<p>I don’t know if most traders are losers. I judge my success in trading vs buy and hold. If I do better than buy and hold, its good, if I can’t beat buy and hold in the indices, then its a waste of time.</p>
<p>I do know. Most traders are losers. That includes professional traders too. Well…they don’t stay professional for long.</p>
<p>When you say losers, do you mean lose money over time or make less than the markets?</p>
<p>They are net losers after expenses.</p>
<p>I am not comparing the traders to what the markets are doing.</p>
<p>Our criteria appear to be different. From my perspective, if someone loses 10% after fees , when the market loses 20%, he is adding value. If he is making less than the market after fees, he is taking away value and is therefore a loser. Of course this depends on what you are trying to achieve. As I’m typically a more conservative trader, I lag the market when it goes up a lot like this year so far. If I sell puts and generate 8% a year, I don’t compare it to the market but to yields on savings accts or CD’s which I’m replacing by selling puts.</p>
<p>I understand that doct. </p>
<p>Most traders are just losers. Period. Maybe they are long traders and make money when the market goes up, but when the market reverses they lose their gains and more.</p>
<p>You would be surprised how many option market makers just scrapped by or lost and this was their job.</p>
<p>Oh yeah…</p>
<p>I sold the april 375 puts in aapl today…</p>
<p>Yesterday I sold qcom 4/26 62.5 puts for .48 and qqq 68.5 puts for .27. These along with the aapl 370 and 350 puts that I sold last week are all I want to handle right now.</p>
<p>[MorningWord</a> 4/24/13: $AAPL Not Ripe Enough To Pick ? Risk Reversal](<a href=“http://www.riskreversal.com/2013/04/24/morningword-42413-aapl-not-ripe-enough-to-pick/]MorningWord”>http://www.riskreversal.com/2013/04/24/morningword-42413-aapl-not-ripe-enough-to-pick/)</p>
<p>Looks like all those puts are safe except for the qqqs. The qqqs are probably ok.</p>
<p>I have more puts offered in aapl if the stock dips a little today.</p>
<p>It cracks me up when people say aapl is cheap. </p>
<p>In order to know if aapl is cheap or expensive we have to know what the company’s product development is and how the public will embrace the products.</p>
<p>Expenses?</p>
<p>$8 commissions one-way. That’s not even noise.</p>
<p>BTW, Pembina Pipeline is at an all-time high today. That’s with paying nice monthly dividends too. Tomorrow is record day. I suppose that the price doesn’t matter so much if you just want the dividends.</p>
<p>MSFT is doing great too. Even Intel. This is a really nutty market. I think that a lot of the nuttiness is due to AAPL. It also looks like gold and silver are turning.</p>
<p>"Expenses?</p>
<p>$8 commissions one-way. That’s not even noise."</p>
<p>I guess I make this s… up.</p>
<p>I sold more aapl puts…the 475 and 480 puts…</p>
<p>Yeah - I just bought 6/22 iau 11 calls = 2.90.</p>
<p>Well… I am not going to wish you good luck. I want gold down… Lol</p>
<p>I didn’t buy a huge position - only 10 contracts.</p>
<p>Miners are taking off. Several on my screen are up around 5%.</p>
<p>That is a decent size doct.</p>
<p>Sold some 360 puts in aapl that expire next week. I think aapl is going to consolidate now. If I am wrong about the downside, I am going to lose my a…</p>
<p>QCOM whacked AH. Earnings were inline with estimates. AKAM up 8% AH - guess earnings were good there. I missed getting filled on my low-ball buy order in PBA by … a penny. I think that someone saw my order.</p>
<p>Well doct, it looks like you get to sweat or roll in qcom. I had no idea earnings were coming out.</p>