swing trading

Every stockholder faces this dilemma: you bought stock several months ago and recently the price jumped, perhaps even more than you ever dared hope. Now what? The dividend yield is very attractive and you would like to hold onto shares. The fundamentals are strong and steady. You believe long-...

The time to expiration, and cost of the option are the two factors every options trader struggles with and has to balance. Close to expiration, it's difficult to get the kind of price movement you need for profits, given offsetting time decay. Far from expiration, option premium is quite high....

The great dilemma for options traders is well known: Options close to expiration cost less but expire soon. Options with more time to develop profitably cost more. How do you balance these conflicting attributes? Trading options very close to expiration and containing little or no time value...

One way to cover a short position is to own 100 shares of the underlying stock. Another, more creative way is to sell a shorter-term expiration position and buy a longer-term position. This works not only with calls, but also with puts. This calendar spread is a popular strategy; it can be...

This article is the fifth of six on the topic of using options to swing trade. The topic in this article is weighting on one side or the other of the swing, using options. Using options to focus more on either uptrend or downtrend is an effective method for augmenting the swing itself. The...

This article is the fourth of six on the topic of using options to swing trade. The topic in this article is the use of short options only. This is a higher-risk strategy than the opposite focus on long options only, although the degree of risk might not be as severe as you think at first glance....

This article is the third of six on the topic of using options to swing trade. The topic this week is the most basic of swing trading methods, the use of long options only. Swing trading with options in place of shares adds great flexibility, provides leverage and reduces risk. For example,...

This article is the second of six on the topic of using options to swing trade. The topic this week is the most basic of swing trading methods, the use of long options only. Swing traders want to open bullish positions at the bottom of the swing, and close these at the top; and then open bearish...

This article is the first of six on the topic of using options to swing trade. After laying out the reasons for using options in your swing trading program, the next five articles discuss: the long option method long and short calls or puts in combination short options only variable weighting on...

About 75% of all long calls and puts expire worthless. So why do traders bother with them if the odds are against them? Perhaps the statistics deserve another look. There might be serious reasons to speculate in long or short calls. Consider the following: If you are swing trading and using...