"Hanging tough"? "Matter of principle"? Your comments above demonstrate that you understand the risk. Why take it? Oh yes, closing costs are important. By the way, it today's world, commissions are (or ought to be) insignificant. Best of luck. Mark
If you care about commissions so much that you stay in a risky trade then why are you with Fidelity again? Perhaps, you meant you hate paying the edge again. I must say, it is very hard to find logic in many of your posts.
You obviously can't see the humor nor appreciate the logic in a self deprecating statement. Pssst, didn't your momma tell you there is no logic in humor and its just a simple human thing to do? But if its logic you want try exclusive OR'ing [XOR] your trading account with itself someday and tell me how much is left afterwords. Hint - it doesnt matter how much or how little it had. But please do cut me a break - if I am risking $100K to make $4K do you really think I am worried about the monetary value of a commission? The implication was clearly that its principal and a more a matter of finesse and style. To me this matter is like a golfer making par on a particular hole with nice stylistic pitched shots rather than being like an old retired duffer making par by repeatedly whacking the ball down the middle of the fairway on the ground with no style. Both lead to good scores but having some fun and style along the way makes for interesting play and fun recollections and feelings of accomplishment. Shoot, anyone can make money but not everyone can make it in style. Just to clarify - when its marginably reasonable (e.g just south of what the average little book-taught person would do) I will stand on principal to challenge the herd and conventional thinking. That's more an active expression of my own identity than anything else. I never believed in "average" on a personal basis and resist that notion. This attitude is in fact how I learn and intimately find out price and spread relationships and market dynamics near the close. Whereas the average person never gets that close to the market since they have no skin in the game and they never see some of the interesting things that happen near close. No its not insanity. I actually see merit in emulating outlier statistical behavior (personally) since outlier data are often what separate "average" patterns from exceptional or excellent ones. And that can dramatically change the averages or at least make one stand out in a crowd (maybe even improve one's sex life ). More risk ? Yea - but life is risky and sometimes I want to know exactly where the edge and inflection point are so I can know how far to push things if I am ever in a real survival situation where I don't have the luxury of failure. I philosophically and artistically also want to collect hard won positions fully as a finesse of the trading position. Again this is more a matter of personal style. I philosophically abhor the notion of being scalped for a commission or residual premium by fear of SET at the last instant as I race across the finish line to claim my small prize and trinkets. If nothing else I want to deny the axe-man his two bit tip to spite him as he swings at me. Attitude may not change outcome but it can make life worth living. Some of us also enjoy the challenge of winning (optimally) and not always taking the sure but suboptimal mediocre thing. This occasional propensity for "marginably unreasonable" risk taking of course depends on how far ahead my profit and loss are for the period and what the current market dynamics are. After all is said and done what good is winning money if you can't have a few good success and bust stories to tell on forums and at the bar? Without severity of loss who can understand or appreciate the magnitude of victory or accomplishment? TS
Actually, it is a relief to find out that all your illogical ramblings were simply humor and nothing else. I didnt believe anyone could trade on such nonsense but i am glad to find out it is simply an attempt at comedy.
Is anyone systematically doing ICs/CSs/DDs on any products other than SPY and other stock indices? I want to diversify a bit. I've looked at USO and the bond ETFs, but they're a bit thin. Single stocks don't interest me at this point. Also, I sometimes save the thread as an editable text file with the "print" icon. This work well with shorter threads, but for this one the process keeps stalling. Is there a way to "partition" the thread, so it can be saved in pieces? Thx, Ugly
Our investment club has three people who just primarily trade STRADDLEs. They do quite well, although the research and day to day maintenance is overwhelming. Does anyone here trade STRADDLEs? My thoughts are to form a new ET Straddles thread and share all the research information... this may help reduce the amount of research time. M~
SPX, RUT and the NDX have a pretty strong correlation. If you need diversification i suggest a much lower correlation like the OIH for example.