Options increment based on the value of the underlying stock.
- <$50 move in $1 increments
- less traded options at $2.50
- >$100 move in $5
- options exchanges can alter them though, subject to market demand for strike prices.
Example: "SPY June 150 put" mean S&P 500 ETF, expires 3rd Friday in June, strike price of $150. Buyer of this put has option to sell 100 shares at $150 at expiration. If price of option is $1.35, "outlay" is $1.35*100 = $135 ignoring commissions.
- Buying a call and holding it (going long), if the price drops, you lose the premium.
- The price at expiration + premium = breaking even. More rallying is profit.
- If you sell a call, max profit is the premium. If price goes up beyond the strike, profit decreases. >strike + cost of option is unlimited loss.
- Buying or selling a call, you start above the current market price
- Buy and hold increases profit as price increases.
- Selling a call, you expect price to stay or decrease to get profit.
This wasn't my 1st time reading this stuff, but it is the 1st time I can say I understand it. Oh, he also discussed how the bid/ask price can be different from the strike price and that difference is described as the spread.
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So, my trades with USDCHF of .4 lots each were both stopped out. Now, I must confess that I wasn't going exactly by the trading strategy, and I understand that now. Instead of entering when the price came down and touched the EMA 12, I entered with it further away. I learned my lesson. So my losses totaled $-704. Next trade will be a smaller percentage, and entered correctly.
Trading for currency pairs, I don't see an entrance open for Trend Rider, so now's a good time to study my 2nd strategy, Trend Bouncer. This one uses Bollinger Bands. That's all I know right now. I'll study it more with this evening, and try it out tomorrow if I can.