Long straddles - buy calls and puts, expect high volatility. unlimited profit.
Short straddles - sell calls and puts, expect little/no volatility. defined max profit.
The graphs are clearer, and so do the questions. What are average option prices? Which stocks have highest liquidity? Keep it Simple Stupid!
Strangles are cheaper than straddles, more leverage, less likely to be very profitable. Collars used in conjunction with positions in underlying stock. They look like vertical spreads.
The book is great and as advertised. However, a limit has been established on technical jargon in this disciplinary road map. It is roughly a two week maximum on books like these. The author gives few anecdotes, and the number crunching slows down the reading. More time was spent working on what was read, using examples. That's great if actual trades were going on, but that's not the next step just yet. A lot was gained from that one. Now, back to Forex.
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The book is, Getting Started in Currency Trading by Michael Archer. The first half of the book was a quick review of things learned from previous texts. Anecdotes jump out, and this is a refresher from the last text. The MT5 help topics are also still in the works.
Notes from this new book include: Current Price = (Ask + Bid)/2
Transaction Cost = Spread * Units Traded, charged for going in and coming out.
What are the interest rates for the top 4 currencies - JPY, GBD, USD, AUD...
Balance: $3488
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The power of Vision is immense. Allowing myself to be sidetracked is less and less of an option each day. Falling asleep in front of my text last night, motivational speeches were playing in the background. It was this fatigue with audio programming pushing my subconscious forward that propelled me during that situation. Thankfully, it was happening in the midst of planning, preparation, etc.
More questions:
What does a professional trader look like?
- Tried and tested strategies
- Experience... 5+ years
- Disciplined lifestyle
- Purposeful actions
- Strong relationships with other traders
- Healthy routine
- Large bank account(s)
- Investments
This is harder than I initially thought. Let's take the other route.
What does the unprofessional trader look like?
- Emotional - affected by daily losses because of a lack of confidence/understanding of strategies
- Less-disciplined - life not set up to provide profitable returns
- Doesn't research, tries to follow fads
- Less than 5 years experience
- Little network/support in trading community
- Small account (<$100,000) or in debt
This short list of ideas that just came to my head certainly lead me to conclude that time will tell if I can call myself professional at this. It's a standard I have just set, and it's up to me to reach it.
The quality of questions are impactful to producing results. The type of questions I ask myself will lead to the type of questions I ask others. It will also impact the quality of people encountered, the purpose of the encounter, and their results. That's enough today. What am I cooking for dinner?