We don't work for IB, HF, MF, Banks, brokerages, we do not have an MBA from Harvard or Wharton, we are plumbers, electricians, factory workers, waiters, farmers, engineers, work for a paycheck at main street companies, saved for our retirement in our IRA.... You and @destriero are like gods to us and we aspired to be like you, in our dream.
What distinguishes "fuck it" money from piker freedom is not choosing index verts over singles. It's structuring the best position for your outlook over time and covering when the juice is squeezed or you're wrong. In index vol it requires some understanding of smile dynamics and stickiness which bleeds into SN-vol as well. Knowing when to hedge in D1 over vol and vice versa. When to add duration (vega) over gamma. Any good swing (low-freq) speculator can/will do better in vol if they can get to the aforementioned experience/knowledge.
Thats some really good shit right there..Fear not,if you devote yourself to this craft,you should reach this enlightened state of trading in no less than 10 years...OMMMMMMMMM
Price/volume is actually one of the few directional things that makes sense to me. I haven't yet found an edge in it, but at least it seems like something more than apophenia. I've caught enough reversals in trading micros straight from the chart - ones that I knew were going to happen - to tell me there's something in it. I just haven't managed to jump aboard the train yet. But thanks for the confirmation: I'll check out that thread and keep trying. (Frankly, if the edge was in the other bits of TA - indicators, etc. - I'd be screwed. I just can't bring myself to believe in that juju. Shit, I could throw together a script that would trade an indicator in 5 minutes; if it worked, the big boys would have done it ages ago and stomped it flat via arbitrage.) Ah, now I get you. I'll freely admit that I don't have any skill or practice in reading those tea leaves. I think of it as part of market psychology, which is on my to-learn list, but I haven't gotten there yet. Thanks, @ironchef! I know a number of people who do pretty well with spreads, and they're all enthusiastic about them. If figuring out the greeks for them was a major factor, I'd be doing a lot better than I am now... it just seems to be something in their entry or trade mechanics that screws with me. I plan to keep fighting this battle till I figure it out, though.
Euan's books are great options books. Love them, they make me think. However, my understanding is that his own strategies went under last year. So, in a totally unfair hindsight, he might have benefited from a moving average indicator or Bollinger bands or something.