The #1 Skill In Selling Options

Ahahha, you're a pretty funny guy!


The VIX has been hovering around 30 for weeks, and the ES has been ranging hundreds of points a week! Just, you know how you tell a story! You are just so funny!


I mean, in all fairness, he did use the word "usually". :) Relax Overnight. Breathe in, breathe out. :)
 
When selling options to grow a portfolio you rely on banking that weekly/monthly premium.

However, there will be times when the option you sold becomes ITM. What does the option seller do? Ah...yes, roll the option for a credit!

Having sold options for 3 years now, I made many mistakes rolling options from choosing the wrong strike and expiration. I truly believe that rolling options is a true skill and more important to understand than your initial strike price section.

To test my skill - I placed an ITM put on Coinbase (on purpose) and documented my rolling journey of managing the position and exiting for a profit. I chose Coinbase as it's a volatile stock.

The documented playlist is here - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjkJhj4gfHjQYnOXCNMi7fdtKdPEAt444

I hope it adds value, ask any questions!

This is such a good advice, like doubling-down on every losing position. I truly love stupid people.
 
I will take the other side of this, just to see. SPY has a strong support at 360 and I went long 100 shares. I know there is a strong chance of a counter trend and eventually, it will rally to 370 or 380. So, I buy 900 shares at 350 and suddenly, my cost basis is only 351. What’s wrong with this approach?
So, you bought 100 shares at 360, then it fell to 350 and you bought 900 more, giving an average price of 351.
So, what's so special in this?
And how did it end? :)

If it furher fell the same pct rate then your initial loss grows about 9 fold... :)
But hey, that's just maths, nothing personal... :)
 
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All I know is whatever we retail traders, we always lose money.

Speak for yourself. There are many traders here who have been making a living by trading options for years.

In fact, your posts on this thread are nothing but defeatist dribble - you post about "this won't make you money, that will lose you money, and THIS will certainly lose you tons" and yet you post nothing which is actually positive. If retailers always lose money, then option trading for retail would have died out ages ago, and forums like this one wouldn't be around.
The reality is that in the last 3 years, retail options trading has exploded in volume.

But hey, don't let facts, positivity and success distract you from your "we're all doomed" mentality.
 
So, you bought 100 shares at 360, then it fell to 350 and you bought 900 more, giving an average price of 351.
So, what's so special in this?
And how did it end? :)

If it furher fell the same pct rate then your initial loss grows about 9 fold... :)
But hey, that's just maths, nothing personal... :)
Omg! Didn’t realize so much math was involved in it. Thanks! You may have just saved my life.
 
This is such a good advice, like doubling-down on every losing position. I truly love stupid people.
I don’t know if you have a 401k account but that’s what your fund manager is doing right now and you are paying them 2% commission. You must really love yourself :D
 
Speak for yourself. There are many traders here who have been making a living by trading options for years.

In fact, your posts on this thread are nothing but defeatist dribble - you post about "this won't make you money, that will lose you money, and THIS will certainly lose you tons" and yet you post nothing which is actually positive. If retailers always lose money, then option trading for retail would have died out ages ago, and forums like this one wouldn't be around.
The reality is that in the last 3 years, retail options trading has exploded in volume.

But hey, don't let facts, positivity and success distract you from your "we're all doomed" mentality.
I guess everyone sees different things in a post. All I saw was a wonderful picture on theta gamma games played by the market makers. I have been watching the theta/gamma ratio and it’s interesting.
 
"Making good money" - that's great. Former MMs at CBOE would come upstairs and complain that they made $ 5 million for the team and still get fired. They couldn't understand why.

You would see the lead MM and ask them if the story was true and it almost always was. Ask them why they fired the trader and the answer was always the same "They made $5 with $12 million at risk. The extreme negative assumption would, as another poster mentioned, eventually would kill them. Nickname for the trade was akin to unprotected sex in a third-world country. The most likely result would be fun. A very small percentage of death.
Trick question - what strategy lost the most money in 1987? Hint it wasn't index put selling.

It is a free country and 87,89 and 08 were rare events in the broad market. In single-name equities, you get them frequently.

First question you ask when interviewing a candidate is what the trade should have potentially earned.

You can't eliminate all risks - even spread trades can have a negative assumption, but if you underestimate risk you will eventually have a bad event.
 
Speak for yourself. There are many traders here who have been making a living by trading options for years.

In fact, your posts on this thread are nothing but defeatist dribble - you post about "this won't make you money, that will lose you money, and THIS will certainly lose you tons" and yet you post nothing which is actually positive. If retailers always lose money, then option trading for retail would have died out ages ago, and forums like this one wouldn't be around.
The reality is that in the last 3 years, retail options trading has exploded in volume.

But hey, don't let facts, positivity and success distract you from your "we're all doomed" mentality.

Just because everybody is flocking to something doesn't mean that thing is necessarily good. Everybody loves Krispy Kream donuts does that mean donuts is good for you?

Judging from your post, you are either a retail trader who's on a profit streak and thinks you've found the holy grail or a market maker dealer who's been using us retail traders as fodders and is afraid that my posts about the reality of options trading are going to scare the retail traders off. LOL

If you are the former, congratulations but don't think it's because of your skill it's because you've been lucky that you haven't encountered the big blow-up yet but don't think you will be able to avoid it forever. One of those days, it will come. So some advice to you: don't spend too much when you are making money because they are all borrowed funds and one day you will be giving them back hopefully not all of them back. That's not your fault that's just how the options game is structured. Save some money now so when the big blow-up happens you will still have some left to pay the mortgage and the bills. With the high inflation that's happening right now, you are going to need it.

If you are the latter, too bad I just called your game. Seeing how angry your post is, I think I hit the nail on the head. But don't worry you are not going to run out of fodders. As long as there is one cent of profit to be made, people will stick flock to it especially when the money comes so easily. The odds of winning are so low in casinos and lottery buying and people still flock to them. I understand that trading is competition and we retail traders are basically competing against the best of the best and the most experienced but I just wanted to point out that the options game, with how it's structured is not as fair and equitable as what people think.
 
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