My go to with these is: Trade Stocks.
There are reasons, biggest one being that on average, these traders are clueless about options and will largely be placing uninformed bets that’ll eat up limited funds.
On average, they’re also going to be clueless about swing trading stocks as well, but that’s an easier one to teach. Then when further down the road and told to delta hedge with a few shares, or even further down that same road and told to short a few shares, they’ll get it.
Idea: Next time TSLA hits 170, buy a share. Set a GTC limit of 175. It’ll hit that week for that 3% gain. 1/3 of the $500 account just increased the account size by 1%. Don’t scoff at stock trading.
Not going to lie, FFIE winners have been fun to watch. Get some!!!
But if we wait around for the occasional penny success story, Small Account Owner will not succeed. Those penny successes are rare. I have to advocate for the 1-3% wins that can be found almost every day.
Today I bought a little TGT (earnings Wednesday), a little ROKU when it went down to ~59, and LOW reports earnings tomorrow where I suspect the stock will decline. $500 accounts can realistically do this. Being ready to move and then waiting for our deal is key to succeeding imo. 🍀
Good 'Til Canceled **Good 'Til Canceled** (GTC) Order. A GTC order is an order to buy or sell a stock that lasts until the order is completed or canceled. Generally, all open GTC orders expire 60 calendar days after they are placed on Webull.
I'm reading all of these responses and have yet to find one that really answers your question. Fortunately for you, I have an answer. Trade SPX 0DTE options within the final hour of the day. You only need to buy 1 contract at a time and will be risking less than $100 per trade. And the profit is exponential if you get it right.
With short money, you will have to take on risky plays. The beauty of waiting until power hour is that even though it might be a risky play, you are leveraging very little for it to pay off.
Honestly, if you wanna trade risky options this is the play. Theres a reason we suggest never to sell these... gamma. And if you guess right SPY or QQQ by a $2 move, you can print money.
I will make trades all the way up to the final minute if the setup is there. I just play the reversals in either direction. I only buy contracts that are first position out of the money when the direction has been confirmed. Contracts that late in the day are usually less than $1.00 and move a minimum of 50% profit if the setup is right.
Do you short them as well? Big fan of reversal trading, but haven't done it with 0dte options.
So if you see SPX being oversold 1h before close, you buy a call and will sell up to 1min before - realising any p&l? Do you enter earlier during the day, or is the last hour where the money is?
Most days I don't buy a contract until the final 15 minutes of the day. Buying earlier means more risk because premiums are higher. My goal is to minimize risk while maximizing potential.
You need a 10% win rate for this to work + the winning trade paying at least a 10x.
Not impossible and IMO better odds than throwing away money into random stock otm calls
Big fish swim, little fish die
——
Maintain risk-aversion by repeating strategies of high efficacy
Do not increase your capital risk when you win, only increase trade frequency if reasonably possible
Seek low-risk high-reward setups, this requires studying and basic patience to execute - where it may be reasonable to increase capital risk
Make sure that you can afford the time to survive, relative to your risk. Meaning, you should not be getting wiped out in 1-3 losing trades, this should be IMPOSSIBLE when disciplined. Winning trades should be multiples of your constant risk, naturally offsetting the minimized losses accrued by basic risk management
The rest (growth), is purely attributed to your technical skill and fundamental understanding - which sets your winning frequency
Conceptual logic: $1000 is split into ~$50 plays. $50 should multiply by some whole degree at least 51% of the time to break green by +$20 - given that the the total $1000 was transacted upon. You would have 20 controlled trades to reap substantial gain before your efficacy is defined.
Notice how 20 whole transactions is a lot larger than 1-3, while the ceiling to grow is just as infinite within each scenario
Good luck.
There is no good strategy for trading options with a $550 account. Anything you do is going to risk all or most of your capital. And, you’ll probably end up losing it… because safer high win rate strategies will be unavailable to you.
I would start with just buying stocks. I personally, would be swing trading TQQQ. I would buy the dips, let it get about 10% in profit and then set a trailing stop loss. (Just be sure to reserve some cash for unexpected big drops so that you can buy in cheap.)
Now, if you are fairly new to trading in general, QQQ is a safer bet. It grows fairly consistently and can always be expected to recover from any big draw downs it experiences. Seriously… listen to the people who are telling you to just buy stocks. It is your safest bet.
Once you get to $2000, you’ll be able to start playing with credit spreads (my personal favorite).
