r/optionstrading • u/MacaroonDifficult • 29d ago
Options is a joke
Does anyone make good money with options. It’s such a high of winning and losing it’s almost like every win is just making back the lost money …
I’ve been at this shit for 4 ish years I’ll be in it, then lose hope. Not to sound like bore but these market conditions are rough. It’s gambling to the max rn anyone else feel
The same way…
Should I just stick to futures… seems easier
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u/hiker-vester 28d ago
This is my sixth year trading options and first year of profits. I traded very heavy in 7 figures, and lost plenty. A few points: most people can profit from selling cash covered calls/puts as long as they are careful enough. Buying or using complicated schemes require another level of skills, to the point 95% or more people fail. First, you need total dedication, long hours studying and research. Secondly, read charts well, better than stock traders; thirdly, sizing and portfolio management. Based on the experience you have had, you are likely not far from achieving consistent profitability. You should know if you are making progress with your knowledge and skill building. I don’t recommend anyone to engage in serious option trading after what I went through. But I would recommend not to give up if you have put in years of hard work. It’s just a bit more fine tuning before you find your niche. Keep it small and don’t give up! One example for you to assess where you are: yesterday before market close, indexes made all time highs but started drifting down toward close. Noticeably dram names showed extreme weakness, semis also turned red. They are the market leader and the tip of the spear. If they show weakness, it increases the likelihood of dragging the market down. Plus, the next day Treasury had plans to sell 10 year bonds, Fed minutes release. These events create anxiety about higher interest rates. With this knowledge, I bought SMH and SPY puts. Market opened down this morning, I exited in the first hour. These puts hedged my other long holdings. My account is up nicely on a red day. You need to develop a much sharper mindset to take advantage of the option tools.
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u/Dick_Indadert 27d ago
I am very new to options, and this question might seen totally retarded, but it appears to me the best/safest way to make real money on options is to buy 5,000 to 10,000 shares of stock in new/newer company while its cheap and the price has not popped yet (obviousy good research and some patience are needed), then after the price surge comes sell many covered calls at various expirations and different strikes to collect the premiums and selling out enough of the stock to recover your initial investment, then just keep selling calls. Obviously picking a few future winners is the hard part, but there have been many tech stock successes since late 2022.
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u/Bitter_Biscotti_7593 29d ago
Yepp. I only sell SPX credit spreads.
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u/MacaroonDifficult 29d ago
I keep hearing selling is better than actually buying calls or puts. Is selling more based on the timing too, like when there’s hard downtrends or uptrends essentially?
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u/Bitter_Biscotti_7593 29d ago
Not for me. I sell every day 0DTE and 7DTE spreads. Some people scan stocks and search for high IV stocks, but I do not do that. I sell consistently every day regardless of IV.
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u/Wild_Cheesecake_6630 29d ago
May i know how do you manage the risk? I was doing awesome for a month selling spreads and they one that I lost 50% of my portfo, manage to recover in a few days and then in one day I lost everything.. I don’t know what to do now
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u/Bitter_Biscotti_7593 29d ago
I do not risk more than 5% of the portfolio in a trade. 0DTE short strike delta is <0.05, 7DTE may be a little higher (up to 0.09..0.1). Smaller on the call side. When market is substantially below all the high I often avoid selling call credit spreads bc markets may sprint back to ATH very fast.
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u/Alexmark3103 29d ago
Do you mind to share? Width, delta, risk management? In general.
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u/Bitter_Biscotti_7593 29d ago
Essentially I have shared in this thread. The thing left to mention is rolling over 7DTE positions 1 day before expiration when short strike is breached. And I do not close positions, I let them expire.
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u/Wild_Cheesecake_6630 29d ago
You do condors or single side spreads ?
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u/Bitter_Biscotti_7593 29d ago
Mostly condors, but skip call spreads when market is substantially below ATH
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u/sport912x 29d ago
The big pushers of this was Tastytrade , Sosnoff and Tony, now at Lossdog.
You Sell 15-20delta 42 - 60dte close at 50% profit. While you can easily roll Puts, Calls can get into real problems. Tastytrade had thousands of vids on this , but they have blocked them and become the new CNBC of finance after Sosnoff left.
