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Strategies & Market Trends : The Covered Calls for Dummies Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: alanrs who wrote (2667)	10/13/2001 9:56:40 AM
From: TShirtPrinter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5205

Flippin brokers isn't the easiest thing I've ever done. You'd really want to make sure it's worth the trouble. The time it takes to transfer is only one of the problems. I still have a smile on my face as I think back about firing my Prudential agent. Back in 1997 she not only would not touch options, even as in CC's, she called me stupid for wanting to invest in a company called QCOM. They didn't follow it, so it must not have been worthy. Come to think of it, maybe I should Thank her. I became so pissed, I way overweighted there. Enough of my weekend rant. I might start to sound like Maurice <g> Tony

To: alanrs who wrote (2667)	10/13/2001 10:29:12 AM
From: Dan Duchardt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5205

ARS, I happen to use Interactive Brokers for some options trading, though my account there is too small for CCs. For anyone who is not content with what they have, and especially if you want to trade small quantities, IB is an excellent options platform. Fees are $1.95 per contract. That will not impress you guys who trade hundreds of contracts, but for someone wanting to do onezees twozees, or even up to ten you can't beat it. Executions are self directed, and as good as you can get anywhere else unless you want to trade spreads for net credit or debit. IB does not work compound orders for you, but if you can do that yourself it's just fine. That's not an issue for anyone here unless you are doing buy-writes at a fixed net cost. Loading an options chain into IB is not the easiest thing I've ever seen, but once you have things there on the screen placing orders at the exchange of your choosing is very easy; you can also let IB route orders for you, but they will not auto-route to an exchange that has turned off their auto-execution system. Recent changes in the IB software have added an options analyzer tool. I'm not sure it's anything like some of the more elaborate packages you can buy, but at least now you can get implied volatility displayed for each option you are considering. You can also get the greeks if you take the trouble to set the thing up right. It does the greeks calculations based on the prices of several strikes in your area of interest rather than a theoretical model. I have no affiliation with IB, just an account there. IB is not perfect, but I can say that reliability is quite good, and for the kind of trading most of you are doing it's worth a look. And finally, at long last, IB has added account insurance beyond SIPC and now permits CCs as well as secured long puts and calls in an IRA. Dan