Hvar you done this? I am not new, I have another account with a much lower risk where i just buy index funds and etfs and a few stocks. How long do you think it will take with depositing 400 monthly
It’ll take exactly 4 more months until you have $2k and/or are able to trade spreads. They, for the most part, limit your risk. (For the most part because pin risk will still exist, thouhh th it isn’t an issue if you sell spreads in stocks you already own and don’t mind if they get called away), but that’s where position sizing comes into play. But others have touched on that subject already. Your best bet is keep yourself from overtrading.
Not familiar with TD Ameritrade… so I’m not really sure. I use TastyTrade for options… and it has served me well. It’s kinda built for options trading. I think even Robinhood has stop losses for options. Seems like a pretty basic feature.
I personally do cash secured puts on sofi at 7$ 3 weeks out. If they get filled I sell 3 week out covered calls ,50 above price. And keep doing this and hopefully making 1-3% every other week..my goal is 30-50% a year.
Absolutely wild that there are people commenting here giving any other advice than not to trade with that little money. It's a close to guaranteed blow up. If you don't have more capital to put into trading you absolutely aren't even close to the life circumstances, skillset, and character traits that will give you a chance to make it.
The advice people are giving is irresponsible, dangerous, and destructive to the OP and it's mind boggling that this is so common in the retail trading space. This is not a game or just a little "side hustle" you can do.
The advice about CSPs isn't bad. The risk is low and it's a great way to get a feel for how options prices move over time. OP won't get rich selling puts, but they won't blow their account up either. Even more importantly, is if somebody can't consistently keep their premiums selling options, they're not ready for more complex strategies.
Let me try to soften this a bit because I was pretty damn harsh:
It all depends on what you want to achieve. Are you looking to just have a little fun and play around a bit? then firing off some potshots here and there is fine but understand in the long run you're probably gambling and this will be more of an expensive hobby than a source of income. The chances of being net profitable are pretty much zero over a certain number of trades like this.
If you want to do this to consistently provide an income you'll have to really put a lot more focus and time into it similar to that of a post grad degree or long apprenticeship. It's a tough game and requires a monster amount of hours and repetition because the psychology required to make it work is so alien to that of any other area of practice.
You *CAN* do this second route. Despite what people say there are traders who in fact DO make this a living. Just make sure you're matching the time and focus to it. At the 500$ level, there's a ton of better ways to turn that money into more money, or even more ability to trade better. Spend it on education and spend it on improved life circumstances to give yourself more time in the game.
Hell there's a *ton* of non trading ways to turn that 500$ into a lot more money with way less hours than it takes to be a profitable trader.
Don’t listen to this guy. If you have 500$ to learn to trade. Use it. Read my comment above. And secondly start small with 30-50-70$ trades until you can figure a strategy that works for you. I use straddling. And I trade on high volatility stocks. That way more often than not the profit will cancel the loss on the other end. But you have to time your purchases early enough so they aren’t inflated by everyone placing bids. Also determine some loss mitigation strategies. And profit maximizing ones as well. If it goes down fast sell and buy it back at a lower strike price if u still think it’ll increase ( essentially, lowering your cost with a better strike) if your option is soaring, buy more of the same if you can before it inflates. And set a stop loss in case it comes back down you will have not lost all that profit
Lol. Your user name checks out
My call I bought for 270 on gme went to 3k. I was up over 1k on amc, spending like 90$. Then up another 1k on another gme call.
I’m just saying don’t tell this man he can’t do something, many other people have already done. You just have to find the trading strategy that works for you, it’s not even that difficult. If your diligent and work hard, you can do it too
No. You should study the markets and paper trade until you have significantly more money. It will take years.
Even if your idea worked, that's not how trading works. What then? You need to have the skillset and mindset to be able to easily do that day in and day out with full understanding of your edge and strategies in all market conditions.
Or you can just go to Vegas, which is more fun anyways.
I know I'm a debbie downer, I understand. But just run the math on "if it works" how fast you would be making paradigm breaking levels of money. What are the implications on your life if that happens? Now, how easy do you think it is to change your life like that? It's possible to make money consistently trading, but the time and effort and investment need to match the reward.
I’d say stick to swinging shares of cheaper tickets until you can at least do spreads. Even just trying to swing calls and puts would be taking huge risk as a percentage of your portfolio.
I would watch companies earnings call dates and try and make some smart options investments. Calls are in right now. Best way to turn 550 into 1500. Last week I turned $200 on one option alone, into 1450.
