Need to be a great stock trader before you trade options ?

[sle]

Quote from Tim007:
I think stock trading and futures trading is much harder than options trading, in general. Take it from someone who started his trading career in options and in 5 years was heading the derivatives operations of one of the largest banks in the world in Asia.

Do you mean "operations" as in middle office or as in "head of derivatives trading"?

 

[bwolinsky]

Quote from lindq:

As most options strategies are in some form a directional bet on the underlying, yes, it helps to have a successful background in trading equities. If, as you say, you are not making money now trading stocks, then you'll be likely to accelerate your losses in options as you encounter spreads, decay, transaction costs and leverage.

Right! Like is this noob serious?

OP, what makes you think if you don't know how to time underlyings that you'll be more succesful in their options?

 

[OddTrader]

Quote from bat1:

True or false?



I want to get into trading options but I'm only so so in stock trading?

Options is a whole different world over stocks?

perhaps a possibility would be having a Good options strategy tradig volatility, at the Right timing, before Important stock news.

 

[jirib]

Quote from bat1:

True or false?



I want to get into trading options but I'm only so so in stock trading?

Options is a whole different world over stocks?

CBOE offers free online education in option, where they take you through the basics you must know before trading options.

True or False will depend on how you trade options. If you plan to write an IC once a month on S&P or RUT, you don't need to worry about stocks, however, once you want to get deeper, you need to understand how they work.

I cannot imagine trading option without solid technical analysis knowledge, but that only comes with practice.

Goog luck,
JB

 

[Strangler]

Quote from bwolinsky:

Right! Like is this noob serious?

OP, what makes you think if you don't know how to time underlyings that you'll be more succesful in their options?

Who says he has to trade underlying direction?

 

[cmb]

Quote from CBC:

Thanks for that info cmb. It is always good to hear about people doing well trading options. Hopefully that will be people talking about us one day.

I started trading options and only ever traded options so jump straight in op.

Hehe yeah thats the plan, its what wall street is all about.

Anyway, I have around 10k that I have saved for investing. But, but I feel like I can benefit from trading options, so I funded an account with 1300, the plan is to try and turn it into 10k by the end of the year. I feel like it will make me a better trader if I set up a goal to do something like that. And if I fail, and blow out the account...its only a grand. Go back to the demo account for awhile . My goal is to get to trading with shares by the end of next year, but I can gain experience with options, and with 1300 I can make solid gains with that much money, impossible with shares to make money on 1300. Also, with options the funds clear every day, so I have a new round daytrades with a cash account, so more experience there as well.

thats why I think options are good for practice, and if you trade well, you can take your small options real money practice account to a nice trading account in a few months. Once you concur scalping with options...when you have 200k-500k buying power, scalping/trading with shares is much easier and profitable.

 

[CBC]

Quote from cmb:

Hehe yeah thats the plan, its what wall street is all about.

Anyway, I have around 10k that I have saved for investing. But, but I feel like I can benefit from trading options, so I funded an account with 1300, the plan is to try and turn it into 10k by the end of the year. I feel like it will make me a better trader if I set up a goal to do something like that. And if I fail, and blow out the account...its only a grand. Go back to the demo account for awhile . My goal is to get to trading with shares by the end of next year, but I can gain experience with options, and with 1300 I can make solid gains with that much money, impossible with shares to make money on 1300. Also, with options the funds clear every day, so I have a new round daytrades with a cash account, so more experience there as well.

thats why I think options are good for practice, and if you trade well, you can take your small options real money practice account to a nice trading account in a few months. Once you concur scalping with options...when you have 200k-500k buying power, scalping/trading with shares is much easier and profitable.

Sounds like a plan cmb,

I started off with 5k and made my way up to 30k in 6 months, I traded only straddles, 1 trade per month because I had no idea which way the market was going to go. I thought it was going to go up when it went down and vice-versa.

Sounds like ur keen.

Best of luck with it.