I searched on options trading in the past year and didn’t see anything that covered the general category. I’ve used almost every strategy at one time or another and know a decent amount about pricing parameters but still have much to learn there. Serious, if not frequent traders are welcome. I was busier than usual today but nothing really interesting except a $35-40 Dec strangle on Dollar Tree (DLRT). Also a covered bear call calendar spread on HD with strangle.
Heard a trader talk about an interesting long term chart trend in GLD. It seems that between Nov 19th and Dec 4th or so, gold tends to spike up. The guy from II Trader in Chicago says he’s seen this trend for 11 of the past 11 years.
He recommended a Jan vertical call spread. I did one on the Dec 22nd GLD calls–or at least I put the order in after the bell so we’ll see what happens. I did over/under bid so I might get both legs of the trade w/o any further effort depending on what gold does over the holiday.
Reported.
Can I ask what rule I violated? This thread has been open for about 2 weeks with no complaint. If it is the fact that I mentioned the source of the information, I’m happy to refrain from doing that in the future. The trader was interviewed on Bloomberg TV.
New member… wants to discuss stock trading… names specific stocks… bumps own thread…
This isn’t home of the village idiots.
Sorry, I didn’t have to use GLD. The play is on the price of gold so you can use gold futures or any other gold etf. I thought that was clear. Geez. I’m tempted to elaborate on your village idiots comment but I won’t.
The post was reported as spam – and, frankly, it sure quacks like it. Looking at the fact that you’ve been posting in a variety of threads on a variety of topics, however, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and leave this thread open and leave you unbanned.
I am, however, going to move it to IMHO, our forum for opinions and advice.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
With all due respect, any discussion of options trading will seem that way to someone who knows nothing about it. Here, GLD is an ETF where the underlying asset is physical gold. So technically it’s a stock, but only technically.
However, were it say Ford or Citibank, it would still be irrelevant since we are only talking about options and not the actual stock. Please look up what option contracts are and how they are used - in particular, American options which cannot be exchanged for the underlying stock until the expiration date and only then if the contract terms have been met.
Further, some option contracts only give you the RIGHT to purchase a stock and not the OBLIGATION. When you have that right, it is at very favorable terms which ANYONE would jump at, so there is no deception or trickery here. In other cases you are the seller of an option contract and collect what amounts to an insurance premium for accepting the risk attached thereto.
Options are largely used as a hedging and speculation vehicle rather than an investment vehicle and your concern with the underlying asset is therefore somewhat attenuated.
I’m sure none of this clears things up much but I hope I have succeeded in demonstrating that this has little to do with stock trading.
Based on the mod note and lack of response to this thread, it seems to me that I have 2 choices. I can let this die since there don’t seem to be any traders here, or I can attempt in some feeble way to provide some rudimentary information on options trading.
I’m not especially fond of the latter choice since I’m not much better than a rank amateur when it comes to this stuff. It’s why I started this thread–to try to learn more about it. Also, I worry that ‘a little knowledge is dangerous’ and that is doubly true with options, especially if you start to sell them since your risk is potentially unlimited if you don’t know what you’re doing.
So I guess I’ll just leave it there and see if there are any comments. If not, talk to y’all later.
I am both a trader and a financial software developer. I prefer not to discuss trading on this forum. Different fora are for different topics. May I suggest www.elitetrader.com
Also, in my experience, most traders are very conservative in their political views. This is a very liberal forum. So you won’t find many.
I gotta agree with Terr here. I am a options trader and I never post about it on these boards because most people here wouldn’t know or care enough to even respond with a joke (the standard SD reply when you don’t have a clue about the topic). Combine that with a OP full of technical terms that the average guy has never heard of and you can see why you’ve had basically no responses. You’ll have better luck with finance related forums then here.
Now I feel like I should add something more to the thread then simply ‘go to another forum’. 
Let me just address a few things in your first post and please forgive me if I start sounding preachy. First of all, for the love of god please tell me you are not short strangles on DLTR (without some kind of hedge). I don’t like strangles at all in general, long or short. Long is such a waste of money and short will blow up your account. I’m the type of trader that picks a direction then uses options to make my bet while controlling my risk. I’m not one of those guys that makes his money from theta decay or gamma scalping or what have you. Most of those strategies are for the big fish with access to super cheap commissions. At least stick to iron condors so you can sleep at night.
Second of all allow me to make a suggestion. Ever heard of the acronym K.I.S.S.? Keep It Simple, Stupid (not calling you stupid that’s just part of the phrase!). I can’t remember a single instance where I’ve needed to put on a bear call spread and a strangle on the same stock for the same month. What exactly are you hoping the stock will do anyway? My point is you are not increasing your profitability by creating all these elaborate trading strategies. All you are doing is making your broker happy with extra commissions every month. Plus, once you start following many more stocks and you have hundreds of spreads the last thing you want to do is waste time deciphering your own positions. Pick a few strategies that work well for you and stick to them day in and day out.
Good luck with your trading. I assume your long term goal is the same as all traders, to make enough money to buy our own island. If I reach the goal first I’ll invite you over for margaritas.
Not sure there’s much point in discussing this but you make money on a strangle through volatility so I about broke even on DLTR.
For HD, it was a calendar spread plus strangle. The strangle was on the forward month contracts.
Reported.