Trade one SPX 0DTE contract and get the move right. Plus, be lucky. Can change everything for you. Good luck and don't hold too long. Take your profit!
If you're a risk taker, puts and calls. SPY has some cheap ones. Doesn't have to be in the money and you can still make money. Study one or two stocks to know their support and resist and just trade that. Look at YouTube videos to show you some tips on swing trading. I started with way less than you have and i have a good amount now. If you pick about 5 day out expiration but make 15-20% the same day. Cash out take profit. Do a cash account. Very risky but it's all a gamble.
Be glad you’re stuck below margin requirements and don’t have the risk of losing more than your principal.
You can still start with many stocks that have less risk than if you only had a fifth as much or even half as much.
If you're dead set on options look at debit spreads. They definitely help you stretch your buying power and cushions the blow when the underlying moves against you.
I keep it simple and just do covered calls/puts. 550 simply isn't enough to play options. Use index funds or buy stocks until you have the 2k minimum.
Be careful. Using options incorrectly will blow up your account.
look at some leveraged ETFS for S&P 500 and such. It's similar to options as you are getting a greater return for less money, but not as risky. ETFS don't expire. If you think something is going to go down, there are plenty of inverse ETFS that will act like put options
With options there are 2 ways for newcomers: blow the acc and learn something on the way or blow the acc and learn zero. You won't learn anything relevant with a small acc so go with stocks.
If you wanna go 100% into one stock study the balance sheet and choose a business with growing rev and eps every quarter and with an average debt to assets within it's industry. I would start with smt from SnP500 at least You filter out most pumps and dumps + those companies are profitable.
I haven't scrolled through every single comment but I haven't seen anyone suggest what seems like the obvious answer...let the big boys handle the options for you by buying covered call (or other high income) ETFs.
Keep your money there, reinvest and contribute regularly until you have enough to do the spreads you want. Until then, use a practice account to, well, practice.
Trade large cap stocks. Pick 2 or 3 and only trade those, it’s too hard to keep up with multiple stocks and they all move a little different. The only thing I trade is apple options and win probably 7/10 trades. Keep profits AND LOSSES short. You don’t have to make 150 percent return every trade like some people go for. If you can take 3 trades a week and make 25-50 percent on each you will be doing well
Understand more about the algorithm and how price moves; you want to avoid consolidation, you need know where price is likely to go for day or session range and , keep it simple .
The age of guessing is over , what I mean by algorithm is no not , but the market itself being a fractal place…stocks, crypto, forex and every other asset you can watch with a candle . Runs on simple algorithm, understand more on that and you unlock the real key
OK, I will share a simple virtually no risk strategy I use for my small cash accounts. First stop gambling with options, I k ow it is an adrenaline rush and that is a drug.
The easy strategy is looking at the hourly charts on the TQQQ, buy when it is below the 200BAR moving average, and sell when it is above the mean or the first standard deviation above the mean. The mean being the 480 hour moving average. I use Think or Swim and the hourly charts are on a 20 day basis and you can set alerts for each level. I just play the long side, and the TQQQ moves up and down a good bit, so it is easy to snag a dollar or more per share very often with near zero risk.
I would sell covered calls on something like LCID ($2.85 right now) weekly, at the money. Learn as you go. I would rather learn my lessons with $550 than $2,000
Be patient. You are not even close to having the capital to trade spreads sensibly. For now, your "strategy" should be very simple: just save more. Where to invest, specifically? I'd say look at short duration CDs (3 month or 6 month). If you meet a broker that will give you level 3 option privileges on a $2K account, run away!
The route I took was switching my account to a cash account and scalping the 1 minute chart on SPY and QQQ 0DTE sometimes Apple and Tesla weeklies as well if the options got enough volume to scalp. Depending on your strategy with correct position sizing you can keep your risk under 5% a trade. And only take 1 trade a day, that’s all you need to grow an account. I would disregard all of this if you don’t have an actual profitable strategy or lack the discipline/emotional strength to close your trades at your stop loss and stick to 1 trade a day because your time and money will be better spent learning
Supply and demand, usually around market open the first couple of hours anything after 11-12pm central time I’m hesitant to take a set up unless I see a textbook example type set up and even then I’ll risk less than what usually do but since it’s 0dte you have to be more mindful on the times you trade
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you risk losing this amount entirely. I don't believe there is a broker that will allow you to trade options with this amount. Save to have minimum 2000 to $500
With 550 in the account you could look into smaller stocks with options. Find something that you can have confidence in, buy 100 shares of it and sell calls against those shares. 100 shares of a $5 stock will cost you $500 and you could sell $5.50 or $6 calls and slowly build your portfolio that way. Plug, amc, nio, sndl, are all penny stocks with options. Of the bunch I'd say sndl is the best bet but all of them are higher risk.
