I see that all the experienced investors here use option to trade with while holding their core position
Not me - and my day job involves valuation of complex option instruments, so it's a subject I am well versed in.
Think of options trading as going to Las Vegas - the options bid/ask spread plays the part of the zeroes in the roulette wheel. You have about as much chance of winning in the long run playing with options as you have playing roulette.
The only time I use options is if I believe I know something the market does not - like the size of a potential move in response to an FDA action. Mostly the options market is very efficient though, which means no free lunches.
Whatever you do, if you proceed with options, ease into them.
I both INVEST in ARIA options, and day-trade on margin provided by my core position in Scottrade Account. (ETrade does not give margin on ARIA.) Others on this board do too. Very risky as it's all in ARIA.
I buy deep in the money (DITM) calls, a year out, and hold them to very near expiration, then roll them over, cash in, or let exercise. I day trade shares trying not to hold overnite. DITM calls both leverage, and hurt leverage in that you can't margin them. Still, I find them a good way to be disciplined about managing an extended position. I rarely trade out of the money calls, much harder to make money.
I like the Jan 13 5's, and 8's.
Go slow and carefully manage your margin. On dips like this one, or the one we had in the summer, you may get forced to get out of your options positions.
I see that all the experienced investors here use option to trade with while holding their core position.
I have never traded options. I play a lot of blackjack and I suspect options are similar in that not only do you have to know how to play but money management is paramount as most bets lose.
quote]Based on what everyone else here is doing, I deduced that the option route is preferred.
That only thing you could deduce,from the very small sample of total investors in Ariad on this site that use options, is that there are a very small sample of the total investors in Ariad that happen to be on this site using options. I would hazard a guess that there are a bunch of serious investors in Ariad that don't post here for precisely this reason.
If you are determined to try your hand at options, I would suggest you learn a bit about it and try trading options without using real cash for awhile. I believe there are a number of brokerage sites that allow you to learn to trade options without using actual cash.
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