Plain Vanilla Options Trades.

[Profitaker]

The point I was trying to make was that I'm not sure what "proof" can be offered at the end of the day aside from trading results. Quite how many results and for how long a period is a separate matter.

Jon, the exact number of trading results required (on an individual basis) as proof positive would be a direct function of how well one (as an individual) understood the subject in question. The dis-believers will require more trading results than do the believers in order to be convinced.

How many trading results would you need from a casino wheel in order to be satisfied of "proof positive" edge ? If you understand the maths involved, the answer should be "none". This same principle applies to options. IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE !

 

[SOCRATES]

What an excellent post.

This makes complete sense.

An intuitive knowledge of the markets takes years of experience to develop. One can debate whether this "intuition" can be TAUGHT???

Socrates and I once had a brief exchange with regard to the parallels of trading with "autism" - and people with this condition being able to complete extraordinary feats, effortlessly. The question is, can us "ordinary" folk develop a kind of "autistic" insight into the markets enabling us to trade successfully???? If, to become successful, ordinary people like me have to train our minds to operate in this way, no wonder trading is so B****** difficult!!!!! It's a journey well worth embarking upon, because once mastered, the potential rewards are clearly unlimited!!

Socrates. I much prefer when you speak like this rather than the allegorical stories. Don't get me wrong, I do like allegories; e.g Paulo Coelho etc. I just don't enjoy them with regard to trading. However, if this is the method you choose to explain your arguments, then so be it!

Regards

Yes, it can.

However, and here is the heavy part......

It is not so much straightforward teaching but rather closely supervised mentoring over a long period of time in which the candidate is "channelled" along a route of self development and self motivated "awareness progression", in which the candidate has to be proactive in the moulding process which is very very intense and very delicate indeed.

This cannot be achieved if the foundations on which this progress ultimately depends are not sound and the candidate is not properly prepared thoroughly beforehand. Even then problems arise sometimes which prove insurmountable, and it is best for the candidate to abandon the mission in preference of some other activity.

The problem being that the cracks appear halfway. If the cracks were visible from the word go it would be simple. What sort of cracks are these ? Well, everybody thinks it is just a process until they hit a roadblock.

These roadblocks are different ones for different people. For some it is a problem of visualisaton or creative imagination, for others academic, for others intellectual for others a problem of drive, for others motivation, for others a huge gap missing in their education of which they were not aware and it is too late to put right, for others character, and a whole variety of insurmountable obstacles of complex combination too numerous to detail here.

It usually takes a very long time and varies with candidate to candidate.

 

[Splitlink]

Well, assuming you're peeping on on your thread holiday, split

Of course! Can't keep away

The point I was trying to make was that I'm not sure what "proof" can be offered at the end of the day aside from trading results. Quite how many results and for how long a period is a separate matter.

I can't see how it can be proved, either, but the mere fact that it is probable, sooner or later, to have unlimited losses is good enough for me.

Enough! I, really, am off this thread until next weekend, at the earliest.

Split

 

[SOCRATES]

This is going around in circles. I know you want proof. I, also, know that you won't get it. Socrates has made one of those statements that cannot be proved. He only makes them to start a thread in which he attempts to be the centre piece.

I, like many others, only joined this thread to see what he could do. He has posted many trades which he says that he has made but he has not satisfied us because it was never his plan to do so. He has achieved his goal i.e. made his name so well known, that if he starts another thread on a totally different subject he will get another noisy audience, of which he will the centrepiece, again. Yesterday, he answered all of us, individually. That is what he loves to do. He got enough answers to keep the topic open for another week.

I am going to make myself a promise. Stay away from writing here until, at least, next weekend. Perhaps I will have found myself something more useful to do, by then.

Split

What is is you want Spitlink, what is it ? Go on...I cannot give you more than what I have already given you. If you were me you would know this to be the case. You keep on harping about proofs but you overlook the significance of the obvious which I have laid out plaiinly for all of you to see.

What more do you expect of me ? I don't expect to be the centre anythng. What happens is that all of you, who really ought not to be adopting the inappropriate postures that you do keep on arguing with me.

And it is not the arguing that causes the jams, and bottlenecks. it is the attitudes displayed while the arguments are presented that warrant flattening because invariably they are accompanied by rudeness, disrespect, vitriol, aggression and insult.

Now you know very well by now that anyone who ventures to throw just a pebble at me gets a brick thrown back if I deem it appropriate, but you persist in tit for tat nonsense. it is a good thing I do not take any of you seriously.

You can plainly see only some of what I can do, not everything. What you are experiencing on this thread is the part of the iceberg you see floating above the surface.

