New trades: AAPL 1x: Buy 3x 440.0 Call / Sell 1x 425.0 Put / Buy 1x 440.0 Put BAC 40x: Buy 3x 13.5 Call / Sell 1x 13.0 Put / Buy 1x 14.0 Put BIDU 4x: Buy 1x 97.5 Call / Buy 3x 105.0 Call / Buy 1x 97.5 Put C 40x: Sell 2x 49.5 Call / Buy 3x 50.0 Call F 40x: Buy 3x 16.0 Call / Sell 1x 15.5 Put / Buy 1x 16.0 Put GOOG 1x: Buy 2x 885.0 Call / Buy 1x 885.0 Put IBM 5x: Sell 1x 200.0 Call / Buy 2x 205.0 Call / Buy 3x 210.0 Call NDX 1x: Buy 3x 2960.0 Call / Buy 2x 2960.0 Put SPY 40x: Sell 1x 162.5 Call / Buy 1x 164.0 Call / Buy 3x 163.0 Put / Sell 3x 163.5 Put SLV 25x: Sell 1x 21.0 Call / Buy 3x 22.0 Call
I have to ask about risk control; is the downside on the trade always worse than the upside? I'll be the first to admit I don't understand options, could you walk me thru a typical trade showing all the possible outcomes?
Most of my trades is some form of backspread, so no, upside is bigger but it requires big move in a specific direction. Unfortunately, I can't take you through all possible outcomes.
Tricky one to answer, because there are so many different sort of trades. Ur basic trade, buying a call or put has a few different outcomes, first the market moves in your favour, in this case up and u can easily manage a 300% return in a week. If not more during expiry week. I saw a put option go from 4c to 19c in the space of 2 hours on the day before expiry. Secondly the market moves against you, in the case of the call you brought the market moves down. You could quite easily go from 100 to 0 in no time at all. It can happen very quickly. Also when buying a call option there is time decay and volatility issues. Basically as you get closer to an option contract expiring the option will lose its value. If u brought a call then u would slowly lose money the longer u held. So if u brought a call the outcomes are, 1: Market moves up, u take a lazy profit 2: Market moves up slowly, u come out even, probably with a slight profit / loss 3: Market stays flat, u lose 3: Market goes down slowly, u lose 4: Market moves down, u lose Of course this doesn't take into account the market going down then up and vise versa. But rather takes into account the time u brought the option, then sold it. There is also volatility so if the market is more volatile when you brought the option to when u sell the option then u lose money through volatility. Of course u might not neccissarily lose money if the market moved in ur favour. To complicate things more, you also have dividend dates. I don't understand much about these but they do affect prices as well. This is just a simple call option. There are many different strategies each with a long explanation needed. Even just selling a call option is different, because there a 2 ways of doing it. Ava good 1.
I've closed NDX with almost 3k profit as it was too much risk. Rest of the trades will be closed in the evening.