The only consistent options strategy that has worked for me is covered calls.
Have the stock or don’t mind waiting for the stock to hit a certain price and don’t mind holding it and just sell calls against the position so while I wait, it generates a small return on positions that I probably won’t exit or want to sell at a certain price.
Great for company stock options or equity since you have a lot of shares.
Nets usually 5-10%? returns over a year or so? Depends on volatility of the stock.
In terms of recent trades, I manage my parents account and sold in May more so because they need more cash (they are house rich/cash poor) and felt the Brexit vote (I had no clue where that would head and am surprised like everyone else) and the US election can lead to increased volatility and general market unease. (that’s playing out now).
Also, if you look at it over the long term, stocks are near fairly high in terms of a few traditional metrics so why hold more equity now?
Due to being poor now, I don’t hold many stock positions personally, but do have VZ and a utility for yield and more defensive overall.
Overall, I think trying to trade is probably a losers game for most people since it takes too much time to get really good at it and even then, most people lose…
Note that however that I think even if you do 5-10% better than the average person (say 50% odds guessing on trades), you will do very well over the long term assuming you have enough capital to ride out investing for 10-20 years.
Most people don’t have that much time or money to bother honestly.
