Steve Before you try futures make sure you under stand you can lose "MORE" money then you place in the hands of the futures broker. If you have a car and house, you can lose those two(g)
steve, apparently very, very few (if any) are making money consistently over a longer time period by buying calls/puts and then selling them later... possible reasons: (1) need to have a very reliable trading system with a high win probability (2) need to have extreme discipline in trading to avoid large losses (3) need to trade only certain types of options (likely ITM) with adequately distant expiration dates (4) need to factor in premium dissipation in addition to price moves by watching vix/vxn/qqv moves (5) need to be very conscious of high leverage provided by options relative to equities ...having said all that i personally have not traded options...just observed those that trade them and the movement in index prices and premiums vs options prices (for qqq/spx)