2013 marks our second year as a public service. Overall, we had an excellent year. We closed 186 trades in 2013 which produced 91.7% ROI, based on fixed $1,000 allocation per trade (non-compounded) and 6 trades open. The winning ratio was pretty consistent around 60%. We had only two losing months in 2013. Check out the Performance page to see the full results. Please note that those results are based on real fills, not hypothetical performance.
As the year comes to an end, many traders/investors like to take a hard look at what transpired in the 12 months past and set a course for the 12 month ahead of them. While many dream of catching the next TSLA or SCTY to do most of the heavy lifting in their portfolio, the truth is, to achieve consistent positive returns over a long period of time, your management of your Risk will likely play a larger roll than your stock picking.
It's been a while since I wrote just a pure column for members, and I think it is about time to update everyone on where my firm is, how the Anchor strategy is performing, and my general thoughts on the markets before the end of the year. Since most people care more about the markets, I'll give my general thoughts on those, and I'll save the professional updates to the end.
We are pleased to introduce an addition to SteadyOptions - the "Steady Condors" monthly income strategies. Steady Condors is a combination of low maintenance and market neutral options income strategies with a strong emphasis on risk management and proper position sizing, as well as minimizing drawdowns. In addition to providing trades and education on the forum, we are offering the Steady Condors portfolio as a separate service.
Those who have been trading options on major indexes like RUT, SPX or NDX know that those options behave differently from regular options. They usually stop trading on Thursday however the settlement value is not determined until the market opens the following day (Friday). (SPX weekly options are an exception). But that's not all.
Last year I wrote an article for Seeking Alpha Google Options Underestimated The Risk Again. Looks like history repeats itself. On Thursday Google reported blowout quarter and the stock rallied the next day a whopping 122 points (13.8%). The options markets implied a 33 points move.
Over the last few years, Apple used to report earnings during the week after the monthly options expiration, meaning the fourth week of the first month of the earnings cycle (January, April, July and October). This cycle was expected to be no different. However, two days ago Apple surprised the trading community and announced that they will report earnings on Monday, October 28. What does it mean for the options traders?
This article includes a simplified explanation of the basics of options trading. Stocks, mutual funds, and gold are some of the common forms of commodities in the stock market today. Unfortunately, not a lot of people know about options trading, especially the non financial-savvy people.
As some of you know, Investimonials.com is "a place to discover the best financial products...and to weed out the worst." In fact, many of current and former SteadyOptions members found us on Investimonials. What you might not know is that SteadyOptions is currently ranked #1 out of 705 newsletters on Investimonials. This is a remarkable achievement after being in business for less than 2 years.
A mathematician who lived from 1170 to 1250 named Leonardo Pisano Bogollo introduced the Fibonacci sequence to the West, and tools based on that number sequence are still used by traders and other occupations today. What Leonardo found was a mathematical property that exists throughout nature and his sequence of numbers, called the Golden Ratio.
I'm pleased to present a guest post from Mercedes Oestermann van Essen. Mercedes is a trader, author and trading psychology coach. She has traded her own account since 2001, trading stocks, futures, FX and commodities. She is an author of theBuddhist Trader.
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