My Options Play

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Quote from uninvited_guest:

Please read my post more carefully. I will add another observation of mine:

The BBY trade is what did you in emotionally. You made the RIGHT call but sold too early only to see your calls go up for a healthy gain, without you. Thats tough to take, if BBY tanked after you sold you calls you would be better off emotionally and maybe made 1 or 2 trades after.

I know from experience, selling GOOG calls to early and missing 200% additional gains, buying HPQ and AMD calls weeks too early, getting stopped out by a few pips in Forex only to see 100 pip move in my direction, without me. The worst loss to take is when the stock moves in your direction after you have exited the position.
You're dead wrong! Keep in mind that I intend to reach 100K by December ending, that alone should put me under pressure. But wait tilll I generate 20K between now and next week Friday, then come back and run your commentary!
 
Same happened to me with goog before earning back on march....the rest of the mkt was in bad shape and I was scared to death: sold within days on good profits but gave up 50% gains.

That was messing up with my initial strategy to keep it as part of my portfolio.

FCUK

PS: true, psychologically can be worse than a loosing trade
 
Quote from Multioption:

You're dead wrong! Keep in mind that I intend to reach 100K by December ending, that alone should put me under pressure. But wait tilll I generate 20K between now and next week Friday, then come back and run your commentary!

Why have targets so ambitious if they pressurize into making the wrong decisions.

:confused:
 
Quote from Multioption:

You're dead wrong! Keep in mind that I intend to reach 100K by December ending, that alone should put me under pressure. But wait tilll I generate 20K between now and next week Friday, then come back and run your commentary!

Multioption your next trade HAS to be a winner to get your emotions under control, if it's a loser then your FEAR increases. Perhaps instead of 50-60 contracts go with 5-10? and extend your deadline? To bad your TA didn't pickup on GOOG when you started this thread, your target would have been met.

I had my eyes on the GOOG puts last month but FEAR prevented me from buying. I bought GOOG calls last year and since then FEAR has kept me out of GOOG, even though I made 400%.

FEAR can be good or bad.
 
Quote from uninvited_guest:

Perhaps instead of 50-60 contracts go with 5-10? and extend your deadline?
Uninvited guest, hasn't it dawned on you that this guy might indeed have a system that is foolproof? Maybe that's why he has so much confidence in it to post his trades online and risk 20K of HIS own money?

Look at the trades produced by his system.

They have all been accurate, as per his predictions. Can we say the same of your trading approach?

If at the end of December, he hasn't achieved his goal, then you will have a reason to shout and scream, but until then, why don't you shut up and let the guy prove his point!

PS: Did I already mention that he is not using your money to trade?

Wandering Newbie.
 
Quote from uninvited_guest:

Multioption your next trade HAS to be a winner to get your emotions under control, if it's a loser then your FEAR increases. Perhaps instead of 50-60 contracts go with 5-10? and extend your deadline? To bad your TA didn't pickup on GOOG when you started this thread, your target would have been met.

I had my eyes on the GOOG puts last month but FEAR prevented me from buying. I bought GOOG calls last year and since then FEAR has kept me out of GOOG, even though I made 400%.

FEAR can be good or bad.
Uninvited_guest, you sound rather infantile but I will oblige you some information....

I've been trading for a living since 1996; switched to Equity Options in 1997; have made over $1.8M in options (mostly on the buying side). Fear/greed is applicable to those who are locked in "rat-race", so 10K is "chicken feed" to me.

However, there's need for discipline in trading, a lack of which is the bane of many traders. It's not about how much capital is at stake, rather about applying sound trading principle. I can't be careless in my trading approach simply because I want to prove a point. The best trader on this board has nothing to add to my trading style because I can't and won't change it for any reason!

I intend to post my picks on this board for the next few years, but time will tell if that will be done. I don't carry over the after-effect of last trade, hence my approach is one step at a time.

Please, spare us your commentaries because you sound very childish and irritating!
 
Quote from Multioption:

Fear/greed is applicable to those who are locked in "rat-race", so 10K is "chicken feed" to me.

Why do you assume I'm in a "rat-race"? And you look down on people who put in small trades?

Just as I figured you have jacksh!t to teach anyone.
 
NUTSEAL:

Thank you very much for your reply.
Finally got back from vacation today.

I understand what you do know.

One thing we differ is that you look for 1 or 2% stop losses and 3-5% profit targets.

I do 10-15% stop losses and 30-100% profits. I do hold my positions longer than you do though.

At one point I was carrying >10 positions open at the same time and realized it is an amazing amount of work to keep up with them.

Another big problem I had was getting my stop losses filled at the number I had submitted. With IB I have always been taken out anywhere from 20 to 50 cents under where my stop was placed.
But at the exact number on my profits stops.

But the biggest issue were gaps. From my experience or my bad luck? more than 50% of gaps went against me. For my system to have worked I would have needed to have at least a 50/50 ratio.

Trading options is 1/3 of my trading portfolio. Hold positions from 1 week to 2 months and try to never pay more than 30cents of time per month.

Anyways again thank you for your detailed reply and Congratulations on your success !!


