Rem and Sd know thier stuff. I agree that you shouldnt trade...

Rem and Sd know thier stuff. I agree that you shouldnt trade things you arent comfortable with. Liquidity and volatility arent everything, but they do help.Direction and time frame are still king in the eto world.

Data, carp and Kman, I would disagree with.Sorry guys.
Its not only about volatility.Its about getting the direction of volatility right, just like the stock price and time frame.Is volatility likely to rise or fall, or stay the same? 'No volatility' is also a licence to print money, by selling calls and puts. Just tell me when there will be a period of no volatility and when to buy and sell, and I will worship you forever. See, its not that easy when you play with real money.

There are 3 directions a stock can go, not 2! Up, down and sideways. Yes, sideways is a direction. You could be selling options and the market goes sideways and you will win. If it goes up or down in a big move, you'll find your losses on calls are higher than your profits on puts (or VV).

Time decay does not always work for the seller. If he sold puts and calls (straddles), he will win about half the time.If he sold only calls OR puts, then he took a view and will also win about half the time.Its still a punt, with risk to be weighed up.People like rem, SD and I have run the numbers in realtime, not just theory. We have run buy books against sell books just to see the difference.

You are still taking a punt with etos, only your leverage varies. So the market is going sideways now, so what? Are you game to punt that it will keep going sideways when reporting season is coming up? I didnt think so.

Im happy to discuss it further if you still think you have a point.Give us some real examples with dates and prices.