Here's the advantage of an option ...

Although markets are CLOSE (special emphasis on "close") to a 24/7/365 - they really aren't.

One of those exceptionally and exceedingly RARE occurances that could come close to hittin' you harder than you can get up from ...

That's the only advantage that even fleetingly crosses my mind.

Option "specialists" write the suckers, most of the time. That places them into the same risk category as the futures trader, assuming the rare occurance referenced above.

Therefore, if the "experts" of the game assume the same risk as the futures trader ... why would one desire to set themself on the "losers" (long option players) side?

Obviously, you can see that I ain't much of a fan of options, but that is just me.

Some swear by them.

I've actually had some luck with them a few times.

I'd look at a long term chart and get some hankering to throw some paper ... just couldn't do it in futures. Picked up some deep out-of-the-money, way out stuff and just forgot about them.

I've only done this five or six times in my life. The winner that comes to mind is that I bought some bond calls, in 1987, paying a 32nd. Along came the "crash" and I cashed 'em in at a full point.

Don't believe that I've had one of those hunches pay since ...

If you're one of the "cut your profits short and let your losses run" kind of players ... maybe options might be OK.'

If not?

The old line of the eighties: "Since time immemorial, there has been something akin to commodity futures for men to trade. They've now come up with options to give women and children something to do."