Now you say that if I start another thread on a totally different subject I will get a noisy audience of which you say I will be centrepiece again. You go on to remark that yesterday, I replied to all of you individually. Quite so.And you also go on to remark that that is what I love to do, and that I have enough answers to keep the topic open for another week.

Whys is this ? Simple. All of you get an answer. You all get the right answers even if you might not think so. And why do I have enough answers to keep this thread open for another year, but when all the positions are finally closed for pennies and I have proved my point that the writers have the edge over the buyers, I shall continue with another 20 series on citybulls, which is Bulldozer's website as he has invited me and I have accepted to do it there as all this replying to all of you is very great effort because again you overlook the significance of the obvious bieng that I am single handed here, as there are many of you, but only one of me.

 

[Glenn]

A reminder of the realities

The difference with writing options is that the maximum reward comes immediately and the risk of losing it and of losing a huge amount more comes later.

This is topsy-turvy compared to what most traders are used to.
All we have seen here so far is the easy part, which may go on for some time.
(And surprisingly a lot of the reward has been unnecessarily given back by closing out early. Not exactly skillful trading when the underlying principle has been that the market is going up or sideways; in fact in contradiction to it.)

Judging by many of the posts here it is clear that many are new to the concept of Options and Writing in particular and that some have succumbed to it's apparent attractions without seeing and then understanding the downside.
Options have been around for a long time and you must surely accept that if it was as good as it seems, everyone would be doing it.
But then there's a sucker born every minute as the saying goes, and the extent to which people play in casino's and on one-armed bandits is testament to this.
Over time you are guaranteed to lose.

Think about worst cases, which people call Black Swans. There are many kinds, some of them based on simple economics like inflation and business failures, and some of these can be seen coming in charts before they really hit the markets badly.
There are others which are indirect such as terrorist action, weather catastrophes, earthquakes and other unpredictable events which can have dire consequences for stock markets.

If anyone says that they can predict the indirect ones and get out before they happen then you must ask yourself whether you truly believe them and why.
And not only that, if you decide to write options yourself, without the guidance of the alleged all-seeing gurus, will you yourself be able to predict the events and get out ?
Common sense says that you will not and neither will the gurus.
Therein lies the rub.

Glenn

 

[SOCRATES]

Ties in with "Worry not a paths form" Strangers turn up not knowing the position of the shop or the path to it, does it make sense to worry over which path and what turn ? Well you can worry if you like but is that likely to aid a successful journey to locating the shop all the worry, bizziness of mind , its distracting the mind from being perfectly able to "Find Shop"

Humans perhaps have a built in Sat Navigation system capable of locating everything?

I dont know (but I'm asking so I might already know and this question is a trigger to start recall?) but it would be interesting if anyone has any experience of just asking the mind to "Get" something to be known, then not even thought about it and at some point starts recieving ?

I dont mean forgotten memories , or a recall aid, but or unless we just recall everything anyway because it already is.

Triggers to obtain , we can do this by physical interaction trial and error or and by non physical solution methods, ie Mind go fetch ?

Absolute proof anyone of mind go fetch method?

"Mind...go fetch !" yes, exactly, but not everyone can do it, and what is more, refuse to believe those of us who can.

Time is not constant. It is flexible. What is more...it is malleable.

 

[SOCRATES]

I would think that the poster is very o.k. with this point , from what i can read into it thats the point of a very considered response aimed at talking (chatting) to those who are at the level already yet also lowering a rung of the up ladder down to those who are 'ready' to step on the tread?

That is likely to be the minority hence if the majority is reading it and knowing it then maybe its learning of knowledge too fast, or given too freely ?

Just a point some may or may not agree with it but I can see a sense or very good reason for it to be controlled ? I mean even normal education is package and structured at a controlled pace for a good reason I dont see why trading should be any different.

Now if so many pay the so few,even more reason to be critical on education or advancing your competitors, I mean they pay you , why help at all ,very openly and so very publicly, I can see very good reason why some people would want to do the exact opposite and disinform?

Idont think that needs to be done as there is so much tinsel hanging on the tree its groaning under the weight of it . And that helps serve to keep the soup mix alive and bubbling?

And what would Sir David Attenborough account of it all , "here then the typical trader approaches the market, (insert you fav. imagined piece here, members may like to present their own story for this bit) and as you can see, he's no longer " :cheesy:

Sense or non sense ?

If too many get it at once, shoot the story teller ? And if no one gets it at all Hang the story teller then shoot him to make sure :cheesy:

Yeesh, I guess telling stories is a responsible thing to undertake ?

