Trading Blog

The covered straddle is a perfect strategy for those all too common sideways-moving trends. When a company’s stock is in consolidation, how can you make trades? No directional trend exists, so most traders simply wait out this period.

Recently, an Anchor subscriber asked, “Why don’t we roll the long calls in the Leveraged Anchor portfolio after a large gain and take cash off the table?”  This question has a multi-part answer, from taxation to how the delta on a position works.

Our members know that buying pre earnings straddles is one of our most consistent and profitable strategies. Yet some options "gurus" continue conducting studies, trying to prove that the strategy doesn't work. Today we will show how to do the backtesting properly, using the CML TradeMachine, the best backtester in the industry.

In my last article I showed you what you can expect selling short strangles and straddles and how much leverage is appropriate. Today I want to show you how to build a well diversified short strangle/straddle portfolio and how to trade it through difficult times.

I have seen a lot of discussions on Twitter lately about the issue if selling naked strangles or straddles is a great strategy or a recipe for disaster. If you have read my books or if you are following my sample portfolio, you know that I'm a huge fan of selling short strangles and straddles.

“The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.” Kin Hubbard. In this article I will discuss the reasoning behind buying back the short options and not waiting till expiration. Two of my basic trading tenets are related:   

"Real trading system returns are too irregular in the short term for consistent weekly returns every time and the only 'trader' that every had regular monthly returns was Bernie Madoff" - Steve Burns. So true. This is why "trading options for income" promoted by some options "gurus" is so misleading.

We recently received a question from one of our members: "Is value allocation a contrarian strategy that identifies stocks that are considered "cheap" relative to historical prices?  How is value measured, and how would this strategy mitigate a pool of stocks like Blackberry in 2010 that was trading at metrics less than historical trailing averages?"

Selling short (naked) strangles is heavily promoted by some options "gurus". Is it a good strategy? It might have an unlimited (theoretical) risk, but what about the return? Is the return worth the risk? We decided to do some math, based on real prices, not some theoretical "studies".

Nassim Taleb tells a great story about Thanksgiving turkey’s in his 2007 book, The Black Swan. "Consider a turkey that is fed every day…Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race 'looking out for its best interests,' as a politician would say.

“I’ll do anything to lose weight (except diet and exercise),” is the same kind of magical thinking by investors who will do anything to outperform the market except study and practice discipline. It takes novice investors about a year to realize that you can’t consistently beat or time the market buying individual stocks or funds.

Setting up some internal rules for your trading looks like a must first-step before setting up your account and getting into your platform. You need to get your own trading plan and then stick to it. Self-discipline and avoiding recklessness can be huge for your balance.