New Option Trader

I’ve been focusing on mastering spreads for a while now because every other strategy is either a combination of spreads a just another type of spread. So, really understanding how spreads work and why is key to understanding all the other strategies. Now, I know that there are bullish spreads and bearish spreads, and that [...]

should be a bull day — we’ll see..

Just started reading, Options Trading 101 by Bill Johnson.  I’ve attended Bill’s classes and recently met him at the Options University Workshop.  Great guy and he has a talent for explaining options in a way that is crystal clear especially for beginners.  The first time I heard him speak I was blown away by how [...]

Regardless of day-to-day volatility, the QQQQs are still in a strong uptrend and don’t show signs of slowing down.  In fact, I’ve heard several times of the past month that technology is where it’s at — and the QQQQs are have alot of great tech stocks. It’s trading above it’s 50-day moving average It’s trading [...]

Delta The amount by which the price of an option changes for every dollar move in the underlying instrument. Yahoo! Options Glossary

Just attended a webinar on finding stocks that are primed to go ballistic.  Here are my notes: Price is above the 10, 50, 200 day moving averages Trade with the larger, longer term trend — moving averages help you do that Look for short corrections in a longer term trend Look at stock’s volume relative [...]

Just bought a QQQQ DEC 07 50 call @ 4.92.   Main criteria I used was a delta of .75 or higher seeing that the QQQQs had take a small little dip but overall seem to going up.  I’ve paper traded this strategy before and it worked out really well. On another note, just heard out [...]

ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) by now are pretty common place.  SO, wouldn’t it be nice if our 401(k)s could have ETFs in them instead of mutual funds? Not sure how soon (if ever) we’ll see that because if it did happen what would the Vanguards of the world do? Okay, fine.  But, given the huge [...]

I just closed a bear put spread on Pulte Homes that I opened in Sept.  My thinking at the time was that the stock was in a freefall and the housing market was not going to make a spectacular comeback in a month.  So, I placed a bearish trade that would be profitable if PHM [...]