We would like to describe each one of the alternatives, using Steady Condors as an example.
Self-managed accounts
This is the simplest and the most flexible option. You need to open a brokerage account (or use your existing account) and sign up for our subscription service. You will need to "follow" the forum and the topics in order to get the email notifications once we execute a trade. Once you do that, you will get an email notification and can execute the trade in your account.
The service subscription fee is $99/month, $265/quarter or $955/year, which translates to ~1%/year for 100k accounts. All alerts are sent during the market hours. If you are able to place the trades during the market hours, this option might be for you. You have a full control over your account and can select your broker.
Auto-trading
Autotrading is a service that executes an investment newsletter's trade alerts in an investor's brokerage account. As an investment newsletter publishes email alerts, the autotrading service receives those trade alerts directly and enters trades in each investor's account. Each investor has their own private brokerage account; they just give the autotrader the permission to enter trades in that account. Only the investor can deposit or withdraw money from the account. The investor specifies how much money to allocate to each trade.
Our preferred brokers are IB (Interactive Brokers) and TOS (Thinkorswim). TOS are not accepting new services, but we still hope to get approved. IB can be autotraded only via GAT (Global Autotrading). GAT charges a flat per-service, per-account monthly fee of $70 for auto-trading. While we are not happy about this, we need to consider the total cost. IB charge ~$0.75 per contract. Compare this to TOS where average client pays around $1.50 per contract - and you will be able to offset the $70 fee with just 100 contracts per month. eOption charges $2 per trade per leg EXTRA for auto-trading if done directly with them (not through GAT). With GAT, you also may be able to benefit from the tiered volume discounts that the broker offers for option trades (the broker combines the volume for all Global AutoTrading clients when applying the discount, thus even small accounts can benefit).
All in all, GAT/IB offer the best combination of commissions and execution. The overall cost is expected to be lower than most other brokers. We hope to start auto-trading within the next few weeks. If you cannot place trades during market hours, or simply prefer that we do it for you, this option is for you.
Managed accounts
A managed account is a specialized investment advisory account that simply uses one particular strategy. It is an account you own, maintained through a custodian (such as TDAmeritrade, Interactive Brokers, Edward Jones, Dain Rauscher, etc.), for which you will receive a monthly statement. You can read more about our Managed accounts here.
The managed account will be managed by Lorintine Capital, LP. Lorintine Capital charges two percent (2%) for a managed account. The minimum recommended managed account size for the Anchor Trades strategy is fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.00) and for the Steady Condors strategy, one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000.00). If you place $100k or more into a managed account, you will be entitled to 50% discount of the monthly subscription. If you place $200k or more into a managed account, you will be entitled to a free access to the service.
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