And for those who have doubts: here's a screenshot of the acct status I get everyday from IB (of course with blanked out personal and confidential data):
Market logic is this: I buy it to the price that I offer. If a deal can't be made, so be it; I'm not dependend on immediate fills, as was already stated by me. But in this game we assume it gets filled always b/c $20k is IMO not that much when dealing with options of big companies. Otherwise we would endlessly debating just this one minor aspect of the whole action. So, according to you *all* backtests out there are invalid. What do you say now? Btw, how do you come to the 85:15 ratio? Don't say Put/Call ratio or Delta!
As I stated it has nothing to do with theory, in practice you won't average middle of the spread. But once you go live, you will find out.
Man, I am averaging all the time, all the years! This is a very valuable method for me to get better avg prices, as I several times stated also in other threads. Just say what you mean with the 85:15 ratio? How did you compute it? Is it based on anything mathematically/statistically significant? botpro wrote in an other thread:
It's my estimate from years of trading. So you have been trading for years since you mentioned "all the years"?
Since the year 2000 I'm trading! That I already said in other threads, maybe you didn't read it. Up now I had in total accounts at 4 or 5 brokers. I've even had a DATEK account! Man, it was the best broker mankind has ever seen! Used QuoteTracker then. A cool trading program, had even an API in those early years for me (2000+), a dream for every program-trader. Since about 5 years options trading (but only long Call and long Put options). And only recently I've also learned the advantages of shorting of options, and with it delta-hedging etc.. But, I've not traded fulltime, did it only as an hobby, because my main profession is being software-developer. As a discretionary (aka manual) trader that I mostly was, I hadn't much success. So, I re-evaluated everything and came to the conclusion that one should use automation. So, now there I'm: I've worked hard 6+ months to develop a very good long-only options system, but unfortunately still haven't found funds to try it out live, as it requires a relatively big account of about 500k... At the moment I've accts at IB and TD, but unfortunately not much funds ;-( Currently working on the IB API...
But you're seeking financing for a system supposedly generating 1000% and at the same time starting paper trading journals. It doesn't compute.
It very well does make sense. I simply don't have that much cash myself to apply the system as the system needs a relatively big account, optimal would be about 500k.
It is extremely circular but if IV is at 45% and IV in the past 6 months has been averaging around 25% then you are buying relatively expensive options compared to where they have been priced in the past. If the higher IV is due to possible event than the IV could collapse after that event leading to deflation in the premiums. This occurrence is especially painful for OTM options which are mostly time value premium.
botpro .............. option and stock trades can easily be scaled down to any account size. A $5000 account would be fine.