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That's really not that uncommon with guys who trade equities.
"Sell in May and go away" really is a rule that a lot of guys follow.
The Summer months are useless for options traders and earnings traders.
The Fall and the Winter are the prime time to trade, with earnings, the holidays, etc.
I once met a guy who would literally day trade (equity options) until he made $70k-$80k and then he would take the rest of the year off. Sometimes that took him 3 weeks, sometimes 2 months.
My friends said he was a total basket case during those periods though....
"A dumb man never learns. A smart man learns from his own failure and success. But a wise man learns from the failure and success of others."
moves of 10-100x your money aren't really all that uncommon with options traders.
If you take a $10k account and double it 4 times, you now have $160k....which again, seems kinda obscene, but with options trading, it's not all that out of the question.
Guys who trade options truly have a niche though, it's a combination of technicals and fundamentals....share float, earnings reports, etc.
"A dumb man never learns. A smart man learns from his own failure and success. But a wise man learns from the failure and success of others."
Some things u have to have blind faith other things there is no whine just facts,, lets see ur statements, show me the money,,, lol
Lets see we only need 99.999% more posts to show that there is a collection of traders here that can beat the odds......
Broker: Advantage Futures, Ninja/TT and InvestorRT/IQFeed.
Trading: Treasury futures
Posts: 312 since Nov 2010
Thanks Given: 194
Thanks Received: 912
If you're not profitable and you're not sure making money consistently is even possible, having someone demonstrate that it is possible means you're not chasing a mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You're not trying to invent a perpetual motion machine. Maybe you are aspiring to the PGA tour and you won't get there, but it's not impossible to get there, people do it every year. You may be wasting your time because you don't have what it takes, but at least you're not wasting your time trying to do the undoable.
Of course, it's possible that @loriley is the monkey on the typewriter who is randomly pounding out Shakespeare's works. But I don't think so. One losing day in six weeks sounds pretty nonrandom.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows..."
Options mainly involves buying "time" in which you have a window to exit your option or let it expire. The price of the option is based upon the length of time you buy and the volitility that the equity has shown. They use a back period to calculate volitility (which is why new IPOs don't have options available immediately). You can also play "leap" options which are year long.
The math gets pretty complex...and there are varying strategies....
For instance, I tried to convince my buddy to butterfly the Visa/Mastercard ruling earlier this Summer.
When you know that an equity is going to most likely move considerably, but you don't know which way it will move...then you can butterfly or hedge by buying both the put and the call.
This gives you a window in which to sell/buy back, and once the ruling comes out, you take some pain on the loser, exit it and ride the winner.
Options traders do most of their heavy lifting around news and earning events...because that's when they get the most movement in the equity price.
It's a whole other art in itself...options trading, but the leverages and the amount of money you can make is substantial. But like I said....it takes years (if not decades) to be saavy enough to do it correctly.
As far as I can tell, most successful medium to small equity traders make most of their money on options (rather than straight buying/selling).
"A dumb man never learns. A smart man learns from his own failure and success. But a wise man learns from the failure and success of others."
Options reveal another dimension... It is definitely something worth looking in to, but expect to spend a substantial amount of time learning about them. It is not necessarily options or futures....
Other aspects of trading would be spreads and basket trading. I hardly see any mention of them on this site, but I would recommend looking in to such subjects...
Pure directional bets are the hardest thing to do, and is a losing game for most...
Options were the first things I traded a while back. I started mainly with credit spreads and Iron condors. I did ok with that. It's a dual position that limits downside risk, but also limits upside based on the way it's structured.
I also did some buying of options outright. This was the most PITA as you had to be correct on direction AND you had to be right on that direction in a certain amount of time. Most of the time I was wrong, but when I was right it would pay nicely.