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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Doyle who wrote (26385)	9/20/1999 3:07:00 PM
From: HairBall	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

John Doyle: Sorry, I can't help you. I do not trade options or futures. There are many on this thread that do, I am sure someone else on this thread can help. Regards, LG

To: John Doyle who wrote (26385)	9/20/1999 3:26:00 PM
From: Matthew L. Jones	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 99985

John, In order to give you some real help, we need to know what stock and number of shares you are trying to hedge. Matt

To: John Doyle who wrote (26385)	9/20/1999 4:17:00 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 99985

market protection= qqqof, zwqmf My general rules: 1. buy an expiration date long enough in the future that you don't have to be right immediately. 2. buy in increments, starting when you think the market is overvalued. 3. I'm not smart enough to predict market direction. I only use puts as a hedge, to protect gains on my (much larger) long positions. For instance, I bought longest-term out-of-the-money calls in INTC in 6-98, AMAT in 10-98, and SAP in 3-99. I don't want to sell them, for tax purposes. I have a total of 350 of these overvalued calls, so I'll buy about the same number of index puts. 4. I try to find options with the smallest spreads, because the spread is the major cost of trading. For some reason, the spreads on nasdaq 100 options are less than that for the S&P 500. I usually get a fill, if I place a limit order at the mid-point between the bid-ask prices, and wait patiently. The waiting is the hardest part of the process.