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Strategies & Market Trends : How To Write Covered Calls - An Ongoing Real Case Study! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Herm who wrote (13541)	1/29/2001 11:36:37 PM
From: Dan Duchardt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14162

Herm, This brokerage is one of the cheapest commissions I have come across. Although, I suspect you need to purchase their "workstation" software in order to operate thru their system. Therefore, this is only for the heavy hitters with large contracts to move. That is most likely how they make their money. I have been using Interactive Brokers for over a year. There is no fee for the software, and at $1.95 per contract it is ideal for the smaller player. What you do not get from IB is any combined plays like buy-writes, or spreads at a fixed net credit or net debit (or better). You have to leg in to both sides of any covered position on your own. Also, it is really an order execution system, not a quote service. There are no bells and whistles, no charts, no simple way to pull up full option chains to scan. A secondary quote service is a good idea even for options, and highly recommended for trading Nasdaq stocks. Note! I don't have any information on how well their customer support levels or service. Customer support is not IB's strongest suit. Those low fees will not support an army of help techs, so when there are system problems it can be hard to get through. More info can be found on the IB thread Subject 32122 Dan

To: Herm who wrote (13541)	1/30/2001 2:32:39 AM
From: virgil vancleave	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14162

Hi again herm and all: Just thought I would drop in and say hi again. I have been trading heavily during january and am up near 50% for the month alone. I started out completely long and even had some pcg until a few days ago. Now, I have once again became the "bear" and have no long positions. In fact, I am 100% short and using some margin. I think no matter what greenspan does, it will be a negative for the market. A 50 basis point cut spells big trouble historically and could signal that things are worse than people think. On the other hand anything less and there will be disappointment followed by a fall. Either way, it looks like a "buy the rumor, sell the news" kind of event. There are still some companies trading at valuations which are extremely high and have interesting chart patterns. emlx and aeos have just formed what looks like double tops. emlx trades at 40+ times revenues and aeos at around 3 times (which is quite high for a retailer, especially during an economic slowdown). Another reason for now being short. The trend is down now, even though we are trading at the top of the downward trendline on the general markets. That being said, the trend is usually the direction the market takes, at least for the short term. Also, I am not finding very many stocks that I would buy presently, at least using a valuation model. Just my opinion here, but I do try to post when my market positions change. Time will tell again if I am right.