<p>Doct…you told me you were interested in the spread…or did I miss a post?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>yes if the stock stay put, but in options, you will look for volatile stocks</p>
<p>You can still lose all…even in volatile stocks…the stocks may not be volatile enough…</p>
<p>AAPL…last expiration…every call 570 and above closed out worthless…every put 565 and below closed out worthless…</p>
<p>For example…If I bought the may 540 put and the may 600 call…And let it go until expiration…I lost all I put into the strangle.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangle_(options[/url])”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangle_(options)</a></p>
<p>what if I buy the same strike price on same number of puts and calles?</p>
<p>That is a straddle and if the stock closes at that strike…both the call and the put can expire worthless.</p>
<p>And even if the stock closes a little off the straddle…you can still get buried. Aapl closed around 565.25 The 565 straddle was worth .25. Not too exciting…I am pretty sure most people who bought that straddle paid more than .25. :)</p>
<p>This option stuff isn’t as easy as it looks.</p>
<p>By the way… my short put Aapl trade is a very stupid trade. I have very little downside exposure…so I did it. I do stupid trades at times…but at least I know that they are stupid. :)</p>
<p>You just have to “predict” it correctly and don’t buy into that straddle…:)</p>
<p>:)…</p>
<p>30 years ago, I was a trader, at that time, I did everything, long, short, penny, sp500, DJ and everything in between. I won and I lost, at the end, you don’t do much. I have since learn the lesson, I want to make money, work my a** off, but I donot want to gamble. Stock market is a gamble, Obama says some thing, you lose, Greek did some thing you win, Arab bomb the s**t of Amercian Ambassy, you lost your shirt. That is out of the control, at least for small fish like ME. So I quit playing the market… Now, I look dumb in this thread…:)</p>
<p>Well…artloversplus…I think your last post says it well. :)</p>
<p>"Arab bomb the s**t of Amercian Ambassy, you lost your shirt. "</p>
<p>If you look at things from a historical perspective, things like this, disasters etc, even ww2 have only a short term impact. Some of my best returns were achieved when I piled into stocks after 9/11.</p>
<p>Smart move doc…but what if you are in it before 911?</p>
<p>mom “gave” a protfolio manager 100K to “play the market”, he took her to the cleaners. until today, we still have $40K LTCL that is being written off $3k/year… and mom can no longer manage her financials any more… Sad…</p>
<p>^^^Ditto^^ DocT</p>
<p>Artloversplus…that is a sad story.</p>
<p>Couldn’t find a suitable topic to post this at in the PF so putting it here as it does relate to Consumer Confidence and borrowing.</p>
<p>US consumers flock to borrow</p>
<p>Credit jumped $21.36bn, or 10.2 per cent, to $2.54tn, the Federal Reserve announced on Monday. That was more than twice the $9.8bn increase forecast by economists and was the biggest rise since November 2001.</p>
<p>A “surge” in student loans probably drove the increase, said Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS Global Insight. “Households sought to lock in student financing as interest rates on these loans are set to jump in July without Congressional action. “</p>
<p>[US</a> consumers flock to borrow - FT.com](<a href=“Subscribe to read | Financial Times”>Subscribe to read | Financial Times)</p>
<p>Don’t know if that loan surge is positive or negative. :)</p>
<p>Warren Buffett said today that the economy is slowly improving. Slowly. With all the businesses he is involved with…my guess is he knows. Since you mentioned Buffett earlier…maybe you saw Buffett on CNBC?</p>
<p>I only saw that he said that he was buying and that he was critical of Thompson at Yahoo for fudging his degree information. I think that Buffett said that the banks weren’t in great shape (I think he holds some of their debt) but that US banks were in better shape than European banks were.</p>
<p>Ok…</p>
<p>Sister and BIL just came back from the Berkshire shareholder weekend. I should call her to see how it went. They’ve never gone before, but there can’t be THAT many more that Buffett will attend.</p>
<p>I’d like to go to one of those someday. Price of admission is only one share.</p>
<p><a href=“Stock Trading Remains in a Slide After ’08 Crisis - The New York Times”>Stock Trading Remains in a Slide After ’08 Crisis - The New York Times;
<p>Volume still sliding…</p>
<p><a href=“Stock Trading Volume Has Declined - Graphic - NYTimes.com”>Stock Trading Volume Has Declined - Graphic - NYTimes.com;