I am interested in generating steady income by trading options and would like to discuss more with other like minded people. I want to treat trading mostly like a business, with a small hint of speculation.
As a retail trader, you don't stand a chance. Slippage and Commission will eat you alive. I am guessing you are reading too much free Internet material, books, seminars or been influenced by those fake mentors ( who never been make money in trading in real life othe than "mentoring ')
What does "treat it like a business" entail? You mean that you're going to take it cereal, no f*cking around for you! Get 10 monitors. Redundant feeds; run binomial on a PC in excel and Monte Carlo on a Cray. Colo to Newark (Krug's Tavern) for <2ms execution. Intent is meaningless. W/o an edge you're going to go broke.
Sell/write options to collect the premium. If you want to be more aggressive for speculation buy them. it's relatively straight forward.ops: ...but like most things, the devil is in the details. -- so make sure you understand it, before jumping right in.
I never understood this phrase "generating income". Compared to what, trading for losses to generate tax write offs? Everyone is trading for income or at least trying to. And if you think trading iron condors or selling premium is not 100% speculation then you really shouldn't be doing this at all.
It's a marketing term from option education/system vendors. Noobs are easy to spot when they come here using phrases like that. A sign of snake oil drinking.
Consider posting your trading game plan, so we can see what direction your headed, and perhaps someone will have constructive advise for you. Going for a cold one, cheers
I started trading options about 10 years ago with the same intent. After about 5 years of losses I am finally generating a fairly steady profit, although market conditions make this an irregular exercise. If you think you are going to create an 'income' in the sense that you would have an income from a job... forget it. If you are successful in doing that write a book telling us how. People here object to the use of the word 'income' related to trading but to me there IS a way to make a steady 'income'...I have put quite a few dollars of my trading money in dividend producing instruments (ACG,ERC,AWF,BKCC etc.) that pay me monthly dividends and to me this in fact is an 'income' unlike speculative trading or even selling put spreads or call spreads which do not produce a reliable monthly payment. With a small part of that same portfolio I write bull put spreads and bear call spreads for premium (which I do not call 'income' because it is so irregular) but after 10 years the money in the dividend producing instruments always exceeds what I am able to make in my spreads. The spreads thus are mostly for entertainment. Income: 'money received, especially on a regular basis, for work or through investments.' https://www.google.com/search?site=....7.0....0...1c.1.64.hp..1.6.795.0.6xom2VKos4U Also, one of the first things you need to learn is not to listen to anyone who is trying to make money by selling you trading advice and also don't listen to anyone on these boards. You will find that both sources are nothing but bullshit.
IMHO, options are only tradeable in strong ie very strong trending markets, anything less and even a good move won't compensate the time devalue penalty. I made loads in the 2000 bear market was it, then lost it all over night when the market gapped up huge and ran wild ( I spent loads so all fine LOL ) Day trading, is income supportable from modest means but part time I've been on this for 10years, getting there, maybe cracked, maybe another year or 2. Agreed with OldNemesis, mainly losers trying to convince you there great to feed there ego's, you'll try to trade like them, but fail cause it just doesn't work the way the think it does. Get 1 profit, ignore the next 10losers, and convinced you've cracked it, due to 1 coincidental profit. Fun challenge though, beat it and the potential to be rich sure keeps me coming back
There are too many cynical day traders on here, who make all sorts of incorrect assumptions off their own negative experiences. I have a large amount of money acquired through my professional employment. I am not out for a short term gain like many of the people on here, I am out to try and develop a sustainable trading operation. Hopefully that will give you a better idea of where I am coming from.