My option trades

Quote from falconview:

I´m finding that now I am watching stocks, that my indicators ( home made ) don´t work at all in stocks, like they do in an index. Must be because of the large number of stocks you are averaging, or whatever. Whereas the players with a stock, are all over the board.

This should please Don.

I can do credit speads, iron condors, and now trying to do calendars. So Im at least pondering trading SELLING options. ( grin )

I do not know why I could not do what I wanted with that calendar today.

In TOS. a) -set the SELL PUTS for the March ( 8 ) days left weekly to end of month. ( bid )
b) Then the other half comes up for buying puts in April month. ( ask )
c) All at 67 strike in QQQ today. ATM or as close to it as possible.
It did give a suggested limit order of 9.58 or something and I changed that to 10.05,which is better than what I got from the option chains Anyway it rejected me.
Will try again tomorrow.
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now what on earth is a home made indicator?

Falcon, in TOS, you dont need to go through the bid/ask business for each individual contract for a calendar. Simply select "Calendar" from the spreads drop down menu at the center top.

Choose the appropriate combination of months (you wont need to change the default ones) and just click on ask price for the desired strike calendar spread.

Done.
 
Babu

What I found in order to get the TOS -Calendar trade - was click on the bid of the March weekly ( end of month 7 days ) ( you say ask? )- The bid of March would then default to sell March and buy April ( ask- I presume? )
It would give me a premium limit. I thought I could change that limit order, but maybe not, or maybe I did something else wrong? First time I am doing this, so as an old senile man I get confused perhaps?

I used to have a practise TOS account, but all those notes are up in the foothills of the Belize Alps at my house and here in this vacation apartment, on the island beach, I don´t have notes and have forgotten the password for that web based practise trading. I might play with this again today Friday. Though looking at the price action, I´m thinking of increasing my straight buying of CALLS bet size. With a double bottom, I might be able to get .50 cents to .70 cents, early next week.

Anyway, thankyou for the help. That was kind and considerate of you to take the time. Us amateurs on here are a pain in the neck, not only to our own frustrations trying to learn this stuff, but certainly to the patience of the long term professionals. Drives them batty :D Drives me nuts and I´m trying to learn it. The young ones have more agile minds I guess?
 
Quote from babutime:

I made a mistake by not locking in the 60% of expected profits before the midday rally ended and began diving. I always forget Ib pattern day trader rule.

But the reversal and late rally in the last 30 mins gave me some hope. The reason I said I didn't like the upswing was because it could habe just as easily given up those gains.

This will be a lucky trade for me. O well I've needed one for a while now

Will use the proceeds to finance some long gamma positions... Next week might bring out some crazy animals.
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Trading is half luck.
I too am Flattening the net short gamma in my book.
 
Home made indicators are those in freestockcharts.com that allow you to change parameters, combine different types of indicators along with the same standard ones offered. Maybe HOMEMADE is the wrong word? I´ve probably got 75 of them. Then I sort of sift them for performance ratings and settle on half a dozen that work well in forecasting.

Since we are always working with historical data, nothing though is perfect. You never find the holy grail indicator. Trading, even with GOOD indicators is never perfect either. You can find a sort of forecasting gestalt that works a good portion of the time. The unexpected often happens though.

The problem is you can be right with a good set of forecasting indicators from historical data a lot of the time, but unable to hang on to your trade, when the money leverage according to your bet size gets bigger and the panic and worry about losing, fear factor takes over. I took a -$105 loss last week because of the fear factor, but turned out right in my forecast, which is annoying no end.

Small bets are fine, like one or two contracts, but when you start trying to make money with ten contracts and more, the fear factor is much greater than the mental tolerance allowable for an indicator that may be, and possibly is right, eventually. I´m sure everybody knows this though?
 
Trading is half luck.

"I too am Flattening the net short gamma in my book."

Explain this sentence please? Atticus is always saying this stuff, but I can´t picture it, what he is doing. As he says; it is sort of abstract thinking. My thinking may more be described as chaotic,than abstract?
:D
 
Quote from falconview:

Trading is half luck.

"I too am Flattening the net short gamma in my book."

Explain this sentence please? Atticus is always saying this stuff, but I can´t picture it, what he is doing. As he says; it is sort of abstract thinking. My thinking may more be described as chaotic,than abstract?
:D
More...

My book is short gamma receiving theta. I am transforming that to being flat gamma and flat theta. Basically buying back all my short options and selling some of my long ones.

It's a personal decision, but I want to limit my downside risk if I start to get trades wrong.

Have you read the Natenburg book?
 
We don´t have bookstores in this country. Too rural and small population. So I haven´t read it.

Okay, you are leveling your GAMMA by adjusting your holdings. You apparently are still receiving THETA? As in selling options somehow, or just not considering THETA, other than to get it to zero?