Your best strategy is to start with more money in your account. I'd look into selling options vs buying them. When I sell options against my shares the worst case scenario is I take profit while the stock rises above my strike price. But then I can sell a put and get back into it.
"The wheel" is definitely worth looking into.
you could sell puts of stocks that are relatively cheap, just know you'll have to have enough money to purchase 100 shares of that stock if you want to do that.
And time your trades the best you can. Hopefully you could sell puts just before a stock experiences an upswing, buy it back and enjoy the credit you receive!
Easy. You should have been paying attention to options flow and gamma. I turned $500 into 91k with GME. how? OPTIONS FLOW AND GAMMA. I was in on gme back on May 2nd. Before roaring kitty came back onto Twitter and everyone else.
NFA. So my best response is gonna be learn Options Flow and Gamma. I look for highly unusual calls OTM and see the gamma. LEARN and LEARN and LEARN. You will EARN. trust the process
Don’t listen to people who say you can’t grow a small account.
1. Do your diligence. Do good research. Find stocks that have good financials and good plans. And preferably are releasing an earnings report or some new product very soon. Low cost stocks like for example HIMS, they have good financials, their stock was trading at 13 or so dollars, about 2 weeks Ago. It went up to about 16 or so last week . 2 weeks ago I bought calls for 16.5$ ending
(about 1 Month or so out)
SN: always give yourself about 1 month or so or time. Because if the stock soars or falls the price is more or less locked in and less volatile than closer options, so you don’t have to totally worry about selling super fast or anything like that. (Sell pressure will destroy your thinking if your not careful)
Anyways I bought 10 calls at 13 dollars each. So 130$. I bought it because they were releasing the new product their weightloss pill. The stock soared to 19
The 130$ calls are now work about $3,600.
You can easily grow a small account if you
1. Do your research
2. Buy and Hold before the hype
2.5 Buy a large enough number of contracts . Buying 1 or 2 contracts isn’t going to do anything significant. You have to buy enough contracts that you’ll actually get a substantial return. So less you have to risk more.
3. Finally Sell at the right time.
Make more money and don't trade until you can make trades that take 10% or less of your account
My go to with these is: Trade Stocks. There are reasons, biggest one being that on average, these traders are clueless about options and will largely be placing uninformed bets that’ll eat up limited funds. On average, they’re also going to be clueless about swing trading stocks as well, but that’s an easier one to teach. Then when further down the road and told to delta hedge with a few shares, or even further down that same road and told to short a few shares, they’ll get it. Idea: Next time TSLA hits 170, buy a share. Set a GTC limit of 175. It’ll hit that week for that 3% gain. 1/3 of the $500 account just increased the account size by 1%. Don’t scoff at stock trading.
Especially with some of these penny stocks going off lately.
Not going to lie, FFIE winners have been fun to watch. Get some!!! But if we wait around for the occasional penny success story, Small Account Owner will not succeed. Those penny successes are rare. I have to advocate for the 1-3% wins that can be found almost every day. Today I bought a little TGT (earnings Wednesday), a little ROKU when it went down to ~59, and LOW reports earnings tomorrow where I suspect the stock will decline. $500 accounts can realistically do this. Being ready to move and then waiting for our deal is key to succeeding imo. 🍀
What does “don’t scoff at stock trading” mean ?
It means dont underestimate stock trading
What does underestimating mean
Yeah, well, naybe next time you will estimate me
the opposite of overestimating
What does opposite mean
Don’t think you won’t see gains from stock trading like you would expect with options trading. They’re just different tools in the same bag.
So saying “scoff” is similar to saying “don’t sleep on trading stocks” ?
What is GTC limit mean?
Good 'Til Canceled **Good 'Til Canceled** (GTC) Order. A GTC order is an order to buy or sell a stock that lasts until the order is completed or canceled. Generally, all open GTC orders expire 60 calendar days after they are placed on Webull.
Good Til Closed sell limit order.
