Quote from skanan:
ES,
I checked optionsmart out. It seems like they initiate the trade on Stocastic signal and use that to give them an edge.
If the trade is a lost, they will roll out to get credit to offset a lost. It seems to work fine with QQQQ but not with regular stocks . One lost can wipe out many small wins they gain especially if the lost come at the early stage of your trades.
Also when they rolled out, they don't consider that trade is a new one and waited for signal. They rolled out in the expiration week and "hope for the best".
If QQQQ was not trending up, I think you could loose money.
Let's look at vertical spread they made on 11/30/04. Bought Jul 32 P, Sold Jul 38 P for
$0.29, and after many rolls over, bought them
back for $0.10 on 7/13/2005, 3.4% gain for 225
days (Rolled over on 01/21/05, 03/17/05, 05/13/05).
Between 11/30/04 till 07/13/05, the other trade which made money was on 05/26/2005
Bough Jul 34 P, Sold Jul 38 P for $0.575.
Bought back the spread for $0.10 on 07/13/2005, 13.9% gain for 48 days.
Suppose you invested about $1000/position from $10K capital. Between 11/30/04 till 07/13/05, you could make $34 + $139 = $175 in 225 days based on $10K capital.
I agreed with you on the important of position sizing. I llearned a lot from Van Tharp's book.
-Nick