You are very close to the truth funnily enough, though you may not realise it. You see Crapbuddist, the education system is not there to make the public free, it is there to make the public prisoner. It is there to imprison people into fixed ideas. And it is these fixed ideas that server to keep people on treadmills. These treadmills are necessary to keep people doing "Jobs", having life insurance, credit cards, mortgages, paying taxes, payng tolls, maintainint bank overdrafts, having excruciating obligaitons and accepting them as the norm, and generally occupied in what they percieve to be productive endeavours, and what is more to prevent them from thinking freely, and if that is not bad enough, to encourage them to believe everything they read in textbooks, as a further insidious aid to keep them completely misdirected in the prison planet they inhabit, and docile.

But traders, real traders, are not subject to this imprisonment of mind and body. They have broken the bonds that tie everybody to the treadmills. They have been able to jump out of the box and become free. These are in the very smallest minority, because, in order to achieve that, they have to change themselves first. This is percieved as very difficult if not impossible for the great majority, hence the torpor encountered on these boards when thinking out of the box is presented.

 

[SOCRATES]

The difference with writing options is that the maximum reward comes immediately and the risk of losing it and of losing a huge amount more comes later.

This is topsy-turvy compared to what most traders are used to.
All we have seen here so far is the easy part, which may go on for some time.
(And surprisingly a lot of the reward has been unnecessarily given back by closing out early. Not exactly skillful trading when the underlying principle has been that the market is going up or sideways; in fact in contradiction to it.)

Judging by many of the posts here it is clear that many are new to the concept of Options and Writing in particular and that some have succumbed to it's apparent attractions without seeing and then understanding the downside.
Options have been around for a long time and you must surely accept that if it was as good as it seems, everyone would be doing it.
But then there's a sucker born every minute as the saying goes, and the extent to which people play in casino's and on one-armed bandits is testament to this.
Over time you are guaranteed to lose.

Think about worst cases, which people call Black Swans. There are many kinds, some of them based on simple economics like inflation and business failures, and some of these can be seen coming in charts before they really hit the markets badly.
There are others which are indirect such as terrorist action, weather catastrophes, earthquakes and other unpredictable events which can have dire consequences for stock markets.

If anyone says that they can predict the indirect ones and get out before they happen then you must ask yourself whether you truly believe them and why.
And not only that, if you decide to write options yourself, without the guidance of the alleged all-seeing gurus, will you yourself be able to predict the events and get out ?
Common sense says that you will not and neither will the gurus.
Therein lies the rub.

Glenn

Do you know what a guru really is. I bet you don't.

A guru...is a wise man...look it up in the dictionalry and you will find out I am right.

How many people are wise ? I mean truly wise ? Very few.

There is your answer.

You may disagree, but I know that in general terms the great majority cannot be entrusted with the kind of responsibility which hinges on self governance and self responsibility of the highest order. I have had this proved to me many times. Therefore yes in a way you are right, but only with regard to the greaty majority.
But the great majority is not everyone.

As for it being topsy turvy...all of the world of trading is topsy turvy. That is why there are so many failures, because people enter unprepared and unaware an arena which they erroneously assume is constructed exclusively for their individual and collective benefit.

 

[SOCRATES]

Well, assuming you're peeping on on your thread holiday, split

The point I was trying to make was that I'm not sure what "proof" can be offered at the end of the day aside from trading results. Quite how many results and for how long a period is a separate matter.

As to whether Socrates' trading here is prudent, who am I to say? That's up to him and depends on his personal risk:reward profile; the probability of Black Swan events; and his tactics for dealing with such eventualities. It sounds too high risk for me but, then again, I probably wouldn't trade at all if I was always worrying about Armageddon around the corner wiping me out.

good trading

jon

You need nerve, you need patience, you need resoluteness, you need methodology, you need to have deep pockets and most of all you need to know exactly the terrain that you are entering and why and how to handle yourself in it.

 

[SOCRATES]

"the folly of the search for an external holy grail."

Markets do not hold or give 'edges'. This is very important to understand.

What about instruments?

They do, but only master traders recognise them and are able to exploit them, the rest behave like a comittee.

A comittee is composed of several well educated and powerful people who separately disagree and together can only agree that nothing can be done.

 

[SOCRATES]

Jon, the exact number of trading results required (on an individual basis) as proof positive would be a direct function of how well one (as an individual) understood the subject in question. The dis-believers will require more trading results than do the believers in order to be convinced.

How many trading results would you need from a casino wheel in order to be satisfied of "proof positive" edge ? If you understand the maths involved, the answer should be "none". This same principle applies to options. IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE !

Listen, I can do this 20 times in a row, or 40, or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 or 100 or 120 or whatever, it is not work for me but a delight and an amusement among my peers.

The real work for me is to have to post here.

The hard work is to have to struggle with dunces.

After these 20 series are done, I will go and do some more, perhaps in another instrument many of you might consider to be lethal, because I can. But I am not going to do them here.