So you use the GAMMA reading on your various bets, to adjust the theta action overall. I would have thought thinking about it, that being short gamma, and positive theta would be income generating,at least in sold options? Guess I´m not seeing the relationship here? Will have to use the internet and read up on it.

My daughter in Houston emailed me and said she bought a book on BEHAVIORIAL TRADING. Will read it first and then mail it to me.

That said, the Whisper choices for Earnings reports this week, I tracked, kind of went between 2 and 3% moves either way. KBH this morning dropped about .35 cents which is around a 3% move. You would need 5 to 10% moves and have to get the direction right.

I did a paper STRANGLE on it, to see what would happen? The PUT increased a 100%, but the CALL lost the same amount, or 35 cents. But the Call had cost .51 cents originally. Anyway, any profit would have to come after the earnings drop, by the price climbing back up and giving something back to the CALL, presuming one had bet on a strangle. Whatever you could recover on the CALL would have to give the profit and the costs, such as bid ask spread, and commissions.
Doesn´t look like you can do a strangle on an earnings report GAP? Not as a trading method.
 
Quote from falconview:

We don´t have bookstores in this country. Too rural and small population. So I haven´t read it.

Okay, you are leveling your GAMMA by adjusting your holdings. You apparently are still receiving THETA? As in selling options somehow, or just not considering THETA, other than to get it to zero?

So you use the GAMMA reading on your various bets, to adjust the theta action overall. I would have thought thinking about it, that being short gamma, and positive theta would be income generating,at least in sold options? Guess I´m not seeing the relationship here? Will have to use the internet and read up on it.

My daughter in Houston emailed me and said she bought a book on BEHAVIORIAL TRADING. Will read it first and then mail it to me.

That said, the Whisper choices for Earnings reports this week, I tracked, kind of went between 2 and 3% moves either way. KBH this morning dropped about .35 cents which is around a 3% move. You would need 5 to 10% moves and have to get the direction right.

I did a paper STRANGLE on it, to see what would happen? The PUT increased a 100%, but the CALL lost the same amount, or 35 cents. But the Call had cost .51 cents originally. Anyway, any profit would have to come after the earnings drop, by the price climbing back up and giving something back to the CALL, presuming one had bet on a strangle. Whatever you could recover on the CALL would have to give the profit and the costs, such as bid ask spread, and commissions.
Doesn´t look like you can do a strangle on an earnings report GAP? Not as a trading method.
More...

Still need to get past the event type option trade when considering strangles. Strangles simply are betting the stock will stay within a certain price range, very simple. Worse case scenario is that you may get put stock or called short, no big deal. Of course you can to a Cover if Close trade (a joke name) if the underlying price gets a few pennies away from either strike price.

Can you use Amazon to order these books? I'm not a fan of any of the books I've read, they all seem to over-complicate the simple act of options trading, generally by non-traders. More academic, like the original Black-Scholes modeling authors. But, it seems you want to get into the academia as a hobby, so why not? Enjoy your obviously elegant lifestyle. Send us some photo's of these homes, they sound beautiful.

Don
 
Quote from falconview:

We don´t have bookstores in this country. Too rural and small population. So I haven´t read it.

Okay, you are leveling your GAMMA by adjusting your holdings. You apparently are still receiving THETA? As in selling options somehow, or just not considering THETA, other than to get it to zero?

So you use the GAMMA reading on your various bets, to adjust the theta action overall. I would have thought thinking about it, that being short gamma, and positive theta would be income generating,at least in sold options? Guess I´m not seeing the relationship here? Will have to use the internet and read up on it.

My daughter in Houston emailed me and said she bought a book on BEHAVIORIAL TRADING. Will read it first and then mail it to me.

That said, the Whisper choices for Earnings reports this week, I tracked, kind of went between 2 and 3% moves either way. KBH this morning dropped about .35 cents which is around a 3% move. You would need 5 to 10% moves and have to get the direction right.

I did a paper STRANGLE on it, to see what would happen? The PUT increased a 100%, but the CALL lost the same amount, or 35 cents. But the Call had cost .51 cents originally. Anyway, any profit would have to come after the earnings drop, by the price climbing back up and giving something back to the CALL, presuming one had bet on a strangle. Whatever you could recover on the CALL would have to give the profit and the costs, such as bid ask spread, and commissions.
Doesn´t look like you can do a strangle on an earnings report GAP? Not as a trading method.
More...

I'm flattening my gamma and my theta will go to zero as well.

Amazon sells the Natenburg book and will probably ship it to you. Otherwise, have your daughter buy it and mail it to you. If you are interested in options, it will help you understand immensely what Atticus, Don, etc are saying.
Otherwise you are trying to learn how to drive a stickshift without knowing how to press the gas pedal.
It's an easy read too.
 
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