I think Windlesham1 is talking specifical about options on the London stock exchange for UK indices. And I am not even sure he is serious as it sounds like a story from the 70's. You can trade US options 24hr live, obviously
I think he is telling the truth as it sounds very similar to my country. Probably, like me , wants to trade in his timezone so puts up with the shit that we have to.
But I trade from the UK via IB, US market, pay for real time data and have standard commissions... That's why I assumed it's UK market, and even that sounds so 1980's, or ironic.
I use Option Net Explorer for backtesting, I do like it. It doesn’t have a scanner. If I understand you correctly, and you want to scan for options, I think it’s better to first choose an underlaying that fits your expectation in terms of how and when it will move, and then choose appropriate option strategy based on that as an overlay instead of just using an option scanner. But maybe I misunderstood you. Either way, there are many ways to skin the cat, nothing wrong with your approach if that fits you.
The worst place in the world to trade options from? Which country (as a local tax subject)? Since 2 years Germany! Well, if you want to be due more taxes than the profit of the respective trade: Try Butterflies in Germany (Rut, SPX,..) , just a few ..... and you will have too move from McMansion to the poorhouse.
How bad are the commish on 4 sided trades?? I moved from IB(US) because of the costs on 4 leg trades to other brokers who didnt charge a commish
$8.80 per natural fly IB is our only choice over here. Going back a few years we couldn't even use them thx to our gov's wisdom. CFD's were our only option then, now that's a whole new world of getting screwed As @MrMuppet once said find your niche and milk that cow till she's dry.
There were times at IB that I got clipped close to 6 bucks trading flys .. I had a niche the last 2 years and did exactly as Muppet reccomended.. 2 years of ZERO down days And F-yeah, do it while it lasts as its completely dry now..And I mean dry,as in off 93%
Australia is the worst place to trade the US market. Market open is 11:30pm, so I've had very little sleep the last year. Plus you can't use steep discount brokers like Tradier that are only $10 a month ... it adds up when you trade 10x lots of hedged spreads at a time