "The Greeks" are by and large useless. And despite my invitations to the advocates of the Greeks here, no one has shown any real world real time evidence to the contrary.

You're not all alone. there's lots of us old timers out there, plodding alone making realistic returns.

Most of the posts here are from the wanna-bees who get some kind of kick out of posting a lot of gobiligoop jargon about IV this, skew that.....and gamma scalp this. They think it makes them sound like experts.

Thanks stoic, I feel better now!