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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Math Junkie who wrote (48658)	7/3/2001 12:00:15 AM
From: Gottfried	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Richard, consider Datek. Minimum is $500. I opened an account with option privileges [covered calls, married puts, buy calls and puts]. $9.99 plus $1.75 per contract. Haven't traded options yet. Stocks are $9.99 up to 5k shares. [switched from E*trade after repeated failure to be able to sign on for trading] Gottfried

To: Math Junkie who wrote (48658)	7/3/2001 12:05:02 AM
From: BWAC	Respond to of 70976

OT Brown is as about good as any other olb. Seldom down, fast execution, seems to be fair on market orders for mainstream stocks. The website is basically only order entry. You would need quotes, charts, whatever tools you use from elsewhere. If you use margin they have the best interest rates, if you carry cash they have the worst interest rates. Now I don't know how many option contracts everyone was talking about trading. When you get above 10 contracts it all costs about the same from online broker to online broker. If someone is interested in options, but only wants to deal in increments of 1 contract or 100 share covered calls then I suggest Ameritrade. They only charge $8 plus $1.75 per contract. You can trade 1 contract for $9.75 commission. And that sure as heck beats anywhere else which usually has a minimum of $35 option commission level. Which basically makes it worthless to try trading options due to commission cost eating profits for small traders.

To: Math Junkie who wrote (48658)	7/3/2001 6:57:30 AM
From: w0z	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

OT Brown & Co...another advantage is that they allow naked options (not just writing covered calls) in IRA accounts...others do not.

To: Math Junkie who wrote (48658)	7/3/2001 5:12:53 PM
From: Jerome	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

*Option Strategy for Richard Palm** and other doubting Thomasses Because so many posters have this fear of a call out of their AMAT shares I have come up with the the following plan. For explanatory purposes lets assume that 900 shares of AMAT are available for covered call writing and that these may represent all or a part of your AMAT portfolio. With AMAT at $50.00 per share I would do the following. 1) sell an OCT. 65 covered call for at least $2.00 on 300 shares (these are 15 points out of the money)This could have been done today. 2)When options expire in July then I would sell a covered call 15 points out of the money for the month of Nov.on another 300 shares. 3) When options expire in August I would write a covered call on another 300 shares , again 15 points out of the money for Dec. I can't give you the exact strikes for these future months because I don't know where AMAT will be at that point in time. By using 900 shares the investor would gain an income of $600.00 per month regardless of where AMAT traded. This is not to say that AMAT would not rise more than 17 dollars in a month, but given the current environment its unlikely. The beauty of this formula is that as AMAT peaks out at whatever price you will not have to be concerned about the exact top. If AMAT peaks at 100 you will be selling calls at the 115 strike.. When AMAT is at 90 you will be selling calls at the 105 strike. As AMAT starts to slide down from the peak there will be less premium in future months but enough to make the whole thing work. The two biggest skeptics of my theories and practices have been Michael and Brian. Perhaps they might comment on what is lacking in this program. This is about as conservative of an option play that I can think of. Regards, Jerome