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Re:Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside pr... by amerkhalid on Monday April 22, 2019 @03:34PM (#19722076)
I started playing with Options recently too. I read many books/blogs but "Trading Options Greeks: How Time, Volatility, and Other Pricing Factors Drive Profits" seems to be most helpful. Not sure if it is really a beginners book or not.

I mostly stick with SPY and it keeps climbing. I just buy 30-45 days out calls that are slightly out of money. Usually sell them at 20-30% profits with in a few days.

Of course, it is only 1-2% of my regular investments in index funds. Too risky to put any real money in options.

Re:Ask HN: What is your money-making side project outside pr... by opportune on Monday April 22, 2019 @03:51PM (#19722217)
It's less than 5% of my total investments too (I am young and don't have tons of money yet). I will check out that book, I've already got a good intuition for the greeks but don't know much theory on how to actually price them in if I were to sell options.

The thing I'd be worried about with medium term SPY calls is that you will be completely wiped out by a recession. Or even if a correction happened like in December and didn't rebound fast enough. Of course during a bull market that's a fine strategy (as long as theta/IV don't eat any potential profits) , and if you are socking away your gains it's probably fine. But if you are just growing your options allocation by 50% every couple weeks and then throwing it all back into the same position, eventually your double or nothing will come up nothing. Just something to consider