Trading Blog

If you’re comfortable owning an S&P 500 index fund, you should also be comfortable with covered calls. For example, CBOE publishes data on a simple covered call strategy with their BXMD index. The description from CBOE is as follows:

First, this is a general comment. Every person’s situation is different. I could say “95% of people don’t need this,” and you could be in the 5% who do. So, don’t ever make personal investment or estate planning decisions based on an online post, contact an actual investment advisor or attorney - most will have initial conversations for free (I do).

As our members know, we introduced a new strategy to our members few months ago - Steady Momentum. The goal is to produce higher risk-adjusted returns than the underlying indexes. We also introduced a new version of our Anchor Trades strategy. This post will provide an update on both strategies. 

UK PM May is set to step down and Boris Johnson is the leading candidate to replace her. The erratic former foreign secretary may increase GBP/USD volatility. Despite Johnson's Brexit credentials, he could surprise and be pound-positive.

Higher dividends are better, right? Yes, usually. But not always. Dividends are a fundamental indicator and many options traders are not interested in fundamentals. But as a means for picking stocks on which to trade options, some fundamentals offer great insight.

The first condition to declare the market is in bullish mode has been fulfilled. Now it is Ethereum's turn to assume its part of the game. XRP/USD keeps a low profile, waiting for its chance. We begin the week of analysis celebrating the bullish behavior of Bitcoin late on Sunday.

One of the most common fears in option trading is one of early assignment.  The fear of having a large number of shares (or a large short position) coupled with a potential margin call (or Reg-T call) causing a sudden shortage of cash in their accounts worries investors.  Investors commonly view assignment as a huge potential risk.

This investing lesson is a tale of two time periods that highlight the important role of equity asset class diversification and systematic rebalancing in an equity fund portfolio.  Human nature is a failed investor, when our natural instinct is often to do the exact opposite of what we should do in practice.

Exactly how risky are uncovered calls? That depends … Some traders avoid uncovered calls altogether because the risk can be significant, even unlimited (in theory). Others can rationalize this strategy as only moderately risky based on how you pick expiration and strike.

According to www.bankrate.com, the current national average interest rate on bank savings accounts is only 0.10%. Many banks have barely budgeted on increasing interest rates even as the risk-free rate of return on a US Treasury Bill is currently in excess of 2%. This spread is a substantial profit margin for banks.

Everyone has heard about the troubling “false signals,” a price-based reversal indicator that shows up but does not lead to reversal. This is frustrating and expensive, but the problems in how traders react to false signals can be managed effectively with a few techniques.

Yesterday I closed our SE May 22.5 buy-write for a couple of reasons. First off, I knew that the position only had ~$0.20 more to gain over the next three weeks. I also knew those gains would take some time to capture as out-of-the-money puts (which is essentially what the May 22.5 buy-write is) hold their value until right before expiration.