Rob on Business, I would like to suggest George Fontanills, The Options Course, 2nd edition. Make sure it is the 2nd edition as the 1st edition is thinner. Also, attend that "free" preview seminar of Investools. You might decide to attend that seminar then. I know if you spend $3500 on one seminar it is costly. Suggest you try to split it with a friend as two can come for that price. I think it is worth the price. One thing I have also learned is to be patient and not over trade. I have maybe, just 15 trades since, May 2005. Still trading 5 contracts but, probably will go to 10 contracts by Jan. 2006. That is what I did with my friend. Also, the education never stops. I continue to study and hone my trading. My UGO MC (SGTL) is about even, NUS XW (NUS) giving this a few days then, bailing out if it still does not move. On the plus side, I traded XTO AH for two days and made $500 and have GM LX (bought last friday 11/18) and up $150. Looking to sell though maybe, Monday.
Besides the drawbacks you mentioned, high premium and large slippage, I don't like LEAPS for other reasons too: low open interest, high implied volatility, susceptible to large loss in case of takeover or bankruptcy. If the underlying gaps down you can't sell options on them for a meaningful premium or you risk to sell a too low strike and lock in your loss (if the underlying recovers quickly your gain is capped). Also, if the underlying gaps down your losses could be really large. On the other hand using LEAPS forces you to limit the number of options contracts you buy, which is good if you don't use money management. In my opinion you do better reward/risk wise by buying the same number of contracts in shorter term options. I can't verify this, but it seems that professional traders don't trade LEAPS, and I think they probably know better. Options trading in itself has a negative expectancy, so LEAPS or not you still have to be correct in your forecast of the future price and implied volatility of the underlying. Saying that selling premium on LEAPS is better, is similar to saying that covered calls are better. And this is true only under certain market conditions. It is not a conservative and low risk strategy, as many claim. If you draw the graph of the LEAP position versus the underlying price for various implied volatilities you see what your risks are. A covered call has the same graph as a naked put (so the same reward / risk). Selling a call on a LEAP call is a bull call spread with a high vega risk.
Good luck Multi! I guess, as you wrote in a previous post, this loss was due to your not following your own rules when you opened the short position.
hajimow, you recommended this book before. Would you please explain why do you recommend it? I have it but I wondered if it was worth my time to read it. Thanks.
hajimow, you recommended this book before. Would you please explain why do you recommend it? I have it but I wondered if it was worth my time to read it. Thanks. It is not like the other investment books. It is an interview with an stock trader at about 19.20.It shows how he was not discouraged by his a couple of losses that almost made him broke but he did not give up and he was also so persistent and even when he was on his vacation, when a good trade would come up,he would give up his vacation and do his trade. By the way this book will not use your brain talking about different strategies and ...... It is like a novel. You can read it at night. It also shows how the stock market was operating about 90 years ago. If you were winning, the brokers would kick you out of their house and would ask you to take your business to the other place. Basically it shows that the winners were losers at some points and vice versa and you should not give up.
Thanks hajimow. I can't do multiple trades due to my technical approach; at least for now. I search for trades manually, starting from intraday to the daily and weekly, I also switch back and forth from the weekly to intraday. I can't lose the original start-up capital - 10K, but getting to 100K by December ending is now a pipe dream. I will continue to post my trades for the fun of it! Lets not give up. October was the worst month for me but November, I am up 20%. Lets modify your target from end of December 2005 to End of Feb or March 2006. You will have 3 to 4 months time frame that is more realistic to make 100K out of 10K. I tell you that I won't be able to do it. Even if I achieve that kind of performance, I will consider it as an accident. I know you can so if you agree, send a post and change your time frame to a good 3 to 4 months and break your 10 times performance to smaller targets. Like 30K by the end of December. 50K by the end of Jan and 70K by the end of Feb and 100K by the end of March.
Are u still going to offer to teach your method of option trading? I am interested in finding out more.