What was your most successful Long options trade? Do you still remember it, how profitable, and why you made the particular trade?
Long options trades with paying net premium for buying Calls, Puts, Backspreads, Straddles, Strangles, etc.
1)Long 10 OEX puts during the 89' mini crash, I think the take was around $10K 2)Long 6 IBM calls just before a great earnings report, +/- $6K Almost best: Long 18 UAL calls, I sold at a loss on Friday, the stock closed around 155ish. Monday it opened around 190 and was at nearly 300 by weeks end. That would/could have been good for something in the neighborhood of $225K
Seems there are not too many traders here playing long options! For the UAL calls, why did you quit? Change of IM, or what?
Its not so much as "traders" dont "play" long options its more that traders who really use options dont just buy a put or call and hang out waiting for the undelrying to move. Historically we all know thats a poor strategy. Retail investors my do that quite a bit but if you're talking about professional options traders they're for the most part trading volatility.
Don't remember all the details, just that it was on CSCO in late 1999- 2000. Bought I think 20 calls with 110 strike, don't remember the month. CSCO was around 100 at the time. I cleared ~ $30,000 on the trade, and I think I ended up leaving a fair amount on the table. It was a quick trade and at that point in my trading it was definitely a fill my pants moment. I know CSCO went skyhigh after and split afterward, but I was long gone at that point. Then again, not long after CSCO went straight down into the dumper.
Since currently there is only one single forum for options trading, I have been thinking for some time that ET should have at least two forums for options trading: One for Buyers; Another Sellers. Perhaps it would be not difficult to see the natural conflicts of interest to provide suitable advices from (generally) sellers to buyers. Probably we need more good options books written by buyers from buyers perspective.
What xflat is saying is that very few long term options traders do not make strict directional bets. This is why you may not see much discussions/books on the topic. There are many discussions on ET about volatility, spreads, etc., which is what you will progress to as you learn more about options.
actually, that was supposed to say "very few long term options traders make strict directional bets."