My option trades

Looked at Fl and Big

By rights both should jump on earnings. But I don´t have anything to hang a judgement on. I see BIG has the better bid ask spread. If that tells me anything?

I more or less am going by an article I read, where somebody said, you buy the slope direction, as most of the time, it will jump in the same direction. Other than that, and Ryan using chicken entrails, or ATTICUS with his scientific mumbo jumbo Ouiji board I have no clue at all, and cannot afford a loss. So guess I will skip. If I was to bet though, it would be BIG. I´ll kick myself tomorrow if I am right.
 
Quote from ryanpatrick:

well, that was a whole day of reviewing SODA's price action and news. Can't find the swagger, but then again, I should have expected that too.....the price action went the same way as APKT just a few weeks ago where APKT came out with a poor report, traded low in premarket then just popped for a 10% pop in days. Here is SODA with just the opposite of that action. I will hold onto the spread, showing a loss of -460 or so at last check.

Gotta move on, and I didn't want to make some odd trade yesterday so I stayed away from my accounts. I did add FL and BIG calls today for reports tonight and tomorrow night. FL 29 calls at $1.20, and got BIG mar 45 calls at 1.20. About $800 total investment in both, I'm back down to $8600, so a total loss here pushes me back to about $7800 only. I'll take that risk heading into the weekend. Tired though as I took some 12 hours looking at SODA yesterday.
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The issue I have with this method is that the terms "small caps" and "logic" are mutually exclusive. A good rule of thumb is to trade long vol when you find the straddle cheap. Not necessarily the straddle, but it's a suitable proxy for any long vol position (excluding calendars).
 
Alright! I bit the bullet. Gamble small as it is.

Fl was the one with the closest bid / ask spread. Which I presume agrees with Atticus idea of volatility control.

I went just for one contract at $1.20. It also had the smoothest climbing accumulation of buying.

CASH MONEY, see what tomorrow brings?
 
Quote from ryanpatrick:

well, that was a whole day of reviewing SODA's price action and news. Can't find the swagger, but then again, I should have expected that too.....the price action went the same way as APKT just a few weeks ago where APKT came out with a poor report, traded low in premarket then just popped for a 10% pop in days. Here is SODA with just the opposite of that action. I will hold onto the spread, showing a loss of -460 or so at last check.

Gotta move on, and I didn't want to make some odd trade yesterday so I stayed away from my accounts. I did add FL and BIG calls today for reports tonight and tomorrow night. FL 29 calls at $1.20, and got BIG mar 45 calls at 1.20. About $800 total investment in both, I'm back down to $8600, so a total loss here pushes me back to about $7800 only. I'll take that risk heading into the weekend. Tired though as I took some 12 hours looking at SODA yesterday.
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Well I made a $100 loss on SODA too. Rather than sell the Iron Condor, I bought a Butterfly. Didn't go my way so I closed it. I never hold on to losers- even if there's a chance it might turn around. But I let my profits run. I finally closed some apple calls and made a handsome sum on it.
 
Quote from ryanpatrick:

well, that was a whole day of reviewing SODA's price action and news. Can't find the swagger, but then again, I should have expected that too.....the price action went the same way as APKT just a few weeks ago where APKT came out with a poor report, traded low in premarket then just popped for a 10% pop in days. Here is SODA with just the opposite of that action. I will hold onto the spread, showing a loss of -460 or so at last check.

Gotta move on, and I didn't want to make some odd trade yesterday so I stayed away from my accounts. I did add FL and BIG calls today for reports tonight and tomorrow night. FL 29 calls at $1.20, and got BIG mar 45 calls at 1.20. About $800 total investment in both, I'm back down to $8600, so a total loss here pushes me back to about $7800 only. I'll take that risk heading into the weekend. Tired though as I took some 12 hours looking at SODA yesterday.
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Ryan,

I have been through all those hours of research on stocks when I was younger. As I got older, I just felt that I couldn't spend that much time anymore (burnout), so I looked into alternate forms of trading like index and ETF options.
"Believe me, I know where your coming from."


Jeff
 
Jeff

I´m coming to the same conclusion already as an amateur. Though I´m still playing with playing trends pre-earnings and post earnings. Thing is one article I read suggested that I should never waste my time on a stock that swung less than $1.50 to $1 a day.
Been wondering where especially one would look for those type. Is there a list somewhere maybe?
I regret making the bet on FL this afternoon after the fact, but never again, win or lose. However, pre-earnings and post earnings some of them should fit a trending profile. I really hadn´t considered such an idea, or even heard about it before. But somebody on here said they started mid quarter ( six weeks ) looking for them. Makes sense to me. I had this week been spending too many hours eliminating lists of stocks, as most of them were small companies. Too much work. Perhaps the S & P 100 or something? Anybody care to pass a tip where to find the movers? I suspect it would be the same bunch all the time, once you know where to find them.
Technically charting that should be easy to spot. I had started 10 days out before an earnings report, but it looks like, as someone on here suggested 6 weeks is better. Sounds okay to me. Now I need to make a stock list to look for trading patterns.
 
