I tried to do both in the March 2019 trading competition. Unfortunately, I was not able to do both...it resulted in me only trading 2 days of the 5 day trading competition. I just wasn't willing to forfeit time devoted to my real money trades. In fact, at the time of my last trade...I was 25th on the leader board and didn't take another trade after that. Others that were still trading were able to catch up and my final result was 144th out of 1680 traders. I only traded Emini ES futures and Brent Oil BZ futures. In contrast, the big movers on the leader board were trading Platinum PA futures, Palladium PL futures and Emini ES / NQ futures. Yet, one odd trading I saw was that the leader board had a lot of traders trading the Brent Oil BZ futures and then the same leaders switch to Platinum PA futures and Palladium PL futures. In fact, the 1st place winner...most of that individual's trades was PA and PL. 2nd place finisher mainly traded Emini ES / NQ futures and 3rd place finisher mainly traded Emini ES / RTY futures. 4th place finisher mainly trader NIY and ZW futures. wrbtrader
I don't see how this is going to work for trading vol. The practice account order ticket only shows monthly exp. I don't see this happening if I can't price the weeklies.
I have a structural edge on SPX/ES but I can't make enough trading monthlies to hit the 100-150% that would probably be necessary to win this thing outright.
Hmm. This will be my first contest with options in it, so I do not know how they worked in the past. If I had a better grounding in options, I could have a discussion with you. But hell, it is free, so why not mess with it. Do some McGyver on it. *shrugs* As I typed earlier...If anyone can figure it, you can. (The contest lasts for a week, so monthlies are out the window? What about using daily options, if that is a thing?)
There are weeklies and even MWF(wk) options on ES. I am not going to waste time on monthlies. The only series listed on the sim are the monthly expirations.
CME... the only exchange offering dailies and they can't manage to list them on their sim-competition platform. Not even the weeklies are on there. No combo/spread trading. Cannot enter more than 10 lots. Singles-only. Monthly exp.
Well, if you find a way to MacGyver it, best of fortune to you. Options are nucking futs. I never get far in these opportunities, because I am too busy trading my own dosh to pay much attention to these pop-up "sim trading challenges". I am too stuck in the "real".
Well I am out, but I will post my TOS-account gains for the same week. I will utilize $100K of my capital in the SPX MWF options. and post the open/closing figures to this thread (screen grabs). We'll see if I would've placed. $105K in there. Earned $445K for 2019 in my IRA.