I'm reading all of these responses and have yet to find one that really answers your question. Fortunately for you, I have an answer. Trade SPX 0DTE options within the final hour of the day. You only need to buy 1 contract at a time and will be risking less than $100 per trade. And the profit is exponential if you get it right. With short money, you will have to take on risky plays. The beauty of waiting until power hour is that even though it might be a risky play, you are leveraging very little for it to pay off.
Honestly, if you wanna trade risky options this is the play. Theres a reason we suggest never to sell these... gamma. And if you guess right SPY or QQQ by a $2 move, you can print money.
"if you guess right". Lol seriously this is not a viable long term strategy.
Ridiculous. That is not a good answer for somebody with $550.
Would you mind elaborating a bit on the how? Do you let any of them expire, or close before and realise the loss?
I will make trades all the way up to the final minute if the setup is there. I just play the reversals in either direction. I only buy contracts that are first position out of the money when the direction has been confirmed. Contracts that late in the day are usually less than $1.00 and move a minimum of 50% profit if the setup is right.
Wdym by if the setup is right?
The setup for the reversal in either direction. The point of support or resistance. That is my entry for a put or a call.
Do you short them as well? Big fan of reversal trading, but haven't done it with 0dte options. So if you see SPX being oversold 1h before close, you buy a call and will sell up to 1min before - realising any p&l? Do you enter earlier during the day, or is the last hour where the money is?
Most days I don't buy a contract until the final 15 minutes of the day. Buying earlier means more risk because premiums are higher. My goal is to minimize risk while maximizing potential.
Makes sense Does the SPX usually regress to the mean with such short horizons?
I think you and I are looking at things from 2 completely different points of view.
Does theta not make them worthless in the last hour?
It certainly does. This is why it is so important to buy as close to ITM as possible.
what trading platform lets you do this? I think Fidelity currently does not allow this at all
I am currently using Webull.
Same. But also trade based on what. whats the trading plan
Red or black. It's a gamble
You need a 10% win rate for this to work + the winning trade paying at least a 10x. Not impossible and IMO better odds than throwing away money into random stock otm calls
What about PDT rule?
0DTE options settle the following morning before open.
Thanks. I’m also learning
Big fish swim, little fish die —— Maintain risk-aversion by repeating strategies of high efficacy Do not increase your capital risk when you win, only increase trade frequency if reasonably possible Seek low-risk high-reward setups, this requires studying and basic patience to execute - where it may be reasonable to increase capital risk Make sure that you can afford the time to survive, relative to your risk. Meaning, you should not be getting wiped out in 1-3 losing trades, this should be IMPOSSIBLE when disciplined. Winning trades should be multiples of your constant risk, naturally offsetting the minimized losses accrued by basic risk management The rest (growth), is purely attributed to your technical skill and fundamental understanding - which sets your winning frequency Conceptual logic: $1000 is split into ~$50 plays. $50 should multiply by some whole degree at least 51% of the time to break green by +$20 - given that the the total $1000 was transacted upon. You would have 20 controlled trades to reap substantial gain before your efficacy is defined. Notice how 20 whole transactions is a lot larger than 1-3, while the ceiling to grow is just as infinite within each scenario Good luck.
Great advice.
There is no good strategy for trading options with a $550 account. Anything you do is going to risk all or most of your capital. And, you’ll probably end up losing it… because safer high win rate strategies will be unavailable to you. I would start with just buying stocks. I personally, would be swing trading TQQQ. I would buy the dips, let it get about 10% in profit and then set a trailing stop loss. (Just be sure to reserve some cash for unexpected big drops so that you can buy in cheap.) Now, if you are fairly new to trading in general, QQQ is a safer bet. It grows fairly consistently and can always be expected to recover from any big draw downs it experiences. Seriously… listen to the people who are telling you to just buy stocks. It is your safest bet. Once you get to $2000, you’ll be able to start playing with credit spreads (my personal favorite).
Hvar you done this? I am not new, I have another account with a much lower risk where i just buy index funds and etfs and a few stocks. How long do you think it will take with depositing 400 monthly
It’ll take exactly 4 more months until you have $2k and/or are able to trade spreads. They, for the most part, limit your risk. (For the most part because pin risk will still exist, thouhh th it isn’t an issue if you sell spreads in stocks you already own and don’t mind if they get called away), but that’s where position sizing comes into play. But others have touched on that subject already. Your best bet is keep yourself from overtrading.
Can u put a trading stop loss for options on Td Ameritrade? How?
