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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Allen Furlan who wrote (3236)	2/15/1998 7:15:00 PM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78595

Hi Allen; Well my first post was just an offhand comment, generally I suggest individuals to stay away from options. I may post a position from time to time, but at this time I have no option positions, and I'm not really looking for any. I may look into writing some puts this week on PCU, but only because I would not mind increasing my position in her. --------------- Getting into exotic options takes a lot of time. You just about have to specialize in them, and you need to be able to get very cheap commissions on your trades. Options are mostly tools for institutional investors, the little guy who just wants to trade options may think he is going to get rich but all of them get burned bad sooner or later. --------------- I'm into market timing now and have too little time for options, except if they are simple long or short bets. When I did gamble with them I got a discount on commissions but only if I played at least 20 contracts at a time was it worth while. I'm not going to get into analyzing any options on any stock if I'm not ready to bet on that stocks move. Then I start with tracking the short interest in the stock, or at least finding out if it has any to amount to anything. ----------------------------- BTW trying to catch the TOP is far more risky than catching a falling knife. One that's falling can only go to zero I can show you many that more than doubled while shorts tried to catch them. AOL is just one such case. Buy stops are for suckers. If reverse conversion numbers don't add up, don't short the stock. Jim