Havent drank that in a while. I'm a fan of smoky scotches. If you are the same, try the Johnny Walker Double Black. This conversation got useful.
i like the island-based stuff, like lagavulin, but lately I've switched to burbons... can we keep going along this path please? it's more fun then bashing the latest reincarnation of ForexForex
I like Lagavulin as well. Smokey! Was at Wild Wood the other day trying some Kentucky Bourbons... didn't suit me.
Well I do appreciate the educational stuff from Whistling Leaf and the more expert stuff from Atticus and some others. I´m getting educated, it is a rather slow process. I´m going to have to go to 1 contract again, this coming week, having lost all my cushion of profit. I´m down to $7058 for equity balance and I am certainly not going to make $10,000 by the end of this month now. I tried 15 contracts and did not close and reverse early. Not sure why I didn´t? Lost - $780. Like a deer in the headlights at night I guess? At any rate I am re-looking at Straddles. I kind of made a mess with the strangle idea. The vertical spread is a fascinating way of trading, if you do like Whistling Leaf. ( 9 months to a Leap year out ) I think his 50 + trades open, were the thing that caught my mind. Atticus or somebody mentioning the return for a debit spread and a credit spread being about equal was discouraging. Unless you could get a quick turnover, I don´t see that being a good trade. The debit spread being better by consensus on here sounds interesting. I remember 25 years or more ago, looking at them, in another life, where the instructions I was following said, do not pay more than $2 for a Vertical Debit spread. Somebody just now on here mentioned pà ying a $1 for one. I´m not at all sure how you get a Vertical Debit Spread that cheap? I remember having tried them experimentally on paper in the past, but could not get them so cheap. Perhaps there is a trick to it? Possibly OTM or ITM or something? I think I remember long, long ago trying to leg into a Vertical Debit spread with the intent of getting a less than $2 spread. But that backfired a couple of times and just gave it up at the time. So if there is a trick to that snippet I would find it interesting. I´ve been looking at the weekly trends and the monthly to see if I could predict something for Whistling Leaf type of trading. Got nothing right now. I guess I´ve decided to park the calendar and the condor until the market congests again. I can´t figure where the market will be a week away. So I¨m looking at Straddles, Straight long buys and of course if I could get a cheap Vertical debit spread somehow, that would be an interesting option. An aside to ATTICUS, I may not be available in June. Got a contract offer from a Spanish organization has some sort of Latin American assistance program and they want me to go to Jamaica mid June to teach a bunch of small farmers how to grow tropical crops. All expenses and $2500 plus for the week. I´m going to hold out, to see if they will pay hotel, and airfare for my wife as well. See how it goes? In the meantime, we have had our first rains down here and one more set of rains and I return to the Western foothills and home in the Belize Alps, soon as the next rain occurs. I´m going to start cleaning up this apartment on the beach. Should be out of here inside 10 days.
Out of curiousity this Sunday morning. I calculated the QQQ has dropped -11% from the high. Trying to figure what it will do for next week.
Ooh! Before I sign off. One last question for WhistlingLeaf. I don´t want to intrude, or be nosy about your private business, but it would go a long way toward forming some sort of impression of your trading system, if you would care to share, your account equity growth, or losses over the year, with your system. That kind of is the measuring stick to guage by. If you don´t want to say, that is perfectly okay.
I was gonna call shotgun but doobs beat me to it. *raises hand* Can I be # 3 atticus? Wow you guys are way too suave with your drinks. I'm still shootin jagers and tequila...
Did you just ignore what atticus wrote? They are equivalent. There is no consensus. The people who said debit spreads were better are just dead wrong. There are two differences in them. One, in a credit spread you get paid up front; in a debit you pay premium up front. Two, if a credit spread expires OTM, you don't incur commish to close it. For retail, it seems to me that is reason enough to go credit. The other thng to keep in mind is that all verticals are directional plays. In general, you are better off just buying the underlying, provided you have the capital. Commish and speads add up on options and are a bigger percentage of your net.