I believe 80 - 90% of his trades are theoretical. Not actual. That's not me taking a cheap shot, that's me stating what he stated. While the 80 - 90% figure is merely my estimate. He has made it clear that most of his trades are in fact theoretical and for study purposes. Hence the reason he prefers not to engage in dialog about them.
i don't like that thread... go journal in the journal area is what i say.. he isn't nice anyway.. plus he argues for the sake of arguing.. (as if he is trying to help yea right)
Alot of people trade the indexes to reduce jumps.. jumps of course being when stocks move huge amounts... these jumps make it impossible to manage and adjust trades ... but if your stalking larger then 2 standard deviation moves..equities are the way to go.. doing in the money debit spreads.. credit spreads.. butterfly .. they all have a little different character to them.. like they say when your fishing.. "its all how you hold your mouth" i've actually never bought Deep in the month debit spreads.. has a same profit graph as a credit spread.. i'd like to hear what is the difference or advantage or disadvantage to itm spreads... i would guess it all has to do with the liquidity of the options that are otm compared to itm... transactional costs..
Well I closed the APPL trade with a small profit. Then I got screwed up with my QQQ trade. Being in the habit of doing 1 contract, I closed one contract for a profit. but then I remember doing it in Sept instead of August and for 5 contracts. When I checked it was so. So went back and closed the other 4 contracts. By that time the price had dropped. For some reason I cannot find the trades I did with Traderlux, that I messed up. Supposed to be Aug debit spread 560/565 way out the money. They are not showing on my TOS platform. Have no idea what happened there? They don't show so I guess I didn't make them? It gets confusing, when you look at the monitor, because they don't clear the trades until the next day. I'm still holding: CSCO, DVN, ETP, TWC and a UPL put. Some of these are just flipping in and out of profitability with market action. Not enough to cover commissions which is $20. The paper trading lags the market prices by 20 minutes, so that makes it a questionable proposition. I'm getting some much needed practice though, with order entry and closing.
Okay! Added another trade. TLM Sept PUT 12/11 @.35 cents Just ran it through the debit spread calculator. Maximum gain is $100 Figure $20 for commissions. Can possibly make $45 net. Wish I had time to scroll through stocks, to find more candidates. But I've construction going on here in carpentry, with a young 16 year old apprentice. So I have to be on top of things with the carpentry.
Your getting raped in commissions is sounds like.... Figure this. .. At Interactive brokers i'm paying. 70 per conract.. With no base.. A three legged four option butterfly is costing me 4 contracts 2 long 2 short 4x. 70 2.80 cents boom i don't know your commisions but that math right there is what gives me the speculation that your getting killed in commissions.. Plus thats crazy that you can't see the trades in your portfolio right after they execute..? You have to wait till they clear that night to see them? No good
cdcaveman Yup! But have to stick with them until I can get my equity back above $10,000 the minimum for IB brokers. Plus I'm a bit leery right now of learning a new platform.
Kind of made a mistake yesterday afternoon. Did a debit spread in puts on TLM without checking the earnings date. Turned out it was today before the opening. Just checked and there has been hardly any movement in price, so guess that trade is going to go okay? I hope?
PAAAH! Ughhhh! Had a .23 cent profit net on APA, but before I could figure out my order entries, it went south and ended up only with .08 cents net profit, in the debit spread. Sheesh! Since I've been fiddling with my TIMING, think I'm going to try my luck with straight buying, of puts and calls, see what happens, it being only paper trading anyway. Test the timing system now.