Just want to see who else is trading options. I'm just getting my feet wet. Traded 1 contract last week; return was over 30%. Then found another opportunity yesterday. Paper-traded 10 contracts. By today, ROI would be over 200% :eek: The money is not the greatest unless you're doing larger size, but the percentage returns are amazing! Just want to see how many other option traders we have here on ET. -FastTrader
I guess you are taking outright long positions then. Everybody and their mother will tell you it's a losing game. I would be curious if anyone does this succesfully because I am tempted to swing/position trade stocks with outright options too, or sell naked options on ETF's. I have never been drawn to options, maths have never been my forte and I recall one of my first option trades : bought a QQQ call , the market opened my way the next day then reversed and I sold for a 30 cent loss or so , had I been in Q's I would never have lost money. Also the executions took for ever and the spread ! But now that the bull is back I look at them to participate in those explosive moves in individual stocks. But by the time I looked at the chart, choose which strike and which expiration, look at a vol chart (and feel like I am clueless) the market has often moved, especially when I look at EOD data.
Kicking, I haven't experienced any problems getting filled. Just make sure there is enough open interest. And yes, these are strictly long positions (yesterday's trade was a long PUT option). -FastTrader
Until a couple of unfortunate SPX trades, I was doing ok. Some things to keep in mind are that options allow you to pursue either a long or short philosophy. There can be a lot of contracts to sort through so I now try to simplify things by generally going out beyond the front month strike and purchasing a contract that is in the money. Although not guaranteed, your delta is apt to be better if your contract is in the money. Selling covered calls is another tact one can play.
considering that in many cases one would not even be filled when willing to pay bid/ask when trading options, the results could be slightly misleading
I've traded them with real$ a few times with no problems. I actually split the bid/ask and still got filled. I'm sure being filled at the ASK will not be a problem, and that's the price I'm using for the paper-trades. -FastTrader
Yes you can. Selling naked puts has the same risk characteristic as selling covered calls, with limited upward profit and max down risk of the underlying to zero.
That is my experience too. I heard a lot people complaining about fills. I use I.B. and the fills are pretty quick.
Me. Only covered calls, naked puts, naked calls and credit spreads. Usually 10 contracts per trade. Rarely sell or buy more than 30 contracts in one shot.