Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Nice thread very open & relaxed, haven't started from the beginning unfortunately (i'm starting to experience a new form of aging, "Threading futures.io (formerly BMT)", takes years off yr life, great site & resource though)
As the title suggests i'm wanting to incorporate my options education into my trading plan, I really like futures trading as opposed to stocks options and CFDs but spent the last few years spinning my wheels trying to get my mojo back after the GFFC,,, (not a typo)
i want to get up to speed with futures options and hoping you can provide me with a link to either yr thread or other that have detail on this subject, particularly brokers, markets to trade, platforms etc,
I've spent a few years with he ES CL occasionally GC and started to look at XT YT 6E, never looked at crop circles or anything like that, and would like to know more about the above probably start with 1 or 2 at first, but i get impatient waiting for set ups & like the idea of daily charting for swings in between time or at the same time if you know what i mean
I'm currently using NT7 & Mirus with Zenfire if you can provide feedback on that it would be a great start, as Mirus still haven't replied
Thanks in advance
cheers
Angelo
"If you believe you CAN, OR believe you CAN'T, you're RIGHT!"
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Selling options on the last day or day before expiration:
Anyone had any luck selling a day or so before expiration? GC opts expire tomorrow and I'm wondering if anyone has tried to sell 5% away or so from the current price; not specifically in GC but in any high volume commodity. The 1500 April put traded tonight already. There is some early volume ATM but that is expected. Just kicking things around here....
Yes. The temptation is always there but the ramifications could blow your account. I was still thinking about way OTM if there was any volume. And, there would have to be a good bit of volatility to make anything worthwhile. Gotta be someone to scoop up the scraps...
Good job Ron! I know you keep 66% in cash so just curious how much actual margin are you tying up with 1,724 short positions. And how do you keep track of each position in terms of how much margin, profit or loss each has?
After I removed the contracts that expired today, HO, RB, NG, I have 1,454 contracts. Margin 154k. Excess 289k. I have some options that expire next week at zero excess. A few other options are at 1X (for example May KC calls that >200).
Excel spreadsheets and Access database is how I keep track.
I automatically import prices from my data provider to my linked excel sheet that has all current positions. This sheet is where I mark the positions for how much excess I want. 2x, 1X or 0X for positions that are < week from expiring and still far OTM.
I import SPAN margins each night into another sheet. A third sheet keeps the percent extra margin required by OX for each commodity. This OX factor is applied to the SPAN margins to get OX margins.
All of this is used by the Access database to give me totals. Every trade is entered into Access.
Selling options with a day or so left until expiration appears to be tempting but the small reward is definitely not worth the risk. The premiums will be so low that you would have to sell a lot to make decent money, also, you would probably need to select strikes that are much closer to the money. Because you sold a lot and will be much closer to the money than you normally would be, any decent rally or sell off will be a ton of trouble. Just not worth the risk to me.
I forgot to say I only sell those expiring options on expiration day. A day or so earlier would be too risky. And yes you don't make much money.
They were much more lucrative a few years ago. You could sell options more than what you would expect the futures could move in one day for $30-50. Now only $10 are available. Maybe.
