Options Trading/Futures

What options product are you primarily trading? I used to work for a small market making firm on the exchange floors in Chicago. We primarily traded S&P 500 derivatives and basically hedged everything and looked for mispriced options against a theoretical model. Obviously if you are trading from a personal account you can pick and choose what you want to do vs being required to provide buy and sell prices. I'm just curious what markets you are looking at.

I currently have positions in:

SPX - S&P 500
SLV - Silver
TLT - Bonds
USO - Crude
YHOO - Yahoo
DIA - Dow Jones
UAL - United Airlines
UNG - Nat Gas

My plan is to have mostly SPX positions on, but i'll still dabble in other areas. Planning to diversify my strategies (include calendars/butterfly/Diagonals etc). And some time mid-eoy start to incorporate futures.
I'd love to be able to work with options in my day job, instead I'll have to settle for corporate accounting o_o.

my (limited) understanding:

- options are illiquid, have huge spreads (big rake)
- pricing is pretty hard to beat, harder than nosebleed poker
- people who can consistently beat options can make money that makes phil ivey look like jean robert bellande
- because of previous point, nobody offering "training" has anything worthwhile to offer
- strategies that seem to win money consistently are mostly picking up nickels in front of a steamroller

think i'll stick to indexing/long term equity investing

Yea I do options stuff.

Hook in with me @RichardGamingo (twitter) and you'll see my tweets for blog posts and updates that I do for these topics!

Incredible rally in the $ dollar via UUP!!

I wonder if it'll continue... or reverse?

I wonder what the best way to profit going forward for a long-position would be?

Right now I have to figure that out. But I am less confident in the dollar's continued rally than I was 2 years ago...

Then again now may be that time where after the rally begins the materialize for me, its time to double down on the position to get the big bucks.

I'm on the fence right now on what to do with my position. Currently looking at 50 contracts at $23.00 set to expire 1/17.

RADIOSHACK
A
D
I
O
S
H
A
C
K

On January 03 2015 10:57 Romm3l wrote: my (limited) understanding: - options are illiquid, have huge spreads (big rake) - pricing is pretty hard to beat, harder than nosebleed poker - people who can consistently beat options can make money that makes phil ivey look like jean robert bellande - because of previous point, nobody offering "training" has anything worthwhile to offer - strategies that seem to win money consistently are mostly picking up nickels in front of a steamroller think i'll stick to indexing/long term equity investing

- Options are very liquid if you trade the popular ones (I believe you will have like anywhere between 50-100 to choose from)
- You trade small, trade often, you can trade as little as $100, which will last you about 45 days, most likely less because you'd be closing out winning positions.
- Check out Tastytrades, their training is awesome and free . They even have a successful poker player as part of their team.
- You can put it that way, but hey 15% - 35% ROC per year is a realistic expectation in Options.

But whatever suits you . Was just looking for people with common interests.

On January 03 2015 12:43 2primenumbers wrote: Yea I do options stuff. Hook in with me @RichardGamingo (twitter) and you'll see my tweets for blog posts and updates that I do for these topics! Incredible rally in the $ dollar via UUP!! I wonder if it'll continue... or reverse? I wonder what the best way to profit going forward for a long-position would be? Right now I have to figure that out. But I am less confident in the dollar's continued rally than I was 2 years ago... Then again now may be that time where after the rally begins the materialize for me, its time to double down on the position to get the big bucks. I'm on the fence right now on what to do with my position. Currently looking at 50 contracts at $23.00 set to expire 1/17.

UUP has low volatility - low premium. The Jan 2017 put @ $23 has a very wide spread (0.34 per put). Aren't you giving up too much edge in Theta decay and taking on a lot of vega risk going that far out. Based on your position sizing, it appears that you have a $500,000 - 1,000,000 dollar account (my account is significantly smaller).

Have you considered trading other products such as GLD (gold) which appears to have a rough inverse relationship to USD but is significantly more liquid? For me, I'm neutral to bearish USD.

On January 03 2015 10:57 Romm3l wrote: - people who can consistently beat options can make money that makes phil ivey look like jean robert bellande

people who can consistently beat option can probably make Phil Ivey be the cocktail waitress to their poker game

i've always felt like option trading would be fun though

On January 03 2015 19:49 hhse wrote: Show nested quote + On January 03 2015 12:43 2primenumbers wrote: Yea I do options stuff. Hook in with me @RichardGamingo (twitter) and you'll see my tweets for blog posts and updates that I do for these topics! Incredible rally in the $ dollar via UUP!! I wonder if it'll continue... or reverse? I wonder what the best way to profit going forward for a long-position would be? Right now I have to figure that out. But I am less confident in the dollar's continued rally than I was 2 years ago... Then again now may be that time where after the rally begins the materialize for me, its time to double down on the position to get the big bucks. I'm on the fence right now on what to do with my position. Currently looking at 50 contracts at $23.00 set to expire 1/17. UUP has low volatility - low premium. The Jan 2017 put @ $23 has a very wide spread (0.34 per put). Aren't you giving up too much edge in Theta decay and taking on a lot of vega risk going that far out. Based on your position sizing, it appears that you have a $500,000 - 1,000,000 dollar account (my account is significantly smaller). Have you considered trading other products such as GLD (gold) which appears to have a rough inverse relationship to USD but is significantly more liquid? For me, I'm neutral to bearish USD.

I'm thinking more in terms of capturing an unanticipated bounce in the value of the Dollar which I foresee transpiring due to certain fragilities present in the global economic system. Specifically, credit collapse.

I meant that I have 50 contracts at strike $24.00 which I sold yesterday for $1,400.

On January 03 2015 15:07 Gnarly wrote: RADIOSHACK A D I O S H A C K

I'm gonna take a look!

2primenumbers