Actually, if the truth be known, Victor has a fetish for smelling feet and other nasty body smells as well. No shoes on, no air conditioner and hung around shower rooms as a squash player or something. I am amazed the traders are not required to be decked out only in a jock strap at those sweaty desks. Vic probably has a closet full of old gym shoes, socks and jock straps, sticks his head in once in awhile for a DEEP sniff and resumes trading. :eek:
See above. I think contributing on message boards is a negative return for me now. I give when I can.... nitro
I think most people here understand that superior results require higher risk, all else being equal. I think we also understand that a trader who is afraid of risk is about as effective as a surgeon who is afraid of blood. However, I'm not sure I'd want a surgeon who rolls and revels in it, especially if it happens to be my blood. But that's just me. I read his 2 books. From what I gather, Vic embraces risk with open arms. He loves and glorifies it. He'll have 2 dollops when the bowl comes around, and then he'll either be the successful ubertrader or the tragic, fallen hero. Either way, the important thing is that the spotlight will be on him. And that brings us back to my first post in this thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1140277#post1140277 And so it goes.
maybe you guys can weigh in here on the average returns of various option spreads, per your experience. I have read on several occasions that, historically speaking, put-selling still brings the best net returns over time. True/false?
For some SAR traders with always-in-the-market positions, that would cover all details about their strategies.
It is hard to determine an appropriate answer to your question about stops since we don't know exactly how VN trades. Many insist he is just selling OTM puts on the market but he claims that it is much more sophisticated than that. What is a stop? Exit the position completely? Partially exit? Place hedges? Hedges that simply limit DD and exposure or that anti-correlate to the original position and give you a chance to improve your r/r?
What I am curious about is, how Vic's investors think about their fund? Since I can't ask them, let's ask you guys: Let's say this is the last day of April, and Vic sends you an email: "Dear investor. We have been doing great so far, and your capital is up 31% for the year. Since this is an excellent performance for the WHOLE year, I would like to ask for your input on what kind of strategy should we pursue for the rest of the year: 1. Play it safe and try to preserve capital, even if we add only a few % more. Definiatelly don't lose more than 5%... 2. Keep doing what you have been doing. It seems to be working. 3. Take more risk, shoot for the stars, after all we have a built in profit cushion." So let's say you got this email as an investor in Vic's fund, what would you have responded?
To quote Sydney Pollack's character from Eyes Wide Shut: "Life goes on. It always does, until it doesn't."
Vic's Short Put Strategy...and his inclination to sell puts was well explained in the recent (July 2006) issue of SFO magazine in an article on options. It appears Vic had picked-up on the fact that the post 1987 crash period had caused premiums on OTM puts to soar relative to theoretical values. This was the "crash premium". Vic made big bucks selling those over-priced turkeys. However, his inability to convert his naked positions to credit spreads at some point in time just blows me away. Of course, he got "nailed" in 1997 on that one fatefull day (do we have another one coming up shortly ?). With a credit spread, you've got an automatic stop-loss built into the strategy. Don't tell me in May that Vic was still completed naked with his short puts ? Anyone know for sure ?