the only thing is, you'll have to wait alomst till the end of trading session to make ANY decent profit from this trade (assuming you're trading the weeklies?) Here's a hint: Don't just look at the PnL at expiration. Everything that happens up to and before expiration is probably just as, if not more, important. Wait, are you even looking and drawing the PnL charts?
Well we are sure getting some decent debate in here, about these things. - No! I do not know what a Pnl chart is, or how to go about it. - There is more down indicated tomorrow. Does that mean GOOG will have disappointing earnings? - I liked that part about the Delta Neutral stuff. Size makes it work, he says. I could see that, but not with my little account. Delta neutral sounds like averaging, but with a way of judging the exact amounts of contracts to make it work, one day. Long, Long ago, once upon a time, I traded stocks. Made money but not enough to make a living off it. I tried a method called buying 10 best paying dividend stocks, blue chips. Can´t remember it exactly now decades later. Out of the 10 chosen, you picked the middle 5 to buy. It worked, and you made about 20% on moves over a month or so. You repeated, but the system had say 3 winners and 2 dogs. Eventually I ended up actually making money enough to throw away the dogs. Not much but it was a profit. Not enough to make a business out of it on a small account. Having Scotch genes somewhere back in my ancestors, I never threw away the dogs. I always remember averaging them for 9 years, but finally did get them to pay off a small amount. Anyway, I´m against averaging at any time. Works occasionally, but not enough to work 100%
Falcon a delta hedge can be different from delta neutral, it is not averaging. If you were long 1,000 shares of stock and you wanted to hedge, you could sell options against all or part of the position. Newworld said he was hedging, not sure what the position is.
Long ATM (well now slightly upside) apr gamma. Falcon, get the natenburg book. You are only slowing down your own learning process.
A book is slowing down my learning process???? Sheeeesh! My equity balance will STOP my learning process before I could even get a book here in the boondocks of Central America. Im nearly to the stopping point now on my equity balance. My daughter got a new laptop repaired on warranty for me recently, when she returned to Houston from here. About 3 weeks later she says she got it repaired and it is at her home in Houston and she is using it. Her daughter, my granddaughter will be coming down in about 8 or 9 weeks to work an internship at the USA Embassy, she will bring it at that time. THAT IS FAST SERVICE INTERNATIONALLY. You got any REAL IDEA, how many months it would take a book sent by mail to reach me? It would take 3 weeks alone, within the country here, to get to my rural location. About two weeks to get inside the country here from USA. This is not the land of FED EX, etc. Priority mail, etc. The pony express was faster than mail here. Think mule, or dugout paddling canoe. Think in changes of the moon, for time to get a book here. I started with $5000, last June. Through a subterfuge and double dealing, went around my wife and got it doubled to $10,000. She wouldn´t let me try $300,000. On my first trade, I got snookered and haven´t recovered since. I´ve been hovering between $2000 and $1000 in the hole since. Never could get back to $10,000, though got within the mid $8000 range a couple of times. Right now I´m seriously considering throwing in the towel. It has been a lot of fun, a learning process. Darned if I know what I would do with myself if I didn´t have this fun to look forward too. At 75 years, you don´t go spearfishing anymore, or sailing racing catamarans. The old age will not let you. The physical body sets limitations. I do enjoy reading two books a day, beside this computer jazz. ( got libraries and have read the OATMEAL cylinder a zillion times ) Be sad to give this trading stuff up. But it´s ten months now and I´m down about $2800 from the original $10,000. Fair enough fee for the fun and education, but the declining balance has me worried. This is not the way the game is supposed to work out. I´m a results profit orientated type person and there seems to be no profit in this for me anyway. At least the monetary kind. If someone was to mail me the book by express, priority mail, I might get it in 3 weeks at the earliest expectation. Otherwise I´m dealing with months. Probably get a hold of it eventually. Living third world is nice, comfortable and far cheaper than the USA. About 1/5 th the cost, at several levels above what one could afford in the USA. Servants and all that jazz. But getting something from the USA, paaah! Figure two or three months at the earliest.
You have access to the internet and the book is available courtesy of Babu. Anyway, the way we made our new traders learn options was get the Hull Book and do every math problem in it. Within 3 weeks they had a solid understanding of options theory (far more than they would ever practically need). Then they could learn how to apply their new found knowledge through practice and observation. But it was clear to them why options were moving the way they were. Instead of seeing what someone else is doing and then trying to back fill the knowledge for that one strategy, they were able to add those ideas to their arsenal quickly. Anyway, this is my suggestion to anyone who wants to make money trading options. Learn how options work properly, then you will easily see a whole new world of possibile trading strategies and ideas. Otherwise what is going on here is nothing more than: "I bought CSCO" "Why?" "I think it's going up" "Okay. I should buy stocks in general."
I am suitably chastized and remorseful.:eek: Okay on the Reverse Iron Condor sell the GOOG 625 Put for $16.50 Buy the GOOG 620 Put for $15.10 Spread $$1.50 sell 635 Call for 20.10 buy 640 Call $18.70 Spread $1.40 Originally spreads were -$2.60 each. What happened here? Did this thing make money, or lose money? Or -$5.20 Let me see if I think this out. got back + $2.90 Looks like it lost money? ________________________________ Strange in the QQQ, my two cash trades, puts and calls also lost money, both of them. I think this is going to be my death knell.