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How to avoid holding Options that expire worthless?
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As a novice investor, I'd like to share my journey so far, documenting my experiences as a beginner in the world of trading.

Currently, my account is slightly in the red. In the early stage, I faced a floating loss of 50%, but in the latter, I managed to achieve a 30% gain. Here are some insights into my growth process:

1. Rapid Learning of Options Knowledge:
I've been diligently studying options through resources like moomoo, which provides comprehensive educational articles. These resources are invaluable for beginners and are worth bookmarking.

2. How I Choose Option Targets:
- I primarily focus on buying calls. Firstly, I look for stocks whose current price is below their intrinsic value and monitor them for potential reversals. For instance, I bought into $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ around the 3.4 mark when the price was around $130. This trade later resulted in a 760% return.
- I select options on assets with high liquidity and significant trading volume to ensure there's ample interest in my positions.
- I typically opt for options with a tenure of fewer than 3 months. Extremely short-term options are too volatile for my risk tolerance, while options with longer expirations tend to be more expensive and may deviate from the underlying stock's price. Therefore, I prefer options with 1-2 months to capitalize on short-term movements.
- I generally avoid options with expiration dates too close to the present (I restrain myself). These are options expiring within 1-2 weeks. Unless the probability is extremely favorable, I steer clear. For example, I bought calls twice during Tesla's decline, but as the expiration date approached, the options essentially became worthless, resulting in 100% losses. It was a painful lesson.

3. Key Takeaways:
- Aggressive Strategies: Engaging in bull/bear market spread plays, buying calls/puts on individual stocks. I focus on fundamentally sound, long-term prospects such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.
- Conservative Approaches: During low volatility periods (where the market doesn't move much), I find selling puts/calls on indices suitable. With lower volatility, I can adopt a long-term bullish stance, especially on the S&P 500, which has lower volatility compared to the Nasdaq. However, this strategy is susceptible to black swan events.
- Risk Awareness: Maintaining a sense of risk is crucial. I avoid allocating excessively large positions in options, as it affects my psychological well-being. Every options trade requires a mindset prepared for the worst-case scenario. If a trade goes significantly against me, I refrain from closing it until the final week.
- Fundamental Analysis: Combining fundamental research with short-term trends improves the probability of success.

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