One of the allures of options trading is the prospect of generating large profits in a relatively short
period of time. Just as the home run generates huge excitement in baseball, the thrill of profits of
200% or more attracts many traders to the options market. While these huge profits are not
everyday occurrences, they are achievable in both bull and bear markets.
However, due to their high level of risk, these options are not suitable for many traders. In order to
achieve aggressive profit targets, it's vital to purchase options that are highly leveraged. The object
is to buy options that will move substantially in response to the expected move in the underlying
stock. Far out-of-the-money options are usually not a good bet for this strategy, because the return
on the option is generally not large enough to justify the added risk of the option expiring
worthless. We will typically look for options that are at-the-money as being worth the risk for Bernie Schaeffer's Weekend Player trades.
The primary strategy for Bernie Schaeffer's Weekend Player service is to employ at-the-money or slightly out-of-the-money options with three to six months of time value. With option premiums at historically
cheap levels and with no reason to believe implied volatility will increase more than modestly in
the foreseeable future, it makes more sense than ever to be devoting part of your portfolio to
longer-term options positions to allow for bigger stock moves to play out (resulting in bigger
options profits).
In addition to baseline cheap options premiums, the cost to buy a six-month, at-the-money option
is not twice that of a three-month at-the-money option. Instead, you can buy twice the time value
for roughly 40% more premium, due to the statistical basis of the option pricing model. In very
simple terms, additional time is always "on sale" in the options market.
Bernie Schaeffer's Weekend Player strategy is for aggressive options speculators who are seeking large returns
but are also assuming the risk of a 100% loss of their capital commitment in each trade. In fact,
there will likely be more losing trades than winners in this service, and there is the potential for
several losing trades in a row. However, the potential for some very large gains on a number of
our recommended trades is expected, over time, to more than offset any losses, resulting in an
overall profitable strategy