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basant
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Joined: 01/Jan/2006
Location: India
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 Posted: 04/Apr/2011 at 8:46pm |
Originally posted by manishdave
Selling insurance is nothing but like selling options. |
Interesting thought and very correct also.
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'The Thoughtful Investor: A Journey to Financial Freedom Through Stock Market Investing' - A Book on Equity Investing especially for Indian Investors. Book your copy now: www.thethoughtfulinvestor.in
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tejas
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Joined: 26/Feb/2007
Location: Canada
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Posts: 234
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 Posted: 04/Apr/2011 at 10:53pm |
Originally posted by nikhil090
The activitiy in options market is restricted to very few counters. Even all Nifty/Sensex stock options are not traded regularly. So actually it become less useful due to this constraint. |
Most veterns that i know of play the nifty. Very few, venture into individual scrips.
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Earnings, Earnings, Earnings.
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subu76
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Joined: 25/Feb/2008
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 Posted: 04/Apr/2011 at 12:35pm |
Originally posted by manishdave
F&O can be used as a tool. WB himself uses both. He wrote put options. Selling insurance is nothing but like selling options. Only difference is he spreads risk and has enough capital to support worst case scenario.
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I guess the difference between F&O and WB's equity puts was that they had limited downsides.
What WB says about shorting:
"It's an interesting item to study. It's ruined a lot of people. You can go broke doing it."
"I had a harrowing experience shorting a stock in 1954. I wouldn't have been wrong over 10 years, but I was very wrong after 10 weeks, which was the relevant period. My net worth was evaporating."
"Charlie and I have agreed on around 100 stocks over the years that we thought were shorts or promotions. Had we acted on them, we might have lost all of our money, every though we were right just about every time. A bubble plays on human nature. Nobody knows when it's going to pop, or how high it will go before it pops." (2002 Annual Meeting)
"You'll see way more stocks that are dramatically overvalued than dramatically undervalued. It's common for promoters to cause a stock to become valued at 5-10 times its true value, but rare to find a stock trading at 10-20% of its true value. So you might think short selling is easy, but it's not. Often stocks are overvalued because there is a promoter or a crook behind it. They can often bootstrap into value by using the shares of their overvalued stock. For example, it it's worth $10 and is trading at $100, they might be able to build value to $50. Then, Wall Street says, "Hey! Look at all that value creation!" and the game goes on. [As a short seller,] you could run out of money before the promoter runs out of ideas." (2001 Annual Meeting)
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pamswam
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Joined: 24/Jan/2009
Location: United States
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Posts: 29
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 Posted: 04/Apr/2011 at 1:13am |
This is my personal experience and learning, using options.
I've 2 faces in the market. In India, I'm a long-term investor (yes investor with holdings more than 5 years). In US, got into options, lost several thousand dollars.
The learning, DO NOT treat options as leveraged stock investing/trading. The leveraged part is true, but not the stock/index part.
Even though they are based off of stock/ETF and increase of decrease in value based on the underlying, it is a different beast altogether.
You've to be correct on so many things like, 1. picking the right direction. 2. right stock with right volatility. 3. timing [when to buy and to sell]. 4. duration [This is different than #3] 5. bid-ask spread so on...
The best way to treat/use options as a insurance to your portfolio. And that too using SPREADS. [Yes spreads in capital letters].
I'm doing exactly that and doing much better...
thanks for reading my post.
Swami
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One cannot travel an alternate path of the past and as well know the path future will take!
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Kalyan
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Joined: 16/Aug/2006
Location: India
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Posts: 91
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 Posted: 05/Apr/2011 at 6:24pm |
Subuji good write up.
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kalyan
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itpro
Senior Member
Joined: 10/Mar/2011
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Posts: 149
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 Posted: 05/Apr/2011 at 6:55pm |
Originally posted by subu76
Originally posted by manishdave
F&O can be used as a tool. WB himself uses both. He wrote put options. Selling insurance is nothing but like selling options. Only difference is he spreads risk and has enough capital to support worst case scenario.
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I guess the difference between F&O and WB's equity puts was that they had limited downsides.
What WB says about shorting:
"It's an interesting item to study. It's ruined a lot of people. You can go broke doing it."
"I had a harrowing experience shorting a stock in 1954. I wouldn't have been wrong over 10 years, but I was very wrong after 10 weeks, which was the relevant period. My net worth was evaporating."
"Charlie and I have agreed on around 100 stocks over the years that we thought were shorts or promotions. Had we acted on them, we might have lost all of our money, every though we were right just about every time. A bubble plays on human nature. Nobody knows when it's going to pop, or how high it will go before it pops." (2002 Annual Meeting)
"You'll see way more stocks that are dramatically overvalued than dramatically undervalued. It's common for promoters to cause a stock to become valued at 5-10 times its true value, but rare to find a stock trading at 10-20% of its true value. So you might think short selling is easy, but it's not. Often stocks are overvalued because there is a promoter or a crook behind it. They can often bootstrap into value by using the shares of their overvalued stock. For example, it it's worth $10 and is trading at $100, they might be able to build value to $50. Then, Wall Street says, "Hey! Look at all that value creation!" and the game goes on. [As a short seller,] you could run out of money before the promoter runs out of ideas." (2001 Annual Meeting)
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The writeup which was there on TED for RKD, mentioned that he made big money by shorting during the harshad mehta time. So probably some time i feel that since warren buffet explain his philosophy hence we appreciate him. But that need not be always true. ( I don't understand F&O.. shorting etc. just wanted to mention that RKD could using shorting for his advantage )
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subu76
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Joined: 25/Feb/2008
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 Posted: 05/Apr/2011 at 9:37pm |
Originally posted by Kalyan
Subuji good write up. |
I've quoted WB verbatim. 
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anishc
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Joined: 12/Jun/2011
Location: India
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Posts: 15
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 Posted: 26/Aug/2011 at 6:42pm |
Hello,
What is the best brokerage for options trading? In terms of execution and price. I trade options irregularly on Icicidirect but I find their brokerage too expensive. Are there better alternatives out there?
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anish
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