sat-thank you, thank you, you just saved me $300+, the cost of 2 months of subscription. Now I understand what they are doing. Option Genius did a butterfly this month and he made money with it. However, I studied it a long time and it appeared to me that the window for profit was just too small. I have the same feeling about strangles and straddles. You know what I think of iron condors, too risky. Haven't looked at calendars for years, but again they are used for a very specific expected market condition.
I am very happy for now with what I consider a low risk approach to the market. However, the next time AAPL, GOOG, or AMZN make a pull back, I am going to seriously consider doing a long call very near the money and offset the cost with either a naked put or a covered call. At any point in time there is always a few stocks that are hot. Boy these 3 are hot. Cramer was been pushing AAPL since 120, now it is at 220, wow. It doesn't appear that the ride is over yet.
If you are not watching Option Action on CNBC each Fri, I strongly encourage it. I actually haven't done many of their trades, but I am learning how the big boys think and what kind of option trades they like to do. Most of their trades do work out. I am in two trades that they recommended. In Jan they suggested buying a Mar 4c and selling a Mar 3p on Citi. I put it on for .05 credit. I really expected it to expire in a couple of weeks worthless, so as I posted last week, I put on the same trade for Jun. The Jun one has already gone from .08 to .29, so looks like this might make me a few bucks. So the Mar option was their idea, the Jun was mine.
They also recommended a GE option, buying a Jun17c and selling a 15p. I put that trade on for .02 debit and it is worth .25 now. I really didn't do the trades for the money, but for the experience. I have a whole $2 invested and the worse that can happen is that I own the stock for $15 a share. Fun stuff.
Putting on a trade in Jan (Citi options) and not expecting to see any benefit until June has been a really good lesson in patient investing for me. But I really like doing the credit spreads and watching a few bucks added to my account each day as the options decay. Very encouraging.
Thanks for your excellent response and let's make some money with our own wits!!
Jon
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