Quote from NUTSNEAL:



Optionspro007

Maybe I wasn’t really clear on my balancing puts and calls. What I was getting at is that often if a person is only playing the market from one direction, long side (buying calls) or the short side (buying puts) often a huge wave or tide in the opposite direction comes along and catches him and his position off guard moving it against him. Often if I have a STRONG opinion on short term market direction, I will only play that one direction. But most often, I will try to neutralize this overall market risk by having long call positions that are offset with long put positions in other stocks. Generally I do this by matching up delta to near neutral. Usually I am buying deltas of 90+ percent (Yes 1 or 100% as someone pointed out the other day and I am sorry I forgot to respond to them.) Since I am generally buying deltas in this 90 to 100% range it is usually just a one to one offset in different stocks. By using this approach it comes down to more of an approach of being able to identify strength, weakness, support, resistance, etc. in the individual issues. In this way when the big wave or tide comes along unexpectedly (as they often seem to have a way of doing) I am positioned to capitalize on it no matter what the direction. Generally, the selected issues bet in the direction of the tide, will have a much greater positive move than the negative move experienced in the issues bet against the tide..

I am definitely not invested all the time. Fairly selective in letting price get to where I like it.

Maybe this will help someone or maybe it is worthless to most except me.

Someone mentioned earlier, when trading, it really comes down to being RIGHT.

There are degrees of being RIGHT and this is what causes most option traders to loose money. There is being right on timing, direction, & volatility and the degree to which we will consistently be right on each of these. This is where I believe the very complete, accurate analysis of AAPL done by cnms2 begins to loose value.

If I expected to consistently be RIGHT to a high degree on timing, direction and volatility, I would buy just the right amount of time of puts or calls of the correct strike to give me the most leverage. But I know I (and I suspect others) can only consistently be right to degrees.

I will use the AAPL example proposed by cnms2.

Underlying price $57.03

Nov 65 Put $8.20 ask $65-57.03 = $7.97 intrinsic value
$8.00 bid $8.20-7.97 = .23 time value
.20 spread

7.97/8.20 = 97.2 % .23/8.20 = 2.8%


Nov 60 Put $3.90 ask $60-57.03 = $2.97 intrinsic value
$3.70 bid $3.90-2.97 = .93 time value
.20 spread

2.97/3.90 = 76.15 % .93/3.90 = 23.85%


By buying the Deep In The Money (DITM) option ($65 put) I am spending only 2.8% of my investment ($8.20) for the SAME amount of time that the ($60 put) is spending 23.85% of their investment ($3.90).

In addition, if I decide to bail out .20 spread/$8.20 = 2.44 % of investment lost
.20 spread/$3.90 = 5.13 % of investment lost

I don’t recall the deltas on these options at that time, but I suspect around 91 or 92% and 71 or 72% respectively. Which means if I am right to a LIMITED DEGREE (which is the best I can consistently expect) my option (65 put) will increase at roughly 91 or 92 % correlation to the underlying as opposed to 71 or 72 % correlation for the 60 put. Obviously the delta is a double edged sword and if I am wrong this correlation will work against me. Here we arrive at the degree of being wrong. As cnms2 correctly points out, you are always at risk of loosing 100% of your investment in an un hedged position. But if your analysis is accurate, it is not probable but it still is possible.

It appears to me most option traders’ expectations are wrong and this is a major problem.

If I am right, I expect to be right to a LIMITED DEGREE. But more importantly, if I am wrong, I expect to be wrong to an even MORE LIMITED DEGREE. Now I’m sure some of you are thinking, as my dad used to say, “Go ahead and expect in one hand and crap (not exactly his word) in the other and see which one fills up first”.

For my DITM option trades I generally EXPECT to allow no more than a 2% move against me in the underlying (generally needs to be closer to 1%). This is fine tuned based on perceived support or resistance.
I normally EXPECT a positive move of around 3% although I will stay with the trade through 4 or 5% or even more as long as price is moving in my direction with only moderate retracement or showing the proper signs.

With the AAPL example from October 26th cnms2 uses an example of being stopped out at $60. See attached chart two post down. I forgot to attach it originally and now in edit mode I am not getting the option to attach it. If I were in an option trade I would be out if the AAPL put up a print above $57.75. I use the DITM options trades as hit and run one to five day (one preferably) trades.

Let me break the two options down at expiration in table form relative to investment based on percentage move in the underlying.

(The table didn't format right in this post. I attached it in the next post.)




One of the major issues is CONSISTENT EXPECTATION.

The DEGREE of right or wrong.

It appears to me if an option trader expects to consistently catch rather short term moves of greater than 4% he will be disappointed (see table next post). If he can do that, there are better buys than DITM options. Also, it is very risky over time to let the underlying move more than about 1.5% against you. One of the keys is to enter trades where you can get a very tight stop.

Also, the DITM options with a delta very close to 100% present many opportunities to trade around the position very close to expiration.

Also, depending on your capitalization it is much easier to hedge off the overnight risk cnms2 mentioned relating to a fear of a gap.

Multioption

I have really enjoyed your thread. I hope you don’t let some of the negative posts discourage you from continuing to frequent ET.

Good Luck in your Quest!!
 
Quote from uninvited_guest:

Why do you assume I'm in a "rat-race"? And you look down on people who put in small trades?

Just as I figured you have jacksh!t to teach anyone.

Man you need to simply go away.

We are having an option party here and you seem to have a huge bug up your ass.

Disappear please.....you pollute this thread.
 
Quote from optionpro007:

Man you need to simply go away.

We are having an option party here and you seem to have a huge bug up your ass.

Disappear please.....you pollute this thread.

Option Party?

3 trades in over a month and 100+ pages, more like an Option Funeral.
 
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