Trading Blog

2017 marks our sixth year as a public service. It was an excellent and exciting year. We closed 113 winners out of 138 trades. Our model portfolio produced 169.1% compounded gain on the whole account based on 10% allocation. The winning ratio was 81.9%. 2017 was our first year ever without a single monthly decline. 

Our readers know that our returns have been tracked by Pro-Trading-Profits, an independent third party website that tracks performance of hundreds investment newsletters. They provided an excellent explanation how to analyze and compare performance of different trading systems. 

The graphically named “gut strangle” is a seldom-used strategy, but it might work in some circumstances. This involves trading in-the-money calls and puts. A long gut strangle is set up by buying both options; and a short gut strangle calls for selling both sides.

In the second week of October 2018, the Dow Industrial Average tumbled 1,300 points within a two-day period just ahead of earnings season. How did it happen? There were several explanations for why stock prices sold off, but the most obvious was that investor fear had changed market sentiment.

When deciding to build a diversified investment portfolio, there are many different considerations. Which asset classes do you buy? Large cap or small cap? US only, or international too? Mutual funds or ETFs? How much in bonds? Passive or active? Growth or value?

Hardly a day goes by that I don't read an article or hear some pundit extol the merits of selling puts (put-write).This article will discuss various variations of put-write strategies. What accounts for put-write strategies under-performance? How to fix put-write underperformance? Why "easy money" isn't so easy.

Have you been taken by surprise by movement of your stock? Options traders who find themselves on the wrong side of a trade have experienced this dilemma, but as often as not, it occurs as part of a move and retracement.

Here are 14 actionable ideas that will help you improve your trading from home. Implementing these ideas will help aspiring traders move toward the consistent profitability they seek.

Technicians tend to focus on single indicators, such as Bollinger Bands or the t-line. These are used to attempt to perfect a timing system. Individually, each signal has merit. Combined, the reversal signal is exceptionally strong.

“In fact, the crowd sees hardly anything out there that might end this market party.” Michael Santoli made the above statement during CNBC’s closing market wrap on January 26^th, 2018. He had reason to throw caution to the wind as the S&P 500 closed the day up by more than 1%, setting another record high.

Last month we posted some updates to the Anchor strategy that were obtained using an in-depth back testing of the strategy and variations of it using the ORATS Wheel software.  We adopted three conclusions last month:

Do you roll forward to avoid exercise? It seems like an obviously advantageous move. You avoid exercise and generate a net credit. What can go wrong? Actually, rolling incurs more risk, and every covered call writer needs to study the potential roll and compare the advantages of rolling versus closing and taking a loss or allowing exercise.