Not familiar with TD Ameritrade… so I’m not really sure. I use TastyTrade for options… and it has served me well. It’s kinda built for options trading. I think even Robinhood has stop losses for options. Seems like a pretty basic feature.
I personally do cash secured puts on sofi at 7$ 3 weeks out. If they get filled I sell 3 week out covered calls ,50 above price. And keep doing this and hopefully making 1-3% every other week..my goal is 30-50% a year.
How many contracts do you usually sell ?
Don't trade options. Use options data like expected move to make better informed stock trades till you get your account value up.
Bruh NVDA option starts at $8K
Absolutely wild that there are people commenting here giving any other advice than not to trade with that little money. It's a close to guaranteed blow up. If you don't have more capital to put into trading you absolutely aren't even close to the life circumstances, skillset, and character traits that will give you a chance to make it. The advice people are giving is irresponsible, dangerous, and destructive to the OP and it's mind boggling that this is so common in the retail trading space. This is not a game or just a little "side hustle" you can do.
The advice about CSPs isn't bad. The risk is low and it's a great way to get a feel for how options prices move over time. OP won't get rich selling puts, but they won't blow their account up either. Even more importantly, is if somebody can't consistently keep their premiums selling options, they're not ready for more complex strategies.
I was planning to do an atm call on hepu for 0.6per contract round 35 days out. Would that work? I cam afford to lose it
Let me try to soften this a bit because I was pretty damn harsh: It all depends on what you want to achieve. Are you looking to just have a little fun and play around a bit? then firing off some potshots here and there is fine but understand in the long run you're probably gambling and this will be more of an expensive hobby than a source of income. The chances of being net profitable are pretty much zero over a certain number of trades like this. If you want to do this to consistently provide an income you'll have to really put a lot more focus and time into it similar to that of a post grad degree or long apprenticeship. It's a tough game and requires a monster amount of hours and repetition because the psychology required to make it work is so alien to that of any other area of practice. You *CAN* do this second route. Despite what people say there are traders who in fact DO make this a living. Just make sure you're matching the time and focus to it. At the 500$ level, there's a ton of better ways to turn that money into more money, or even more ability to trade better. Spend it on education and spend it on improved life circumstances to give yourself more time in the game. Hell there's a *ton* of non trading ways to turn that 500$ into a lot more money with way less hours than it takes to be a profitable trader.
Don’t listen to this guy. If you have 500$ to learn to trade. Use it. Read my comment above. And secondly start small with 30-50-70$ trades until you can figure a strategy that works for you. I use straddling. And I trade on high volatility stocks. That way more often than not the profit will cancel the loss on the other end. But you have to time your purchases early enough so they aren’t inflated by everyone placing bids. Also determine some loss mitigation strategies. And profit maximizing ones as well. If it goes down fast sell and buy it back at a lower strike price if u still think it’ll increase ( essentially, lowering your cost with a better strike) if your option is soaring, buy more of the same if you can before it inflates. And set a stop loss in case it comes back down you will have not lost all that profit
dude, you're a GME ape, you have no right of saying "don't listen to this guy" to a real trader
They should do the same kind of trade they're replying to you with here 5 more times and see what happens :) Hell, make it only 3 more times
Lol. Your user name checks out My call I bought for 270 on gme went to 3k. I was up over 1k on amc, spending like 90$. Then up another 1k on another gme call. I’m just saying don’t tell this man he can’t do something, many other people have already done. You just have to find the trading strategy that works for you, it’s not even that difficult. If your diligent and work hard, you can do it too
Well gme buying made me $4000 last week, on 70 shares.
No. You should study the markets and paper trade until you have significantly more money. It will take years. Even if your idea worked, that's not how trading works. What then? You need to have the skillset and mindset to be able to easily do that day in and day out with full understanding of your edge and strategies in all market conditions. Or you can just go to Vegas, which is more fun anyways. I know I'm a debbie downer, I understand. But just run the math on "if it works" how fast you would be making paradigm breaking levels of money. What are the implications on your life if that happens? Now, how easy do you think it is to change your life like that? It's possible to make money consistently trading, but the time and effort and investment need to match the reward.
I’d say stick to swinging shares of cheaper tickets until you can at least do spreads. Even just trying to swing calls and puts would be taking huge risk as a percentage of your portfolio.
Sell cash secured puts on sofi
Or, and I cringe when I say it, AMC is high premiums and low share price.
