Also, on a side note I am going to be decreasing my size from 100 contracts to around 25 I believe. 100 is too much leverage for what I am working with, that way I can have a little less stress in positions and won't sit there hoping losers will come back
for years my daughter has said she wanted to trade, but then she always came up with some lame excuse like, "But I wouldn't know where to start." I always told her, that's not good enough, you need to want it really bad finally today she emailed me that she had opened a virtual account at options express In my entire life I've never known a profitable long directional options trader she's a pretty good card counter but I was hoping she would become a stock trader all I know to tell her is, "Buy calls when you think it is going up."
There's a saying I came across; Directional traders get the big wins, but spread traders drive nicer cars and sleep better at night.
every long lived spread trader will have some story about one big trade that changed his life when you get on the right side of that trend, it starts trending harder and longer than you or anybody else ever thought it could and that will pay for all the sins you committed spreading even though that spreading paid the bills for many years what they don't tell you is the anxiety you have to go through hanging on to the trend, especially during the pull back, and there your wife is upstairs wanting to have sex, and you are sitting at the kitchen table with an ashtray full of butts and a warm beer thinking, "There it was, if I had just taken it I could have paid off the mortgage. That settles it, tomorrow I am going back to spreading. That's what got me the down payment."
So the moral of the story is that spreads are the only way to long term profitability with options ? Dreamkiller..
The Cornwall Capital guys mentioned in The Big Short got going by making directional bets on options. They made a few big bets that paid off huge though. Then moved on to several different things I believe, anywhere they could find an opportunity. That is some guys I would love to work with.
FINALLY...... a trading statement I can agree with. No matter what the strategy, it always boils down to picking the right strikes at the right time,... for the right direction, and for the right duration of time. (Even no direction is a direction) Also, what separates winners from losers is...... a willingness to manage risk, during both good times and bad times.