Top 10 Mistakes New Option Traders Make

In the world of options trading, one of the greatest challenges is determining future price ranges with enough accuracy to structure profitable trades. One method traders can leverage to enhance these predictions is Monte Carlo simulations, a powerful statistical tool that allows for the projection of a stock or ETF's future price distribution based on historical data.

By Romuald, October 22

Any trader looking to build reliable long-term wealth is best off avoiding cryptocurrency. At least, this is a message that the experts have been touting since crypto entered the trading sphere and, in many ways, they aren’t wrong. The volatile nature of cryptocurrencies alone places them very much in the red danger zone of high-risk investments.

By Kim, October 15

In olden times, alchemists would search for the philosopher’s stone, the material that would turn other materials into gold. Option traders likewise sometimes overtly, sometimes secretly hope to find that most elusive of all option positions: the risk free trade with guaranteed positive outcome:

By TrustyJules, May 28

A covered call is an options trading strategy where an investor holds a long position in an asset (most usually an equity) and sells call options on that same asset. This strategy can generate additional income from the premium received for selling the call options.

By Kim, May 18

Trading options on the S&P 500 is a popular way to make money on the index. There are several ways traders use this index, but two of the most popular are to trade options on SPX or SPY. One key difference between the two is that SPX options are based on the index, while SPY options are based on an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks the index.

By Mark Wolfinger, March 15

There are many trading quotes from different traders/investors, but this one is one of my favorites: “In trading/investing it's not about how much you make, but how much you don't lose" - Bernard Baruch. At SteadyOptions, this has been one of our major goals in the last 12 years.

By Kim, March 11

You’ll often read that a given option trade is either vega positive (meaning that IV rising will help it and IV falling will hurt it) or vega negative (meaning IV falling will help and IV rising will hurt).   However, in fact many popular options spreads can be either vega positive or vega negative depending where where the stock price is relative to the spread strikes.  

By Yowster, March 7

The greatest joy in investing in options is when you are right on direction. It’s really hard to beat any return that is based on a correct options bet on the direction of a stock, which is why we spend much of our time poring over charts, historical analysis, Elliot waves, RSI and what not.

By TrustyJules, March 5

A 1x2 ratio spread with call options is created by selling one lower-strike call and buying two higher-strike calls. This strategy can be established for either a net credit or for a net debit, depending on the time to expiration, the percentage distance between the strike prices and the level of volatility.

By TrustyJules, February 22

2023 marks our 12th year as a public trading service. We closed 192 winners out of 282 trades (68.1% winning ratio). Our model portfolio produced 112.2% compounded gain on the whole account based on 10% allocation per trade. We had only one losing month and one essentially breakeven in 2023. 

By Kim, January 5