Ken Trester

Leave the Headline Plays to the Day Traders

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Although the markets can sometimes tremendously impact on our individual options positions, both existing ones and ones that we're considering, I'm not in the business of making trades based on binary market events.

Trying to capitalize on a one-off, short-term event is better left to the day traders, as they can watch their computer screens all day and pile into (or out of) these kinds of opportunities within the span of a few days or even a few hours.

But for those of you who are spending your days in the board room, operating room or family room, this doesn't exclude you from making some quick returns of your own. On the contrary, anyone who decided to short the tech sector recently was in for a surprise when several of those stocks broke to the upside.

The draw to follow what the "big guys" might be doing and the desire to get into "story stocks" like Apple (AAPL) and Research In Motion (RIMM) can be tempting, because everyone wants to go where the momentum is. And that's a big ingredient to options trading success, but it's only part of the story.

I'm less interested in the company names that "everyone" knows and more interested in the names that are going to get up and move -- and keep on moving during our targeted three-week position holding periods. That is, I'm looking for momentum (whether to the upside or downside) that will sustain itself for more than just a heartbeat.

Sure, we all want to take home big profits in a short amount of time -- and in most cases, we do -- but it's never a bad thing when it takes a few days or so for a trade to get some traction. That speaks to our preferred "unwinding" strategy of banking profits on half of our positions (i.e., if we buy 10 contracts, closing five of them) when they double in value and letting the rest ride for potentially even-bigger gains.

Besides, it's no fun to be in on the names that "everyone else" is supposedly chasing. Our goal, first and foremost, is to identify undervalued options. Meaning, the gems that are sitting out there, ready to break out, that are (temporarily) going unnoticed. I'm in this game to spend a little money and potentially make back a lot, not to jump on a fast-moving bandwagon and hope it doesn't run out of fuel in the middle of the road.