My name is Peter and
about 45 years ago I did a short gig as a “Merrill Lynch” in Canada. I live in Ontario, Canada about a two hour drive away from Detroit. I like playing options and my focus is mainly on U.S. stocks. Prior to my gig at "Merrill" which lasted about two years I worked for another then well known Canadian brokerage firm that had a upscale office on the 55th floor of a downtown Toronto office building. They occupied the entire floor. In essence they were a "boiler room" operation (with a history dating back to the 1930's). Their focus on penny mining stocks and at that time they were a major player in that space. They have since closed down after a branch operation made some crazy trades that put them out of business. It soon became apparent that my style of trading not fit in well. I had one main client who was a mathematician I roomed with during university who gave me weekly lists of options to buy. Other rookies starting taking clues from me which somewhat exacerbated top managment. I was busy watching options on stocks like Exxon and IBM options. I didn't care about penny stocks. Then I transferred with the same organization to an office in another smaller city they operated where I discovered that the back office made a habit of skimming money off some of my more profitable trades. Stroke off one fill price and ink in another after consulting with the office manager who drank a lot. A fill of ten option contracts on Exxon at $3.50 would be reported back to me a $3.25. Not fun. A lady named Marilyn in the back office was doing this. I did end up confronting management about this with no avail. (They didn't do skimming back at the Toronto back office, it was a much more professional operation). Then I switched to Merrill and everything was there was above board. Switching companies was another story. I walked a block down the street a lunch time to a Merrill office where I had a friend working and was immediately interviewed by the office manager. He asked if he could call up my current manager to see how reliable I was as as an employee (that approach could have put me in a pickle). When he made the call my office manager who was also a broker with a book of business picked up the phone was drunk and was slurring his words. Bingo,thanks to his state of inebriation I was hired on the spot. Things were obviously different back then. I now work in an unrelated profession and oddly enough I still have the designation of being a Broker. I sell real estate. Time flies. I still have a passion for option trading. I like Fridays for trading "one-day" options. Five of my favourite stocks to now trade options on are Caterpillar, Ford, Exxon, Tesla and Boeing, not necessarily in that order. Caterpillar actually is my least favorite one of these five stocks to trade. Option trading on it is thin. Tesla is my "go-too" stock for option trading. I also speculate in options on stocks in the "five to ten" dollar price range. They can suprise. There are times when I will take a few days off from watching the market, knowing full well that I
will be not be handicapped in playing options when I return to the action. In fact I return with fresh eyes. I read Barron's on the weekend. I tend to follow the most actively traded stocks. I need to be on a routine to play options and I don't trade with other people's money. Donald Trump is helping to make option trading easier. He says things which help make the markets move. Let me now share with you what I am watching in the option markets. Some blogs are better than others. With time some blogs get deleted with time. Tesla is the stock I have the most luck trading. I don't see that changing soon. Cheers.
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