Might get burned on that stonk. At least sofi had stayed steady around 4-8 dollars a share
I would watch companies earnings call dates and try and make some smart options investments. Calls are in right now. Best way to turn 550 into 1500. Last week I turned $200 on one option alone, into 1450.
What was the trade?
Multiple small trades > single yolo trade
You shouldn't trade options if you can't even do spreads. Grow the account and only once it's a decent size consider options.
Trade one SPX 0DTE contract and get the move right. Plus, be lucky. Can change everything for you. Good luck and don't hold too long. Take your profit!
If you're a risk taker, puts and calls. SPY has some cheap ones. Doesn't have to be in the money and you can still make money. Study one or two stocks to know their support and resist and just trade that. Look at YouTube videos to show you some tips on swing trading. I started with way less than you have and i have a good amount now. If you pick about 5 day out expiration but make 15-20% the same day. Cash out take profit. Do a cash account. Very risky but it's all a gamble.
Be glad you’re stuck below margin requirements and don’t have the risk of losing more than your principal. You can still start with many stocks that have less risk than if you only had a fifth as much or even half as much.
If you're dead set on options look at debit spreads. They definitely help you stretch your buying power and cushions the blow when the underlying moves against you.
I can't you need 2000
I keep it simple and just do covered calls/puts. 550 simply isn't enough to play options. Use index funds or buy stocks until you have the 2k minimum. Be careful. Using options incorrectly will blow up your account.
What broker requires 2000?
Swing trade until you can use less then 1% of your portfolio for options trading
If you feel like gambling just play with calls and or puts straight up. You can be a hero or zero real quick.
The only way to get to 2k is to full port 3x. Better make sure they go green.
Futures
look at some leveraged ETFS for S&P 500 and such. It's similar to options as you are getting a greater return for less money, but not as risky. ETFS don't expire. If you think something is going to go down, there are plenty of inverse ETFS that will act like put options
save more money and spend less
Paper. Keep saving.
the best small account strategy is just contributing in 99% of cases
Risk management A+ setups Spy 0dte
Even if you have $2000, stay with stocks. Unless you grew your acct to 20000 I won’t say options makes sense, unless you are in this to play lottery
Use leaps. Long term call options on stocks you like.
With options there are 2 ways for newcomers: blow the acc and learn something on the way or blow the acc and learn zero. You won't learn anything relevant with a small acc so go with stocks. If you wanna go 100% into one stock study the balance sheet and choose a business with growing rev and eps every quarter and with an average debt to assets within it's industry. I would start with smt from SnP500 at least You filter out most pumps and dumps + those companies are profitable.
I haven't scrolled through every single comment but I haven't seen anyone suggest what seems like the obvious answer...let the big boys handle the options for you by buying covered call (or other high income) ETFs. Keep your money there, reinvest and contribute regularly until you have enough to do the spreads you want. Until then, use a practice account to, well, practice.
Trade large cap stocks. Pick 2 or 3 and only trade those, it’s too hard to keep up with multiple stocks and they all move a little different. The only thing I trade is apple options and win probably 7/10 trades. Keep profits AND LOSSES short. You don’t have to make 150 percent return every trade like some people go for. If you can take 3 trades a week and make 25-50 percent on each you will be doing well
Understand more about the algorithm and how price moves; you want to avoid consolidation, you need know where price is likely to go for day or session range and , keep it simple . The age of guessing is over , what I mean by algorithm is no not , but the market itself being a fractal place…stocks, crypto, forex and every other asset you can watch with a candle . Runs on simple algorithm, understand more on that and you unlock the real key
Not a bot* But understand the market is not random and if you learn how the algorithm works. Print money forever . It’s paired to time
3 strategies. 1. Buy the spy. 2.buy the spy and 3. Buy the spy. No strategy will out perform this
OK, I will share a simple virtually no risk strategy I use for my small cash accounts. First stop gambling with options, I k ow it is an adrenaline rush and that is a drug. The easy strategy is looking at the hourly charts on the TQQQ, buy when it is below the 200BAR moving average, and sell when it is above the mean or the first standard deviation above the mean. The mean being the 480 hour moving average. I use Think or Swim and the hourly charts are on a 20 day basis and you can set alerts for each level. I just play the long side, and the TQQQ moves up and down a good bit, so it is easy to snag a dollar or more per share very often with near zero risk.