Come on guys, if you insist on trading options, then get back to simple basics. "Options are meant to be sold" period. Time decay is your friend that way, otherwise time decay is your enemy. Sell calls, sell puts, look for high volatility to sell, never buy them back (unless you are forced to for financial reasons).

All you're doing is guessing next month's vol, and be sure to check the conversions. Get past all the extra commission 4 legged condors, or butterflies, all that stuff my brother and I did back in the 70's and 80's ... we did all that for 25 cents, even dollars at times, certainly not for a few pennies.

If underlying move one way, sell more calls, if it goes the other way, sell more puts, just change strike price.

Don't overcomplicate options, just collect thetas.

Enough said, right? Now get to it if you must.

All the best,

Don :)
 
I do not sell options. just buy options, then sell.
you do not need sell options first, that needs margin requirement. option leverage is rendered useless.

the only advantage of option is leverage: you can make money no other place you can make.

my 2cents is: trade options just like trade other stuffs, ignore time decay. but just focus on buy on the rise(either put or call). since leverage is high, a little move is magified into a big move, shorten your trading timeframe to 1' chart, get be quick to get in and get out, otherwise things easily upside down.


do not touch those options with no volume. for example, ITM options.

all should be OTM options.

do not average down, do not use stop loss, take risk just as acceptable.



Quote from Don Bright:

Come on guys, if you insist on trading options, then get back to simple basics. "Options are meant to be sold" period. Time decay is your friend that way, otherwise time decay is your enemy. Sell calls, sell puts, look for high volatility to sell, never buy them back (unless you are forced to for financial reasons).

All you're doing is guessing next month's vol, and be sure to check the conversions. Get past all the extra commission 4 legged condors, or butterflies, all that stuff my brother and I did back in the 70's and 80's ... we did all that for 25 cents, even dollars at times, certainly not for a few pennies.

If underlying move one way, sell more calls, if it goes the other way, sell more puts, just change strike price.

Don't overcomplicate options, just collect thetas.

Enough said, right? Now get to it if you must.

All the best,

Don :)
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Very good opinions by trader 198 and Don Bright.

Each has points. Due to being an amateur and small retail trader, I find buying better, because of the margin requirements. Still, I am trying to work within a 5 trading day trade frame.
My reasoning being, equity buildup depends on both the number of trades you can make in a year and size of the bet.

What I´m concentrating on is not making any losses, or minimizing them.

I´m trying to trade the weekly bar. Using hourly charts. I don´t make enough to cover commissions as a small retail trader in smaller time frames, such as 15 minutes, or less. It´s the experimenting that creates losses for me. We obviously are never satisfied with what we have and tend to try something new?

I´m not sure I agree with the OTM options? I find the ITM about $3 to $5 premiums have the most leverage and gains from experimenting.

If there is some small advantage to using OTM options, I would like to know what it is.? My testing says you tend to throw money away with them.
 
ITM options are good too. but if you day trade options, they are not. if you do weekly swing or overnight, ITM is a good choice, but you need limit your size, also look for those with almost no premium.

I trade C/QQQ/SPY overnight using ITM since almost there is no premium. but to AAPL, I do not. I buy OTM since 10points swing to AAPL is piece of cake, if I bought $5 options, throw in 5k, easily get wiped out. but if I bought $1 under, no matter what happens, i just lost $1k, and the gain will be far much than 1k.

in most case OTM is safer.
ITM is not since ITM needs more money put down, more money in a position means possible more loss.

if i bought 100lot of C 34 at $0.03, no hurt at all. but I bought 100lot of c 33at 1.5, and it does work out, I lost a lot, a big blow to me.



Quote from falconview:

Very good opinions by trader 198 and Don Bright.

Each has points. Due to being an amateur and small retail trader, I find buying better, because of the margin requirements. Still, I am trying to work within a 5 trading day trade frame.
My reasoning being, equity buildup depends on both the number of trades you can make in a year and size of the bet.

What I´m concentrating on is not making any losses, or minimizing them.

I´m trying to trade the weekly bar. Using hourly charts. I don´t make enough to cover commissions as a small retail trader in smaller time frames, such as 15 minutes, or less. It´s the experimenting that creates losses for me. We obviously are never satisfied with what we have and tend to try something new?

I´m not sure I agree with the OTM options? I find the ITM about $3 to $5 premiums have the most leverage and gains from experimenting.

If there is some small advantage to using OTM options, I would like to know what it is.? My testing says you tend to throw money away with them.
More...
 
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