More like WTF is wrong with You. I saw the BS you pulled off on this thread before the Mods cleaned it up. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=238412 You are a fucking stalker.
Pop into the thread with atticus vs. forex, somehow I get the feeling those posts had nothing to do with stock or stock options hahahaha...
Man o Man! Got to get back to my basic. Last three weeks, I´ve been giving it all back. Switching now this week to my regular trading pattern. Been trying all kinds of things, and none really produced. Got you on the $8000 plus on your account Ryan. Congratulations! I have a June deadline to do $10,000, but hovering around $7300 right now. Last three weeks I´ve been trying too much different crap. Need to concentrate on what works. AAPL vs QQQ I trade the QQQ because I can get the bets as small as I want, as a tiny amateur retail trader and reduce my risk, or increase it accordingly. I noted with interest about the volatility in AAPL being higher. Which is attractive, but right now stuck in a losing streak and have to correct that in QQQ, before I go messing around with anything else right now. As a directional trader, must get my win ratio back.
Don't get disillusioned, and since you're a directional trader, sell some put, buy some stocks, short some stocks, just be aware that you are trying to pick direction, the "holy grail" of trading. Remember the most basic of all stock market lies, pure lies. "The market goes up on average." What a crock. If you bought all the Dow 30 stocks in 1930, you'd be broke, the companies are all bankrupt and gone except for GE. The "replacement method" of historical indexing has caused many smart people to go belly up. FWIW, Mr. Falcon... Don
Couldn't be better said, get to the basic strategy that you know. I'm basically out of everything since yesterady. Took a $1000 hit on the AAPL puts (coud have been worse today), and that took away most of my gains on the 2 GOOG put spreads I had 615/605 and 610/600. I'm all cash now, and taking a peek at GES for earnings tonight, not sure if I'll even jump into a trade, but anything new will have to wait till after 2:15PM.
The results from this put spread strategy over the past week and a half came to GOOG 615/605 spread +1105, GOOG 610/600 spread +522, AAPL spread 530/520 +709, and AAPL 550 put (no spread because didn't have time to leg in before closing out) -985. I was down to 8118.69 before these trades and closed out all yesterday with my account barely at $9469.09. If nothing else, I'll have to wait till mid April to get into those earning trades again that helped made the killing.
Ryan Mid April? I believe I had done some figuring on that also. Somehow MAY stuck in my mind. But you are probably right it would start 2 weeks earlier. Well if you can stay out of the market until your earnings system comes back live again, you will do well. On the other hand, if you are an adrenaline junky, then you are probably going to lose a good portion of your gains over the next month.
I´ve been charting GAMMA over the last few weeks. At the insistance of the scientific GREEK traders. Kept recording first month, second month and third month, which I trade with. ( to eliminate THETA as much as possible ) I had also read somewhere that GAMMA will tell you when the trend changes. I noticed that, but it seems to occure mostly in second month, not in the first month. First month is expiring right now and even so, now April is the first month, or going to be, it is MAY what was my third month which is reacting in GAMMA. Because I guess, it is almost the second month, or will be next week. I experimented and made three columns. By the month, and recorded for both CALLS and Puts. I found that adding the total of the GAMMA for the Calls and Puts gave me the market reaction occuring. Somebody said, I think it was ATTICUS, that an option is a package of VOLATILITY. That was a very good description. It kind of registered in my head. Then GAMMA is the acceleration, or de-acceleration of the premium according to the GAMMA. For this you need to be in second month options recording I have found. I like to think of it as an inflating or deflating balloon of premium. That said, there is an indicator I use, standard package, that gives me the same information as gamma. Just a graphical line on a chart. So from now on, I will call this indicator a GAMMA indicator. It works really good on a day trade, but since I´m not allowed with such a small account to day trade, I entered this morning, had a beaucoup profit, but got to sit on it until tomorrow. Darn these people with their games. In the meantime, the premium is deflating as I watch in agony. On the other hand, there is another setup, that says I just might be able to hold a trade for a day or more extra and get back that inflated premium balloon. Going to see how that works out in the real world? Anyway, that is the upshot of my studies on Gamma, Delta and Theta. I now know how to use GAMMA and thank both ATTICUS and Don Bright for their assistance. They could have explained it much better, but didn´t for whatever reasons. But I now have the understanding of GAMMA in action anyway. Hopefully this missive will be helpfut to other people on here, that do not understand the GREEKS.