Edwin

Their learning center should have some resources to review. https://tlc.thinkorswim.com/center

Time value decays slower in reality than perhaps your perception of it. You should be thinking of volatility (vega) is as important to the options price as theta. Perhaps, rather than thinking about the theoretical definitions of options terms, look at how options pricing changes in actual charts (you can do this easily in ThinkorSwim or IB). Paper trade some strategies and gain experience from that, but also take it with a grain of salt, because the fills are not at actual prices where you'd get filled at in a live market due to slippage and wider bid/ask spreads. The Analyze Tab in TOS (there are similar tools in other platforms) will better help you visualize what happens over time in the situations you listed in your questions. You can't just assume that you'll win most of the time because you are selling time decay, and that time moves forward. Selling calls naked has unlimited loss (theoretically) if the equity keeps going up. You want to look at spreads (credit spreads, debit spreads, calendars, iron condors, etc.) and analyze how those trades perform in times of low and high volatility. If you want to sell options, then start off with something basic like a covered call or selling puts to get long a stock. Again, look at volatility (vega), options liquidity (how wide the bid-ask spreads are) in getting actual live fills, and doing research on trading platforms and brokers with reasonable commissions rates. These items are often overlooked by beginners. Don't get too hung up on the definitions on who has obligation to do what, and get hung up on why someone else would buy or sell the option you want to trade (it's completely meaningless to even think about that). You'll learn a lot faster and more if you look at actual markets than get bogged down on the theory of how things work according to a book (especially if you don't take into consideration vega, and mainly focus on delta and theta), and also worry about options assignment (most options trades are open and closed before expiration or assignment since you can buy and sell whenever you want)

I haven't tried the trial yet, but is there or will there be a sorted list of most profitable back tests?

Are there instructions posted on how to setup the OCO order for an options trade in IB? Is it only available in the Mosaic view? Is it possible to create an OCO order in WebTrader? Thanks

I entered in some 11/11 11/18 calendars, I saw that PCLN confirmed earnings for 11/7 PM on their IR site. I know it's very early, but I saw prices for the calendars between 2.5 and 3. I was filled at 2.95 at the 1470 puts and the 1480 calls this morning, and was filled on the 1435 puts yesterday.

Ok, sorry, when I read this, I missed "credit" spread. For VXX what delta call would you be selling? When going through your backtesting, it looks like your VXX spread width changed throughout, why was that? Were you mainly looking at OI, and not deltas?

Thanks for offering up this strategy and posting backtesting results. What do you do with VIX this low for short legs 7 strikes away from the money? Any reason why you select VXX calls instead of trading VIX calls and VXX puts? I'd think you'd want to trade VXX puts because of the negative contango drag, unless you think there will be prolonged backwardation in the term structure. Does swapping to two make a difference in backtesting results?

I'm going through this right now. Here are the links for each company that we normally trade each cycle: PCLN: http://ir.pricelinegroup.com/alerts.cfm NFLX: https://ir.netflix.com/alerts.cfm? AMZN: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-alerts CMG: http://ir.chipotle.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=194775&p=irol-alerts TSLA: http://ir.tesla.com/alerts.cfm? FB: https://investor.fb.com/home/default.aspx BABA: http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/emailalerts BIDU: http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-alerts GOOG: https://abc.xyz/investor/ (don't see where to sign up for email alerts here)

I asked TOS, and it looks like you can create an alert in Marketwatch. But it sounds like it's more of a reminder of when earnings will occur. You could try this and set it to alert one week before and see how that works. They said there's nothing specific to set a alert when the company confirms the date. If you go to marketwatch and calendar. Put in the symbol in questio and then below the calendar you will see a text list of events. Left click on any even labeled "Earnings" and in the window that appears there is a 'Create Alert' button.

In my opinion (hopefully not changing the subject), but I'd prefer more web based (such as Go to Meeting) recorded calls that include Q&A for members to ask questions as part of our current membership to SO. If anyone is in the Boston MetroWest/Merrimack Valley area (or willing to drive to the Littleton, Westford, Chelmsford, Lowell area), and interested in meeting up as a group, you can contact me directly and we can set something up. This wouldn't be one-on-one mentoring, this would be more of a meetup session as a group.