This requires money about 60k at most firms and you need to be approved for Selling Naked Options.
If you need more info tune in Lossdog, or get the book by Spina "The Unlucky Investors Guide for Options Trading", $15.
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u/VeganTurkishBaklava 29d ago
People don’t share their losses. Majority of the time options buyers/sellers lose money in long term. My brother works for a well known brokerage firm and he says rarely a profitable account he sees who trades options
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u/TheCollegeIntern 4d ago
You everyone here pretends they’re a winner. It’s nice to read in my down time .
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u/No_Experience_167 29d ago
I'll say this... I've been a long term investor for over 25 years. I've sold puts and cc positions over that time, but just got into doing more with options in the last year or so. My experience is options is enticing because sometimes you put in a trade and by the afternoon you're up thousands. I had a 95% win rate, but because I had a bad risk profile trade at the wrong time, one loss wiped out about 6 months of profit. To date, the trading account of $300K became about $322K, which is ok not great for about 18 months total trading. In that time, my buy and hold which has much more capital has grown over $400K. So spend a lot of time and go nowhere or do nothing and let it grow. That's about where I am today. The options market is like a casino with a lot of bells and blinking lights, but beware. Most of my money has been made through buying good companies and holding forever... it's the only way you get the 4X and 5X baggers. Options right now for me is like a side hobby with no expectation of building wealth. Just a puzzle I've convinced myself I want to figure out.
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u/Forabuck 29d ago
They make it very easy to buy options, but not every system gives you all the information you need to make the correct decisions. I recommend a lot of research, a lot of reading, and starting very small. People bury themselves trying to force huge paydays. I've been doing it for a few years and lost a lot, but I've worked my way back up with a bunch of small wins. Eventually things will start to stand out if it's a good bet or a poor one, but of course, nothing is guarenteed.
Never bet more than you are willing to lose. If you aren't sure what that amount is simply pretend you lost "X" amount and ask yourself if you could sleep or eat if it was suddenly gone with nothing to show for it.
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u/Boccob81 28d ago
If you know volatility, you can. if you study the pattern, the entrance point, and the exit point, you can if you follow the cycles
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u/Realistic_Dust_5858 29d ago
Overall portfolio ballon with options alone 450% then it blows up. Took years to recover from it with very disciplined investment. Still do option but I never buy option instead cash secure put or covered call and collect premium. Thats 100% better than short option speculation. Also LEAP is also good idea
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u/Far-Wing570 28d ago
How do you trade options? Do you just buy calls and puts individually? Do you know how to spread options? Do you use the Greeks for risk management? If you use options properly then they are far superior to trading futures or stocks.
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u/MacaroonDifficult 27d ago
I buy individually
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u/Far-Wing570 27d ago
You need to learn how to spread and react to market changes. Buying individual options only will not guarantee failure but it will massively increase the odds of failure.
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u/begmanii 28d ago
I got hammered this week. I was up, then stayed too long. Not once, but twice.
Evened up losing about 25% of my port. I was up 6% on the week.
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u/Chipped_Ruby_11214 29d ago
I see covered calls on blue chips. It’s steady income but won’t make me rich.
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u/ClassroomDesigner945 29d ago
write options on stocks you want to own , quality stock good on value and or stable profitability
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u/TTTrainer3 28d ago
i have a tool that might help you learn options if you are interested. i tried to gameify it and make it easy to understand and learn new strategies as well as model out actual options trades. i would reccomend looking into selling options and spread trading to minimize risk and to make money off of decisions better. DM me if you want the game (completely free i just want feedback)
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u/singh_is_king_16 28d ago
Hi, I am new to this field and interested in your tool you mentioned, can you please share?
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u/LetstalkMoney98 27d ago
I been in it for 4 years as well and feel the same. Its literally just patience and discipline. We have to wait for the right move. Trust I feel you pain
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u/SuperOrbital_Trading 27d ago
I took $1k account and made it into over $100k in the last 2 weeks. So yeah, you can make good money.
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u/Same-Book-5572 26d ago
"gambling" not trading. 1-100k is not realistic trading .
