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How much higher can ATW realistically go? Bought at $7.25 last Thursday and am thinking I should take my money and run before this comes back down?

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How much higher can ATW realistically go? Bought at $7.25 last Thursday and am thinking I should take my money and run before this comes back down?

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Did you dump the rest of the NKE after the earnings miss or still holding until expiration?

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Just start referring to OA as "Your guy" and just hope he doesn't wind up in the hospital/inaccessible.

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Still clearly range bound. S&P is mid-range and DOW below midrange. As long as the dam doesn't break these big down moments are trad-able buying opportunities. It also means short trades or Puts would be covered. Macro post is different in that yellow caution is still in effect meaning 401k monies should be protected.

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TriumphForks said:

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For people like oldarmy and Aggiemetal, how did you get to the point where you were able to leave a "normal" job and trade for a living? How are/were you confident enough in your abilities that the inevitable uncertainty that the future brings doesn't cause you to seek something with more stability? It seems like such a delicate balance to strike between maintaining enough capital to make money off trades but yet taking on enough risk to earn a large enough return to live off of. I would think that no professional trader is more than a few critical missteps away from it all being over. I know each of you (while different) have a defined strategy that you stick to - but I'd think there has to be a weakness somewhere in the strategy. Nothing is fool proof.

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TriumphForks said:

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This is long as to answer it right it has to be, took me most the day on the side of what was a great day of trading.


For people like oldarmy and Aggiemetal, how did you get to the point where you were able to leave a "normal" job and trade for a living?
What Randy said on my previous job end.

That and about 4 years of hard work and trial by fire. Learning my pain tolerance when tested, curbing or at least harnessing emotions of fear and greed in being mechanical in managing winner and losers (doesn't sound hard but it's a lot of work and discipline and probably the hardest aspect at least for me) .

Randy and I are just introducing our skill sets for you guys here to take or leave, but none of it will matter unless people can master their own set of mechanics (we're two totally different styles, but we both have a core strategy and set of mechanics we follow like waking up and brushing our teeth--he's more directional, I rely more on theta decay, probability and trade location, volatility crush, as it allows me to win big even when I'm dead wrong. I guess the common denominator is we both aggressively manage winners, are always improving our basis so if/when big events occur against us we've already covered our backside a great deal before a second of the position has even ticked off the clock, not to mention the other management things to that end I'll get to later )

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How are/were you confident enough in your abilities that the inevitable uncertainty that the future brings doesn't cause you to seek something with more stability?

Nothing is stable as we think. People everywhere slowly and silently kill themselves doing jobs and living "stable" lives they hate b/c they are too afraid of taking risk or doing something different. Maybe they are loyal company men only to get layed off out of nowhere or even with a brief heads up. I was there as the former, invested my life in teaching was in heaven for 6 years, then we got an idiot superintendent bent on hippie nonsense enabling alternatives to actual discipline (that inner city kids crave) and i endured 5 years of hell for me and my students I tried to empower and totally burned me out (had no desire to change districts after a few years hoping for better). Fortunately while I wanted to be gone 4 or years ago, God gave me what I needed not what I wanted at the time and I had 4 overlapping years of free time on this side (and a very cool wife that facilitated that) to master what I do now as my own boss, with no bs politics or other crap most have to deal with on the traditional job. Not that it has to be all that, I really wanted to get to this point long ago b/c I just love it.

I'd argue this is very stable if you know what you are doing (as I've outlined or will outline most aspects above and below). Many traders fail, but they somewhere along the way miss even 1 or 2 of the things I mention in this post (above and below) at the least or did so too early in their learning curve never allowing themselves the time to get it right eventually and have success later down the line. Simply put I sleep like a baby b/c I know what I'm doing.

See above section for actual trade things mentioned, plus I almost always balance my deltas (downside protection against my puts) usually with short outright /ES future(s) against my short puts, it doesn't totally even things out when there's an explosion to the downside but it definitely keeps the initial bleed low and very manageable and kind of acts like a parking break. Also good trade location not forcing trades as much as at least starting with good trade location (not always my strongest but I've gotten better even in the last few months (see my FOMO post some page above LOL ). You rarely nail it but if you start towards price extremes usually less room to go against, again not a given but it's just part of the basics any successful trader is going to do.

Brexit was a great test early on in my full time tenure. Long time traders have that ranked right up there with 1987, and 2008 . . .anyways that night I entered actually without a hedge (never done it again since ) but even entering with +500 plus spy weighted deltas b/c I thought it would be BS like fiscal cliff, greece, all that crap. Anyways after once again screwing up direction (I pretty much have a knack for it LOL and it doesn't matter w/ my style) I immediately started balancing deltas and scalping futures against it all night until the circuit breakers literally went off in the wee hours of the morning. It was not a comfy night, I won't lie, but I put the emotion aside and used the skillset, entered that morning relatively even (even at it's worst before I started working around the original position I was only down 6% which is a lot but not even close to devastating, and I knew it was temporary once I put the counter skills in action). Of course once the dust settled I sold insanely overstated juiced premium until my hands bled as it was a gift from God. The other part of the equation tying into that is I'm always small enough where I have room with my capital to make adjustments. I'll restate that to answer your next question, you don't have to be tiny but you need to be small enough where you can adjust and manage your position when the poop hits the fan . . . or enable you to get bigger when oppty offers that juiced up premium
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It seems like such a delicate balance to strike between maintaining enough capital to make money off trades but yet taking on enough risk to earn a large enough return to live off of. I would think that no professional trader is more than a few critical missteps away from it all being over. I know each of you (while different) have a defined strategy that you stick to - but I'd think there has to be a weakness somewhere in the strategy. Nothing is fool proof.

That's surely true for traders that go to big for their account, can't manage thier fear/greed and or just plain do stupid things giving themselves no probabilistic edge (just about anything is better than a 50/50 stock play, know matter what people think they know, except buying options which is worse b/c it not only has to be the right direction but almost go that way immediately before the theta eats you alive). Anyways I'm not worried in the least, my skill set works, not cocky or foolish, it's based out of the absolute confidence in the skill set baptised in a lot of fire. It took a lot of years to get here and I've had several big black swan moves, which while of course they can sting a bit early, end up setting me up with great opportunity and have me on guard with my finger on the trigger to take further action, if there is continuation from said move. I keep a close eye on things not just b/c it's prudent but b/c I love doing it (if people don't have a passion or love for it they probably aren't going to be real successful). Options also offer you a huge array of, well options to hedge and manage your position cheaply and they in themselves are way cheaper and less capital intensive than outright stock.

It's a lot to digest at first but humbly speaking, I'm a monkey and if I can figure it out, anyone can, Randy got me in the arena and though I really suck at the TA that he's superb at, it taught me a ton in all facets, and of course on the strict options side tastytrade and dough made it a lot easier for me and were/are a wealth of free info if people are willing to put in the work. Personally I can't wait for another huge down move, volatility sucks now, I'm doing great but collecting a ton more premium and being able to go even farther OTM to get that premium is awesome.

There's risk in everything in life, be smart, work hard, be aware, keep your greed in check, improve your basis, take advantage of oppty, execute quickly, don't force it when it's not there, and cover your a $ $ . . .that's trading and life. It's still not for all and if someone is extremely risk averse they can always get a dog. . . or a mutual fund (which of course will get it butt kicked in a big bear market without the advantage of playing the other side).

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bmks270 said:

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From the tasty trade videos I have seen, I feel like they gloss over the risks somewhat. They mention ITM/OTM probabilities at expiration, but they rarely mention that the probability it will touch a certain price is much higher...

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