yikes. They might sound a little harsh, but its just meant to forewarn you. Even if you're profitable, the one thing I always remember is that its one thing to be green. Its another thing to trade for a living. If you're already profitable, then you can understand what the warnings are all about. If you haven't turned it into a living(like me), then theres still a long list of junk the market has yet to throw at you. For example, I'm still waiting for the day that: a) my stock gets halted. b) my overnight gaps 20 percent. c) disastrous keyboard error (wipes out 1 day pnl) d) system crashes as I'm fading something And then theres dealing with a losing streak after being profitable. When you're first green, everythings peachy because it was all so shitty before. But imagine the stress/anxiety a profitable trader must go through when grinding it out through rough times. Just having one or two VERY bad days, (particularly being on tilt), has made me seriously consider what some ET'rs have been harping all along. For example, the "trade on the side"/keep your day job. I'm not planning on this, but I can see the allure. Before I started trading, I didn't even consider the possibility of the grass being greener. Its amazing what a good raping from the market can do to your perspective. Its hard to even seriously consider some of the good advice ET'rs suggest until you've gone through all the bs yourself (at least for me it was). Good luck during FOMC and be safe!
First of all, OPTION BROKERS DO NOT SET THE SPREADS, THEY HAVE NO INFLUENCE OVER THE SPREADS, THEY ARE JUST THE MIDDLEMEN BETWEEN YOU AND THE EXCHANGE WHERE THE SPREADS/QUOTES ARE SET IN A COMPETITIVE MARKET BY FORCES OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY AND MARKET MAKERS IN LESS LIQUID OPTIONS. If you don't know the difference between the spot FX OTC market and an organised exchange market then the last thing you should do is trade options! Second of all, if you're so insanely successful in spot FX then why in the world would you want to trade anything else!? Third, scottrade and thinkorswim cannot have different spreads as they just relay the quotes to you through their platform. The reason for the difference could be the quotes coming from different exchanges, although if you're looking at composite quotes then there cannot be any difference. Alternatively, if one broker has delayed data feed while the other real-time then the difference would come from this.
i'm looking to trade different instruments for diversification. also, i'm bored.. i get very antsy when i'm not challenged.
For whatever reason you wanna trade other instruments I suggest you get yourself educated about how organised markets, i.e. stock/options/futures exchanges, work and what is the role of brokers.
no thanks. i don't need to know how to build a combustion engine in order to drive a car. i will instead continue extracting money from silly charts with the use of line tools and a few proprietary indicators. life is much easier that way. you can worry about that stuff p.s. i'm going with "thinkorswim.com" btw. this is the last post i'll make on this thread. good luck everyone.
amed, If you were truly the insanely successful FX trader which you believe yourself to be, then you wouldn't be calling a minimum options trading account size of $3500 too high. I believe your success has been only temporary, and that changing market behaviour will eventually cause you to give back all your profits and more. This is certain to occur, since you intend to trade equity options without even knowing the most critical basics, like how spreads are determined. Nothing I said was intended to be "threatening". Any threat was in your imagination. I again express my sympathy for your future losses.