How many times did you hear from traders "I make 50% on most trades, so I can live with few 100% losers"? I guess too many. What those traders don't tell you is what impact those 100% losers have on your overall portfolio. This article discusses why position sizing is key to good and sound risk management.
A while ago I got an email from one of my Seeking Alpha readers. He told me that he is a big fan of my articles and asked how he can learn more. He wanted to make it his new career. He asked me if I can recommend any books or internet sites to learn/practice the options strategies. Then he said that he is new to trading options, he set aside a small amount of money in hopes of doubling it at least yearly.
The newsletters industry is full of crooks. I see too many "gurus" promise to make you money with no effort, charging thousands of dollars in the process. They present some of the highest risk strategies (like trading weekly options) as "low or no risk". They make a bad name to the whole industry. The Kirk Report is one of the few exceptions.
Shares of SodaStream International rose by 25% in intraday trading yesterday on a Bloomberg News report that it is in talks with an investment firm to be taken private in a transaction that would value the Israeli home soda system manufacturer at $40 per share. What would you do if you knew the news are coming ahead of time?
I got the following email today from tastytrade: "We Put The Nail In The Coffin On "Buying Premium Prior To Earnings. We look at whether or not you could make money on the implied volatility expansion leading up to an earnings announcement." Since buying pre-earnings long straddles is one of our key strategies, I went to watch the segment.
Option trading is not something you want to do if you just fell off the turnip truck. But when used properly, options allow investors to gain better control over the risks and rewards depending on their forecast for the stock. No matter if your forecast is bullish, bearish or neutral there’s an option strategy that can be profitable if your outlook is correct.
Over the last few years, Tesla used to report earnings during the first week of the second month of the earnings cycle (February, May, August and November). This cycle was expected to be no different. However, yesterday Tesla surprised the trading community and announced that they will report earnings on Thursday, July 31. What does it mean for the options traders?
Iron Condor is a very popular strategy used by many traders and investment newsletters. There are many variables to the Iron Condor strategy. One of the most important ones is time to expiration of the options you use. The time to expiration will impact all the Greeks: the theta, the vega and the gamma.
In the first 6 months of 2014, SteadyOptions produced non-compounded ROI of 95.3% (based on fixed $1,000 allocation per trade). The return on the whole account is 57.2% (based on 10% per trade allocation). We closed 84 trades. Winning ratio was 65% and average return per trade 7%. The biggest loser was 31.8% and only 5 traders have lost more than 20%. We had 6 consecutive winning months in 2014.
Auto-trading is basically money management, but vast majority of newsletters are not licensed to manage money. Would you give your hard earned money to amateurs? I assume most people would give a negative answer to that question - yet, by participating in an auto-trading service, this is exactly what they do. Is it stupidity or ignorance? You decide.
Financial crises come around every seven years on average. There was the stock market crash of 1987, the emerging market meltdown in the mid-1990s, the popping of the dotcom bubble in 2000-2001 and the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. If history is any guide, the next crisis should be coming along some time soon.
