To Rodney King I like Howards attempt to outline how his strategy works. No quarrel there. But to me, I like a more honest approach in dollars and cents. If you check up the back websites for the TOAD, he included cost of commissions, win or lose amounts, and the running equity balance. Somebody on here did us a good service the other day, can´t remember who? Might have been ??? apologize for an old man´s memory. But posted a monthly balance of around $22,000, which I enjoyed extrapolating to a back engineering rough estimate of using $250,000, to $500,000 account. Which answered roughly a question in my mind, on what would be the biggest account size you could trade with, comfortably and effectively without overloading either yourself or the market makers. Anyway I did appreciate the courtesy and have even though an amateur tried to give money figures whenever that situation came up. How can you be helpful otherwise?
jeeze, asking a guy to post his net liq is ridiculous and really low. he admits that the strat took a hit, hopefully does not try to get opm, and has posted his results. that's a lot more than you have. i am not defending him as much as i am telling you are simply out of line. the bottom line is to make a living here in options or whatever; you must be able to trade directionally well. there is no other way, period.
You may recall that in addition to reporting each spread, I also summarize the outcome as a series risking a specific chunk of money under the rubric of Iron Condor returns. And finally, I report month on month returns in percentages which include trading costs and the effects of a cash reserve. There is no additional information (data yes, information no, if you understand the difference) that can be obtained from viewing my account balances.
I wonder who made that point in this thread, maybe it was kinghyppo...or maybe it was yours truly... Listen: I'm not interested in $ and cents (especially in an account of likely less than $100k), but percentages... To me I made 5 points, or made 3 points per day means nothing. What is the % return and % risk you took to make it in an account means everything. The % risk part only manifested itself by the close of March 16. Have a nice Easter.
I don't have an interest in your account balances. I had an interest in the % drawdown by the close of March 16. Guess what?. I lost interest already. Go and do whatever you like best. This is harder than trying to teach a monkey to talk...a waste of time. bye.
Yoiu make money for months or years and then on march 16 (or whenever) you lose 100%. What is the point of trading?. What if march 16 had been the expiry day?. This is like a sheik with 5 billion playing martingale on a roulette, to calc his returns you must divide by the risk he took: 5 billion. returns= near zero. A bunch of morons trade like that.
Option House, OPTIons Express and Thinkorswim comparisons The only drawback to thinkorswim is the delayed data of 10 mins or so, they say is real time. Options Express do have real time data and that is their best point. Unfortunately their software is quirky. When you make out an order and change some parameters, it automatically goes back to default settings and if you dont re-check all your boxes for correct prices and contract numbers and strike prices, you can get screwed royally. One guy was complaining the delay in the cancell system on the software cost him $10,000. He was told he had a cancel and apparently did not. Somewhere along the line I may open a minimum account just to get their real time prices though. Both Options Express and Options House and I am guessing here? Just an amateurs opinion, do FRONT RUNNING. When you put a limit order, it gets filled exactly at the limit price you entered, even if the price real time is .70 cents better than what you put. ThinkorSwim are better here. I often set limit orders due to their delayed data and get much better fills in real time, which please me no end. TOS seem to have delayed data in real time trading I´m finding of around 10 to 15 mins and in funny money trading of around 20 to 25 mins. It varies in delay. All in all, in real time trading I´m finding TOS the best system, both for the bells and whistles and the better fills than I planned on.