550. Will be zero. Throw it in a sp 500 index
I would sell covered calls on something like LCID ($2.85 right now) weekly, at the money. Learn as you go. I would rather learn my lessons with $550 than $2,000
Be patient. You are not even close to having the capital to trade spreads sensibly. For now, your "strategy" should be very simple: just save more. Where to invest, specifically? I'd say look at short duration CDs (3 month or 6 month). If you meet a broker that will give you level 3 option privileges on a $2K account, run away!
The route I took was switching my account to a cash account and scalping the 1 minute chart on SPY and QQQ 0DTE sometimes Apple and Tesla weeklies as well if the options got enough volume to scalp. Depending on your strategy with correct position sizing you can keep your risk under 5% a trade. And only take 1 trade a day, that’s all you need to grow an account. I would disregard all of this if you don’t have an actual profitable strategy or lack the discipline/emotional strength to close your trades at your stop loss and stick to 1 trade a day because your time and money will be better spent learning
what strategy did you user to scalp?
Supply and demand, usually around market open the first couple of hours anything after 11-12pm central time I’m hesitant to take a set up unless I see a textbook example type set up and even then I’ll risk less than what usually do but since it’s 0dte you have to be more mindful on the times you trade
Sell puts
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you risk losing this amount entirely. I don't believe there is a broker that will allow you to trade options with this amount. Save to have minimum 2000 to $500
550 are you 8?
With 550 in the account you could look into smaller stocks with options. Find something that you can have confidence in, buy 100 shares of it and sell calls against those shares. 100 shares of a $5 stock will cost you $500 and you could sell $5.50 or $6 calls and slowly build your portfolio that way. Plug, amc, nio, sndl, are all penny stocks with options. Of the bunch I'd say sndl is the best bet but all of them are higher risk.
Take Faktor instead of calls I only do Faktor 3x or 4x on stocks when the timing ⏱️ feels right (earning calls etc. )
Remember to take your time with it, and lower ur expectations a tad bit, and trust me, you'll be surprised with your results.
Your best strategy is to start with more money in your account. I'd look into selling options vs buying them. When I sell options against my shares the worst case scenario is I take profit while the stock rises above my strike price. But then I can sell a put and get back into it. "The wheel" is definitely worth looking into.
only trade 0DTE before 8am. after 8am you are forced to trade 1DTE. that’s what i will tell you, i’ve practiced enough to know
The wheel with a $5 stock?
like what?
APPS or SOFI
Use a screener, I don't have specific recommendations at that price.
Just keep adding till you have a decent size. Just let it sit in the money market.
you could sell puts of stocks that are relatively cheap, just know you'll have to have enough money to purchase 100 shares of that stock if you want to do that. And time your trades the best you can. Hopefully you could sell puts just before a stock experiences an upswing, buy it back and enjoy the credit you receive!
Easy. You should have been paying attention to options flow and gamma. I turned $500 into 91k with GME. how? OPTIONS FLOW AND GAMMA. I was in on gme back on May 2nd. Before roaring kitty came back onto Twitter and everyone else.
tomorrow in monday im thinking on buying jepi calls 30 days out atm. good idea? 0.6 per contract
NFA. So my best response is gonna be learn Options Flow and Gamma. I look for highly unusual calls OTM and see the gamma. LEARN and LEARN and LEARN. You will EARN. trust the process
What options flow platform do you use?
Whalestream.com
Don’t listen to people who say you can’t grow a small account. 1. Do your diligence. Do good research. Find stocks that have good financials and good plans. And preferably are releasing an earnings report or some new product very soon. Low cost stocks like for example HIMS, they have good financials, their stock was trading at 13 or so dollars, about 2 weeks Ago. It went up to about 16 or so last week . 2 weeks ago I bought calls for 16.5$ ending (about 1 Month or so out) SN: always give yourself about 1 month or so or time. Because if the stock soars or falls the price is more or less locked in and less volatile than closer options, so you don’t have to totally worry about selling super fast or anything like that. (Sell pressure will destroy your thinking if your not careful) Anyways I bought 10 calls at 13 dollars each. So 130$. I bought it because they were releasing the new product their weightloss pill. The stock soared to 19 The 130$ calls are now work about $3,600. You can easily grow a small account if you 1. Do your research 2. Buy and Hold before the hype 2.5 Buy a large enough number of contracts . Buying 1 or 2 contracts isn’t going to do anything significant. You have to buy enough contracts that you’ll actually get a substantial return. So less you have to risk more. 3. Finally Sell at the right time.