SteadyOptions 2018 - Year In Review

SO model portfolio is not designed for speculative trades although we might do some in the speculative forum. SO is not a get-rich-quick-without-efforts kind of newsletter. I'm a big fan of the "slow and steady" approach. I aim for many singles instead of few homeruns. My first goal is capital preservation instead of doubling your account. Think about the risk first. If you take care of the risk, the profits will come.

Looking at specific strategies, reverse iron condors were our best performing strategy, producing 31.0% average return with 100% winning ratio. We started using the RIC and BWB strategies later in the year during times when VIX was high (20+). We will continue trading what works the best and adapt to the market conditions.
 

What's New?

• We continue expanding the scope of our trades beyond the earnings trades, Iron Condors and calendars. We are now trading SPY, TLT, VIX, VXX, XLV and other ETFs to diversify the portfolio. When Implied Volatility spiked, we added RIC and BWB strategies to our arsenal. We will continue refining those strategies to get even better results. This gives members a lot of choice and flexibility.
   
• We launched a Creating Alpha service that trades exclusively VIX based products and TLT. It includes two separate model portfolios at very low introductory price.
   
• Our long time mentor @Yowster started contributing trades to our official model portfolio. This allowed us to expand the quantity and the quality of our trades, sometimes providing a slightly different angle and perspective. Our members now get official trades from two traders for the price of one! This means more selection and more diversity.
   
• We have implemented more improvements to the straddle strategy that reduces risk and enhances returns. As a result, the strategy produced highest average gain percentage and highest percentage of winning trades since inception.
   
• We started using the CMLviz Trade Machine to find and backtest some of our trades. This is an excellent tool that already produced few nice winners for us.
   

What makes SO different?

First, we use a total portfolio approach for performance reporting. This approach reflects the growth of the entire account, not just what was at risk. We balance the portfolio in terms of options Greeks. SteadyOptions provides a complete portfolio solution. We trade a variety of non-directional strategies balancing each other. You can allocate 60-70% of your options account to our strategies and still sleep well at night.

Second, our performance is based on real fills. Each trade alert comes with screenshot of my broker fills. Many services base their performance on the "maximum profit potential" which is very misleading. Nobody can sell at the top and do it consistently. We put our money where our mouth is.

Our performance reporting is completely transparent. All trades are listed on the performance page, with the exact entry/exit dates and P/L percentage.

It is not a coincidence that SteadyOptions is ranked #1 out of 704 Newsletters on Investimonials, a financial product review site. Read all our reviews here. The reviewers especially mention our honesty and transparency, and also tremendous value of our trading community.

We place a lot of emphasis on options education. There is a dedicated forum where every trade is discussed before the trade is placed. We discuss different strategies and potential trades. Unlike most other services that just send the trade alerts, our members understand the rationale behind the trades and not just blindly follow the alerts. SO actually helps members to become better traders.

Other services

In addition to SteadyOptions, we offer the following services:

• Anchor Trades - Stocks/ETFs hedged with options for conservative long term investors.
• Steady Condors - Hedged monthly income trades managed by the Greeks.
• Creating Alpha - Volatility products like VXX and UVXY plus TLT portfolio.
• LC Diversified Portfolio - broadly diversified, absolute return, multi-strategy portfolio.

We now offer a 4 products bundle (SteadyOptions, Steady Condors, Anchor Trades and Creative Alpha) for $745 per quarter or $2,495 per year. This represents up to 50% discount compared to individual services rates and you will be grandfathered at this rate as long as you keep your subscription active. Details on the subscription page.

Subscribing to all 4 services provides excellent diversification since those services have low correlation, and you also get the ONE software for free for 12 months with the yearly bundle. 

The LCD is our most diversified and scalable portfolio, I highly recommend that members check it out. It is offered as an added bonus of all subscription plans. We also offer Managed Accounts for Anchor Trades and LCD.
 

Summary

2018 was another remarkable year. Our members enjoyed triple digit gains while US stocks posted its worst year in a decade.

SteadyOptions is now 7 years old. We’ve come a long way since we started. We are featured on Top 100 Options Blogs by commodityhq, Top 10 Option Trading Blogs by Options trading IQ, Top 40 Options Trading Blogs, Top 15 Trading Forums  and more.

I see the community as the best part of our service. I believe we have the best and most engaged options trading community in the world. We now have members from over 50 counties. Our members posted over 110,000 posts in the last 7 years. Those facts show you the tremendous added value of our trading community.
 

I want to thank each of you who’ve joined us and supported us. We continue to strive to be the best community of options traders and continuously improve and enhance our services.

Let me finish with my favorite quote from Michael Covel:

"Profits come in bunches. The trick when going sideways between home runs is not to lose too much in between."

If you are not a member and interested to join, you can click here to join our winning team. When you join SteadyOptions, we will share with you all we know about options. We will never try to sell you any additional "proprietary systems", training, webinars etc. All our "secrets" are included in your monthly fee.

Happy Trading from SO team!