How's the liquidity in /CL options? I don't think this site has historically traded Futures Options. Have you looked at trading an ETF like USO instead of /CL options?

I don't mean to bug you on the points already mentioned, I do agree it's a hassle in the short term to move the account, and it can take about a week for the funds to process from TOS to IB in order for you to start trading. But it will be well worth while long term, anyone paying ticket fees is getting ripped off. I was in your same situation, and I eventually just kept a small amount of money in my TOS account so I could use the data and charting, I wish I moved to IB sooner than I did, just based on the huge commissions difference.

I tried Simpler Options trial. Not worth it. You get more out of the free youtube videos for the market recaps than from the live trade room. He is barely in the live room, maybe 4 hours at most per week.

I must be blind, I don't see "Unread Content".

Is there a way to modify what you see when I go to "View New Content" I just want to see new posts, I don't have to see every user's activity on the forum.

Here's reviews on Amazon on the book listed on the site: http://www.amazon.com/Stock-Options-Work-Hour-Day/dp/1427638632/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463016392&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Stock+Options+%E2%80%93+Work+%C2%BD+Hour+A+Day If you look at the print book preview to look at the Table of Contents, it's all basic options strategies he's listing. Sounds like BS, unless someone can provide the actual trades and fills. He's probably selling premium (strangles, iron condors, etc.) and rolling (closing out losers and rolling to the next month) or making adjustments to make bad trades look like winners. Sounds like Tastytrade with more marketing fluff with a vague sense of an infomercial/get rich quickly, etc. If you look at the youtube video, it looks like he's reading from a script:

Here's a new one from today, I think it's been repeated, and Kim wrote a blog as a rebuttal. https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/market-measures/episodes/buying-premium-before-earnings-04-26-2016

Anyone else having issues getting charts and data to load up that is on the east coast in TOS? From my work computer, I'm stuck with "Loading Data" I need to connect to my home machine in order to see anything without lag. TOS support had me run pingtest.net to Dallas, and the results were terrible: Line Quality D*, ping 131 ms, jitter 77ms

They say that they have no sponsors, but they do have a marketing relationship with TOS. I'd assume they are trying help TOS gain more customers and transactions for commissions by "Trading Small, Trade often" slogan.

Yes, a lot of their market measures are skewed to support their main theme of selling options when Vol is overpriced, and taking on a lot of risk selling naked strangles. They have the mentality of market makers, "high probability trades" and taking profits at 50% of max profit.

Has anyone traded the dividend collar strategy with long term consistency of returns? Buy shares the day of the ex-dividend, sell a call and buy a put for even or for a small credit, and then get out and cycle into the next dividend paying stock.

Good idea, thanks

I've posted multiple times that I use WebTrader from work, and I have limited access to TWS from work. I'm able to login to get to the primary connection (cdc1.iblc.com) for my account, portfolio, and orders, but any market data is blocked. Someone suggested setting up a VM in the cloud to get access, and I tried setting up VPN to my home, but that is blocked from work as well. And I tried finding a proxy server as well, to no avail. My only other option is enable 4G hotspot from my cell phone in order to connect. I can get market data from TOS from work, so it's not that big of a deal to see a bunch of "?" in TWS, but can anyone think or any other workarounds to be able to get market data in TWS? I could always just switch between webtrader and TWS. I'm surprised I'm able to get market data in webtrader from work though. Thanks

I would agree, no one will show you their overall long term performance. You can follow people on twitter instead of paying for subscriptions, or do your own scans or look in the Trade Flash gadget in TOS to find UOA. They are usually low probability trades buying low delta premium that are highly leveraged. I wonder if you take the opposite trade, if you will make more in the long run. Instead of buying out of the money calls, sell an out of the money put or put spread. The main issue with UOA is that you don't know what their overall portfolio looks like. They could be buying calls against short stock, or buying premium to hedge against another position, or they are legging into a trade. Even if they know information they illegally obtained or are just making a bet, they can still be wrong.

Yeah, sorry, it's the meeting minutes. I think China inflation and PPI data is coming out on 2/17 as well. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/calendar