Well you guys keep it open and I'll chime in. I just hope you guys understand that I would feel bad posting numbers that I can't trade. If everyone lost and I didn't I would feel bad about that. I don't want to be compared to Franz. If you know what I mean. Sincerely, 4re
Oh man, I can't leave without posting one more set for everyone. Long 1251.50 - 1254 Short 1245 - ??? This 1245.50 has become a very strong support level. If this breaks we could and probably will see 1220 this week. Good Luck, I wish I could play it with you guys. I actually left a little money in one account in case of withdraw. I will be placing my first option position by the end of the week. If anybody watches or cares I am doing a straddle on CAL if I can get my account funded before they drop too much. 4re
Thanks for everything 4re. I've really enjoyed this thread from it's onset and I've learned a lot from all. I'm looking forward to an options thread from you.
Thank you, And if anybody is interested in options please let me know. They are kind of boring compared to futures but there is a lot of money in them if done properly. This is how I made enough money to survive with a family in the military. 4re
I, as I suspect is true with many futures traders, cut my trading teeth on options years ago. I still have a stock/options account which I don't manage as effectively as I should. I'd appreciate hearing what approach you take with options (swing trading, selling premium decay, straddles, strangles, iron condors, etc.) to be consistently profitable. Thanks. Sandy
I use nothing but straddles and strangles. I look for stocks that tend to have a lot of big moves. Whatch the BB to see if they are tightening up so I know that an explosive move is coming soon. Find out some of the fundementals to help ensure what I would consider to be a strong move really is coming. Then I whittle them down to see what options are the most fairly priced. Usually I'll be left with may 1-3 to choose from after all that. Then I decide which one I'll be going with. I spend a lot of time over the weekend trying to find just the right one. If it is done right this method can play out over the course of maybe 3-6 months where I'll make some money and reposition it on another strangle same stock several times. The whole purpose is to get the stock trapped at either the top with a lot of put positions underneath or trap it at the bottom with a lot of call positions above. So it goes in different levels. Does that make any sense? 4re
How do you determine what is "fairly" priced? Black-Scholes? My take might be to evaluate whether or not the anticipated move will exceed the straddle cost by 2 or 3 times before expiration. I'm curious as to what someone with your experience level uses. Save the answer for the new thread.
Bye man, best o' luck to ya (although with your market acumen, "luck" ain't exactly what you're gonna need). Thanks for a very interesting thread, I learned a little bit about S/R and got to knock around a lot of ideas for different intra-day trading strategies. Best Regards, Jimmy
One of the easiest ways of finding best priced options is the Bollinger Bands. When BB are tight no volitility = cheaper options. The key is to look at past history and make sure the low volitilty is not common to that stock. Take a look at the CAL one year,Daily chart . BB have been very spread out until recently. Right now the BB are starting to tighten and options are very well priced. There is going to be 2-3 pretty big moves on this one during summer and fall. Always is. I was playing this one last year when stock was 9.00. I put on a strangle thinking they were going to file bankruptcy. The high gas prices and lack of revenue and all. The CEO comes out and says we will not file bankruptcy we have so and so savings and investments. The stock flew. Anyway I don't want to get too far off track here. 4re