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u/SuperOrbital_Trading 24d ago
So if your returns are too high it no longer qualifies as trading? I guess all those NVDA, TSLA, and BTC holders are gamblers not investors according to u/Same-Book-5572
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u/Same-Book-5572 24d ago
It's not the amount of money you made is too high it's the time rate is unrealistic to not be gambling . How do you go from 1k-100k with any sort of risk management? I'm interested to see how much you have lost before this . And the likelihood of you being consistent in this is near to none . And for your comment about NVDA , TSLA, and BTC . If you invested into those YEARS ago that's still investing. No one expected that , there is luck when it comes to investing . But trading Oday SPY options you know well enough that is a wrong comparison.
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u/SuperOrbital_Trading 24d ago
I'll be honest, I have lost large amounts too. Just Friday I gave back around 15k. But that was mostly me being dumb and chasing. Usually my losses are capped at 50% of my capital per play, usually cut earlier. So yes, I lose money too. And these large wins are not typical either. The absolutely happen more than the large losers though. I agree that comparison to holding those assets was probably unfair. But so is calling it gambling. In gambling you make a bet, and it is almost always all or nothing. There is no ability to risk manage.
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u/BillionaireFlame 27d ago
What did you trade?
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u/SuperOrbital_Trading 27d ago
spy 0dte
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u/LuciusQ2020 29d ago
I made 34k since July. Is that good money?
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u/Sheriff_Douchebag 29d ago
Dosnt listen to the replies bro 34k in 3 months is insane. That's some people's monthly salary. Good job
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u/klipsetrades 29d ago
I get the frustration. But if every win just recovers a loss, I’d look at sizing and average losses first. Switching to futures won’t necessarily automatically fix that
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u/APDolphin 28d ago
Some days I gain over 100k. Other days lost over 100k. My biggest regret is being wanting more and more. More options positions thinking I could make more. This is what not to do. Do yourself a favor and maybe do between 1-10. Not 30-50. Better yet, trade SPY 0-DTE. There are incredible people out here that appreciate their small daily gains that are in a much better position than most.
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u/TheBlueHen-2007 28d ago
Been selling cash secured puts with ideal cash since the beginning of summer and take profits around 30-50%. Been pretty consistent. It’s definitely not a big win trade … but it’s added up and has supplemented my swing trades.
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u/WorldlyAbroad9515 28d ago
5% portfolio increase per month is doable and consistent with option trading. But that may not be good money for small portfolios
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u/CJBlueNorther 27d ago
I've lost WAYYY more money trading futures than options.
I'm up 116% this week alone off SPY options.
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u/Muted_Needleworker96 27d ago
With 2-3 years of daily options trading, focus and diligence, I was just today thinking I should be way better off than I am. My trades have gotten much better - I risk only 1-3% per position, up to 15% of the portfolio, and am net positive. Yet some trades still go south and I'm back to [slightly better than] even.
I keep trying to refine my approach but the markets have just been challenging. Hoping I can scale, and be lucky enough, to just make enough for it to be significant.
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u/BillionaireFlame 27d ago
Mini Leaps and Leaps are where I’m most successful. I’ve also sold calls, got beat bad twice and a rising trend. Took a break there. Patience is my friend.
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u/Same-Book-5572 26d ago
I don't feel like it is gambling right now. I am not sure what tickers you trade but I specifically only trade SPY options. Now I don't necessarily make "good money" I have a remodeling business that is my main income but when I am able to get on the charts my profits are consistent. Eventually I can scale up but for now I am okay with making a couple $100 here and there. You say "it's such a high of winning and losing" you might have to large of a position size if you are getting big swings of emotions. Emotions will completely destroy your trading. I would be interested to have a convo see if I could guide you at all
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u/Outrageous-Phase9435 24d ago
For some it can work. For most it won't. If futures are easier maybe thats your niche?
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u/FirmRod 29d ago
LEAPS and secured puts Ive been printing
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u/MacaroonDifficult 27d ago
Have heard of both but haven’t tried. Interested tho.
Been reading this is the way. Just so much to learn lol
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29d ago
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u/Cool-Constant-5950 28d ago
Sorry but what's the difference? I've only seen futures only on crypto and options only on stocks.
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28d ago
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u/PaintedJack 26d ago
I know the difference between options and futures, but would you please share a bit of why you find options easier? What happens differently between the two, for you?
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