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Strategies & Market Trends : Market Gems:Stocks w/Strong Earnings and High Tech. Rank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SMALL FRY who wrote (34457)	4/16/1999 3:36:00 PM
From: Jenna	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 120523

My option orders are almost always market but I never have to deal with a spread like that 27 3/4 - 30 3/4... the absolutely most expensive I ever bought was GNET at 20.. so I never have to deal with more than a 5/8 point to perhaps 1 1/4 point spread on a option whose underlying is about 75 or less.. I only trade options in the 25 or so stock options that I am familiar with and very volatile in fast markets. My worst experience came when an earnings play gapped up 4 point the option doubled, but the trading didn't begin until about 9:50. By that time the option had given everything back and I lost about 9k. the option was Arterial Vascular Engineering which has since been bought out by MDT. Another black day was October 1997 doing exactly s I'm doing know namely 26 option positions holding from 1 day to about 10 days. Now I know I was virtually addicted to options (now I only have 5) woke up and the market was down 500 points I spent a very long time on the phone selling them off but I had lost about 60%.. the next day the few I had left deteriorated further so I was left with zip. I had lost 38k in two days (that was quite a bit at the time and nearly led me to early retirement)..I do credit AB Watley for 'saving me about 20k' that first day or I would have lost about 50k from that fiasco. That's why I just like to get in and out quickly. I only do it for the 2 weeks of each season and then get back to a normal keel of 5 options a month. The gains are enough that the spreads dont bother me much. I'm still looking for the 'ultimate options broker'.