Options on Futures - Identifying Trading Opportunities

[mothman]

I am relatively new to options (on futures), and have been trading for a year with the assistance of an advisor. While it has been a great learning experience (plenty of gut wrenching near misses and a recent big hammering) I would really like to trade using my own ideas and plans.

My question for you regular options (on futures) traders is how do you identify opportunities to trade? Does fundemental information provide a starting point (weather etc) or is it strictly technicals. Do you scan charts for all markets as a starting point or do you limit yourself to one or 2 markets? After you identify a market trend or direction how do you choose your strike prices? Based on volitility? Do you follow the same process every time - or is thr decision making process more of a gut feel. What are the critical items/issues indicators that say "yes - this is a trade I want to be in".

 

[MTE]

There's no single best way to indentify opportunities, each and every trader has his/her own way of doing things. Some specify certain conditions that must be satisfied for a particular strategy, then they run scans to find candidates. Other just concentrate on a few markets then choose the most appropriate strategy given their outlook for the market and relative pricing of options, while others do some combination of both or maybe something else.

In other words, you may get 100 answers here, but you will most likely get 100 DIFFERENT answers.

 

[ChrisM]

Quote from mothman:

I am relatively new to options (on futures), and have been trading for a year with the assistance of an advisor. While it has been a great learning experience (plenty of gut wrenching near misses and a recent big hammering) I would really like to trade using my own ideas and plans.

My question for you regular options (on futures) traders is how do you identify opportunities to trade? Does fundemental information provide a starting point (weather etc) or is it strictly technicals. Do you scan charts for all markets as a starting point or do you limit yourself to one or 2 markets? After you identify a market trend or direction how do you choose your strike prices? Based on volitility? Do you follow the same process every time - or is thr decision making process more of a gut feel. What are the critical items/issues indicators that say "yes - this is a trade I want to be in".

If someone wrote 10 books answering your question it would be still just the part of the subject.
I always say that trading stock/future is 2 dimensional, trading options is 3-4-5 D - depends how many greeks you trade at the same time.
You may tailor option strategy for any pattern or mechanism of the market and you may convert option spreads into other complex positions.
This gives you almost unlimited number of opportunities. List of classic spreads, described in options books is only an alphabet, and there is whole universe beyond it.