Quote from Maverick74:
It's good to see you posting again Trajan. Good comments. Actually, I got sucked into trading long premium when premium was always going up. It was very easy to bottom pick volty. Sooner or later, it would always pop. I am a new man now though. I am a dedicated short gamma trader and I would probably fall under the heading of swing trader if you had to classify my trading style. I just find that I can put on the same position as you with short gamma with a lot more edge and construct my deltas in such a way to reduce my risk substantially. I've also shortened my time horizon on my trades to increase turnover.
As far as the Perfect Option strategy goes, I always made money with it. You know, I say this a lot on ET and I might as well say it again. I have a general rule in life I like to follow. And that is, when something works for somebody, I never question them, there is no need to. Regardless of how one trades, if you can make money doing it, then do it. How stupid would it be for someone who employs a certain style of trading and consistently makes profits only to stop doing it because somebody told them, that won't work, when in reality it is working.
It's like a diet. You always hear people say that won't work and this won't work, but if the person is doing it and losing weight, who cares, let them do it. Everybody's body is different. Each of us react differently to diet and exercise. Well, the same goes with trading. You can take 100 people from ET and let them trade the same strategy and because we all think differently, because we all have different experience, two of us will not trade that same strategy the same way and we will probably get 100 different results.
This is what irks me about ET. People will say you can't make money trading NYSE, or you can't make money trading nasdaq, or you can't make money daytrading forex, or you can't do this or you can't do that. Well, if you can do it, then do it. Some people like to trade covered calls, some people like to trade long gamma, some like short gamma, some like to pair trade, some like to play volty dispersion, who cares, as Phil Knight said, just do it!
If you can't be an independent thinker, you won't make it in this business. If you have to listen to others, this is the wrong job for you. You can't just copy and paste a trading style from someone else and make millions. Trust me, it's not that easy.
You know Metooxx had a great line from years ago here on ET when someone asked him how he traded? His answer was, we do all the things that people say don't work, and we make them work. Now there is a guy that is making money. I guess that is why he is trading in the Bahamas on a tropical island and others here are looking to copy and paste.
Trading is like anything else in life, you have to be willing to be the lone wolf. When you get to the fork in the road, you have to be willing to take the road less traveled. Only the most disciplined, the most strong, the most independent can endure such a trip. To be willing to defy the gods of trading and popular opinion and believe in yourself enough and have the conviction to do the right thing. That is a trader gentleman. And only when you reach that point, only then are you going to figure this game out. Until then, sign up for all the chat rooms, buy all the books, go to all the seminars, listen to everybody else, copy everybody else and follow the crowd. At least when you get to end of the road, the road of failure, you will have a lot of people with you and you will have plenty of drinking buddies.
Haven't you ever wondered why the bars are full of 60 year old men talking about how good they could have been over a beer? Bar stool after bar stool, they all travelled together and they all ended up at the same spot. The question you have to ask yourself is this, are you willing to walk alone? I can't answer that for you, you'll answer that when you become a trader.
And btw, Trajan, when I use the word you, I mean the trading community. LOL. Good luck everyone.
