Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#33

For many years now I've followed Doug Albo on Seeking Alpha, at times I've been a subscriber to his service. I've had very good success with his ideas and suggestions and even though I'm fully invested in selling options now, I still follow…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#32

FIRE, the phenomena that arrived on the scene somewhere about 2010-2012, after the 2008-2009 recession, is of course the idea that one can, through being cognizant of the financial bleeding/waste inherent to our society and then living in such…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#31

I was assigned IWM at 182 in early January, the 11th, so I wanted to stick with that strike until I got back to it.  That is underwater, last time it was assigned to me was around $220.  It popped up after that and hit a high of $199.23…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#30

I'm often asked why I use IWM almost exclusively for options selling. The book has an entire chapter on that subject, but I'd like to add a bit more here. This week I compared some AMZN puts at varying dates to identical IWM puts, using…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#29

Just a quick look at the increase in options trading volume in the last several years. I started in about 2000. My thought here is, if it didn't work, this chart would be reversed.
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#28

At the end of the year I like to look at how everyone is doing.  So I just went over a friend's account who has mirrored my trades.  I traded pretty conservatively this year, timing my trades, waiting when I have to, and since I've been underwater…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#27

In my endless quest to better inform you about options trading, (and always on the lookout for a way to make money work harder), I've been reading up on "Mini Options Indexes", which are one tenth the size of etf options, ie:, if SPY is at…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#26

In my never ending quest to make my money work harder for me, I discovered this little gem of an idea.  It's a program by Fidelity, but every other brokerage I checked offers something like it.  Basically, if you own stock, you can…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#25

"When is the stock market going to recover?"  "A recession is coming!  Should I sell out?"  What do we do about this big crash we're in?"  I get these questions all the time.  Or I'm told, "We're down 26% this year…
Smooth Sailing With Options

SmoothSailing#24

Just an observation to sharpen our trading: Today, the day after Thanksgiving, volatility on IWM is around 14%, which is 1/2 or 1/3 what it usually is. It's because it's a holiday week and volume is very very low. So even though I could sell…