This options stuff is easy

Eliot Hosewater · Aug 8, 2011

In the past month:

32K on GOOG earnings
25K (so far on CSCO, 16/17 long strangle)
8K on AAPL earns
"only" 1K on SPY 131/132 strangle, closed 8/2, would be up a lot more if still on

Overall up 65K on 500K account in about a month.

Too bad it was all paper trades.

Div_Arb · Aug 8, 2011

Why would you bother wasting your time on a post like this?

spindr0 · Aug 10, 2011

Quote from Eliot Hosewater:

{b]Overall up 65K on 500K account in about a month.

Too bad it was all paper trades. [/B]

With paper trades, it very easy to ride out (or ignore) the draw downs. Real money can have an emotional context

rew · Aug 10, 2011

You'll find that your ability to predict the future will decline drastically once you're using real money.

Eliot Hosewater · Aug 11, 2011

Oh well. If it was real money I would have (I hope) closed out the CSCO strangle at +35K yesterday, instead of -1K today.

deltahedge · Aug 14, 2011

Quote from spindr0:

With paper trades, it very easy to ride out (or ignore) the draw downs. Real money can have an emotional context

Touche. When real money is on the line traders/investors/etc start to act irrationally *gasp* and usually make some rash decisions. Papermoney is great for testing out a strategy and/or seeing how a product works. But I'd be wary of anyone saying he/she can replicate their paper money returns, unless of course, it's a trading "system" they're simulating.

Moderate · Aug 14, 2011

u need to understand the greeks of your trade thats why ur losing $$

syswizard · Aug 14, 2011

Quote from Moderate:

u need to understand the greeks of your trade thats why ur losing $$

The greeks have nothing to do with predicting direction.
They simply indicate the current position's risks and rewards potential with high accuracy.

syswizard · Aug 14, 2011

Quote from Eliot Hosewater:

In the past month:

25K (so far on CSCO, 16/17 long strangle)

Long strangles have low winning percentages.
They do have their potential around earnings season however.

Eliot Hosewater · Aug 15, 2011

Quote from syswizard:

Long strangles have low winning percentages.
They do have their potential around earnings season however.

I was playing around with going long straddles/strangles on high-flying stocks like GOOG and AAPL a week or two before earnings, before the IV jumped. If the stock really moved before earns then just go ahead and sell, otherwise sell a further out strangle a few days before earns when IV is higher.