[3putt]

Anyone familiar or experienced with Optioneer Trading? Any input appreciated.

[Harlequin]

Not much action in the Options Laboratory. I guess most traders here trade futures and for a good reason. With options you can pick the market direction correctly and still lose money. Interesting statement on the home page of the website you mention:

"According to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange 76.5% of all options held to expiration at the CME expired worthless during a three year study."

[JPx2]

Not so........they are referring to un-educated novice traders who think that Options are an easy quick buck.

Like everything else, you need to know your enemy...knowledge is power.

[BlowFish]

Originally Posted by Harlequin »

Not much action in the Options Laboratory. I guess most traders here trade futures and for a good reason. With options you can pick the market direction correctly and still lose money. Interesting statement on the home page of the website you mention:

"According to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange 76.5% of all options held to expiration at the CME expired worthless during a three year study."

But you can be wrong on the market direction and make money with options!

76.5% makes options sound far to attractive (as a seller of course). What it does not factor in is the magnitude of the wins on premium compared to the cost of honouring expiration in the money.

Personally I find them a bit too 'sophisticated' or maybe I am just too unsophisticated I did read McMillan on options a couple of times whilst it kind of made sense at the time nowadays I wouldn't know a Greek from a Cretan.

[JPx2]

Probably the best video I've seen came from the developers at www.bestchoicesoftware.com .....there is one area...in the help section I think...where there is a video on options. It's the very best explanation of Options I've heard....it's simple and can show new options investors how to do it without throwing out the baby with the wash.
I'm not a BestChoice user or sponsor...I just happened on the site while searching for something else.
JPx2

[brownsfan019]

With options you can pick the market direction correctly and still lose money.

And that is the very reason I no longer trade options. I will never forget my last option trade - bought some calls on Boyd Gaming, the stock rose nicely and my option lost money.



After that I decided it was time to move on.

[JPx2]

.....I have a few that run backwards on me from time to time. But the whole idea is the same a buying stocks......money management.

Sell that option and move on to the next.

I used to spend hours monitoring my options and the underlying stock as well as the volatility. Now, I wonder why I wasted my time. After your trade is confirmed, set your stop loss and your profit target and forget it.

There are approx. fifteen (15) stocks that I can trade on a seasonal trend. That's the best way to go rather than constantly scanning for new ideas. If you go to the brokerage I use, www.optionsmonster.com , you will see that they provide a scanner right on the page that already has trading ideas.

If your not sure about yourself, trade a vertical straddle ie. Take stock "TCK" for instance. If it's trading today at say $7.25 per share, buy one 7.50 CALL and sell one 10.00 CALL......you can't loose.

JPx2

[bbj_anchor]

They've been courting me for a couple of weeks to sign up. nice paper tarding available. which has pointed out (to me) an obvious weakness to me. There are numerous periods of time where vix is high that the system doesnt work and thousands are lost. low volatility and trending markets work fine but win hundreds.... thus watchout draw downs can be huge.... the loss periods of time often last 2 weeks... you dont lose for 1 or 2 months... how many trades would you have put on? how high is high? etc. They repeat over and over again that it's your choice to make the trades not automated etc.

I'm not going in for it...

BBJ