In fact, I am going to do them in a precise place where you personally cannot participate in interrupting and derailing and commenting off topic, and I will not let you in, happy ?

 

[SOCRATES]

"They (proficient traders) already have done all the work and have reliable and accurate route maps inside their heads they refer to. The fact that the reference to the map is silent and invisible makes it that much more mystifying.



The problem as you very accurately have pinpointed is that we live in an age of instant gratification......, an "off the shelf" kind of society



You "know" where these things are and if you close your eyes you can visualise them before you actually get there and see them in reality in front of you"

Socrates

I have chosen a few extracts from some of your recent posts. I read them this morning, along with another you posted, which indicated the amount of hard work you have put into your trading development in the past.

Not many of the readers on this site, I suspect, would be so dedicated, but for those who are the rewards are well-deserved. Those who are thus dedicated are the ones who are "born to be traders".

As in other professions, such as top-level sport, once the years of work have been devoted to the task of development, a mind-map results, which makes the task (to an outsider) seem deceptively easy because it has become so for the proficient practitioner. If asked to explain how the task is carried out it will never be done so to the satisfaction of the amateur, because it can only be explained in general terms at the level of understanding of the amateur. The amateur is not the expert and cannot get into the mind-set of the expert unless and until he becomes one.

Your knowing of the market takes the form of visualisation prior to the event. This is often experienced by top athletes as well and may take the form of other sensory activity - some talk of feeling, others of hearing for example.

I congratulate you on providing these clear indications of the arduous process towards proficient trading, the problems of training others and the folly of the search for an external holy grail.

Charlton

Many thanks Charlton, I am pleased you like it and derive benefit.

 

[dc2000]

Talk about everything is known in advance who'd have put money on the next series being on Bulls site eh :cheesy:

 

[SOCRATES]

it pains me to say but it appears this is the case
it makes me wonder about text books, you could write a book 400 pages long for just one days trading reading into the psychology of all involved the technical aspects and then of course we have the fundamentals and most know how cockeyed that can be.
so though a book can give you a snip-it of information, a microscopic moment into an event it cant subsititute that information in one chapter let alone one book.

Exactly, precisely...

 

[SOCRATES]

your question is more complex than i initially thought
and as its really off topic a tad, i will say:
no i have never recorded the times i have pin pointed highs or lows for the fact of pin pointing, but i have recorded the times i have pin pointed high and lows and traded them, because i keep records of that. and i can say that accuracy in not due to chance, and that is clearly evident with experience[/QUOTE].....when it talks to you....and you can hear it.....:cheesy:

 

[the blades]

Talk about everything is known in advance who'd have put money on the next series being on Bulls site eh :cheesy:

yes, you could have knocked me over with a double decker bus when that was revealed

UTB

Edit: as long as the passengers of the bus had £400 tickets, obviously

 

[SOCRATES]

Of course everything is known in advance, the problem is that you lot do not believe me.

Look at him, off he goes, just to contradict me, and goes short, when the portents are decidedly bullish...and the intent is very clear...

I tried to warn him gently.

Does he take any notice ? No.

What happens ? The footsie, in line with my fututological expectation, goes rocketing north, and is still going up !

And what else ? He does not use a stop.

And what else ? It costs him some money for no reason other than bravado.

And what else ? He then says he will close it two days later or some other nonsense, no matter what ?

And what else ? We are never told the extent of the damage or how many contracts or anything...

Are you going to tell me any of his pronouncements can be taken seriously.

I think he is a teenager pretending to be an adult, must be, certainly no trader.....

But in this he is right, the next series will be hosted by Bully, as I am getting bored here having to struggle with dunces.........eh ?

 

[SOCRATES]

Any more ? .......No.?...goodnight then....eh .

 

[dc2000]

Of course everything is known in advance, the problem is that you lot do not believe me.

Look at him, off he goes, just to contradict me, and goes short, when the portents are decidedly bullish...and the intent is very clear...

I tried to warn him gently.

Does he take any notice ? No.

What happens ? The footsie, in line with my fututological expectation, goes rocketing north, and is still going up !

And what else ? He does not use a stop.

And what else ? It costs him some money for no reason other than bravado.

And what else ? He then says he will close it two days later or some other nonsense, no matter what ?

And what else ? We are never told the extent of the damage or how many contracts or anything...

Are you going to tell me any of his pronouncements can be taken seriously.

I think he is a teenager pretending to be an adult, must be, certainly no trader.....

But in this he is right, the next series will be hosted by Bully, as I am getting bored here having to struggle with dunces.........eh ?

what you mean you cant work out the damage ? sorry I forgot you cant work out spread margin and exposure either

 

[SOCRATES]

what you mean you cant work out the damage ? sorry I forgot you cant work out spread margin and exposure either

Spread margin ? Don't make me laugh !