for me there are two ways to make money and they can be combined into one. buy and sell futures and sell puts and sell calls on futures. i find it comfortable to buy and sell futures and only sell calls on futures. why futures? "LIQUIDITY" and speed of fills - you want it you got it move on to the next trade. plus trading index futures you are not at the mercy of jerk reactions to one stocks news report like apple.
A few reasons I like futures: 1. Broad market exposure - do you like something? There's probably a future to trade it. 2. Fairly high liquidity even on the more illiquid contracts. 3. Performance bonds instead of margins means no need to worry about interest accrued. 4. Pretty high leverage. 5. Relatively "well behaved" vs options which can do funny things. 6. Commissions don't eat up anything because your leverage is so high compared to the (usually less than $2/side) commission you pay. The primary downside is the initial capital required to get started. For example, if you started with 7,500 USD you'd be basically limited to trading some of the softs, interest rates, and a few other things where you'll get a decent 10-15 tick stop without going over a 5% account risk. Options on futures aren't my thing. I know some people do well on them - however I don't even want to touch them. They're shilled pretty heavily by the TastyTrade guys.