I've seen at some professional option trading firms the traders completely ignore the underlier and abstract it away as a random walk process while focusing primarily on vega. They usually do some sort of tactic to get some benefit from a random gamma explosion but it doesn't work all the time and when it don't work its a bad day. It seems like if they researched the underlier and lightened up when there is a hurricane forecast they'd be better off. E.g. if the industry news says there's a conference you get the conf list and if the symbol your trading is listed to present, lighten up. Can this give extra edge and if so why do the pros ignore it?
%%%%%%%%%%%%% Not likely they are ignoring underlying; that would mean GM is same as QQQ or both move the same. Then some supervisor [pro]mentioned , in Jack Schwager's top trraders they trade GM options after going to a car lot,LOL ;[like'em buy 'em , dont like 'em, sell 'em]