SteadyOptions is an options trading forum where you can find solutions from top options traders. Join Us!

We’ve all been there… researching options strategies and unable to find the answers we’re looking for. SteadyOptions has your solution.

Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0

What Happened to SFO Magazine (SFOMag)? Stocks, Options and Futures Magazine


Remember SFO Magazine? Traders like Jack Schwager and Brett Steenbarger used to write for the publication before its swift shutdown in 2012. What happened. SFO (Stocks, Futures, and Options) magazine was a monthly financial magazine focused on trading and investing in stocks, futures, and options markets.

The publication was founded in 2001 by Russell Wassendorf, a notable executive in the futures brokerage industry who ran a large futures broker called Peregrine Financial Group.
 

SFOmag was mostly focused on the technical aspect of trading as opposed to fundamentals. Which made it pretty rare in that respect. There’s not really a popular publication today that caters to the technical, price-based trader. There’s much more money in reading the tea-leaves of months-old 13F filings and Elon Musk tweets, I suppose.

Who Wrote For SFO Magazine?

Given how many legendary names in the trading community contributed to SFOmag, it’s a real travesty they shutdown the way they did. 

The magazine featured notable contributors like: 

  • Larry Williams
  • Brett Steenbarger 
  • John J. Murphy 
  • Larry McMillan
  • Jack Schwager
  • Linda Bradford Raschke
  • Tom DeMark
  • John Bollinger
  • Steve Nison

A venerable who’s who of the trading community of 10-15 years ago. All still quite relevant. And yet almost none of it is available anymore.

Can You Still Read SFO Magazine?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like any complete archive of the website exists anywhere. The Wayback Machine has some links archived but it's very incomplete. Most of the magazine’s classic articles are within out-of-print physical magazines that may never see the light of day again.

 

However, old fans or simply curious traders can buy old issues of the magazine on eBay for pretty reasonable prices. You can also find copies of their out-of-print book series SFO Personal Investor on Amazon.

 

There’s a few editions of this series including an Online Trading edition, featuring interviews with Linda Bradford Raschke, John Carter, and William O’Neil. Further, there’s a trading psychology book featuring interviews with Van Tharp and Brett Steenbarger.

 

Linda Raschke has one of her 2005 SFO articles on here website here.

Why Did SFO Magazine Shut Down?

On the surface, you’d think SFOmag was simply a melting ice cube. An analog publication in a world that was aggressively pivoting to digital. But reality is much more grim.

 

In fact, SFOmag’s collapse had nothing to do with the profitability or performance of the magazine at all. 

 

You see, SFOmag was owned by financier Russel R. Wasendorf Sr., who also ran a large futures brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group. Presumably, SFOmag was a tool to build Peregrine’s brand as a trusted futures broker.

 

But it turns out, Peregrine was a massive fraud. The story of the firm's collapse was largely overshadowed by that of MF Global, another futures brokerage firm that cratered just months prior. 

 

Regulators discovered that Peregrine didn’t have the capital to fulfill customer withdrawal requests. The firm had been accepting customer deposits and not placing them with the bank, as required by regulators. Instead, CEO Wassendorf had been embezzling deposits. The National Futures Association found that $215 million in Peregrine customer deposits were missing, embezzled by Wassendorf.

 

Wassendorf attempted suicide outside of Peregrine’s Iowa headquarters in 2012, confessing to embezzling over a hundred million dollars in a note. DealBook reported:

 

Just nine days after his wedding, the local police found Mr. Wasendorf, the head of the firm, unconscious in his car behind the building with a tube running from the exhaust pipe into the car’s interior. An empty bottle of vodka rested by his side. He left a suicide note suggesting financial crimes had been committed.

 

Ultimately, Peregrine was forced into bankruptcy and shut down. Wassendorf was sentenced to 50 years in prison, which is effectively a life sentence at the age of 64. 

 

It took a long time, but it looks like Peregrine customers got most or all of their money back.

 

As for SFOmag, it was quickly sold in a fire sale to trading education website TraderPlanet, who ceased operations of the magazine.

 

The sale was announced via Twitter on July 10, 2012:

 

sfomag.PNG

What Is SteadyOptions?

12 Years CAGR of 123.5%

Full Trading Plan

Complete Portfolio Approach

Real-time trade sharing: entry, exit, and adjustments

Diversified Options Strategies

Exclusive Community Forum

Steady And Consistent Gains

High Quality Education

Risk Management, Portfolio Size

Performance based on real fills

Subscribe to SteadyOptions now and experience the full power of options trading!
Subscribe

Non-directional Options Strategies

10-15 trade Ideas Per Month

Targets 5-7% Monthly Net Return

Visit our Education Center

Recent Articles

Articles

  • The Sell Put And Buy Call Strategy | A Synthetic Long Stock

    The Sell Put And Buy Call Strategy is an example of a synthetic stock options strategy: using call and puts options to mimic the performance of a position, usually involving the purchase of a stock. We saw this when looking at the synthetic covered call strategy elsewhere.

    By Chris Young,

    • 0 comments
    • 57,684 views
  • Long Straddle Option Strategy: The Ultimate Guide

    Straddle Options Definition
    An options straddle strategy is buying (or selling) both a put and call option with the same strike price and expiration date for the same underlying asset, and paying both the put and call premiums.

    By Pat Crawley,

    • 0 comments
    • 58,057 views
  • 7 Helpful Tips To Invest Your Money And Time In 2025

    While many of us would like to not think too much about how much money controls the world, it certainly is a primary motivator for most people in life. Whether you earn to pay the bills or work to succeed in a career you’re passionate about, money is something that can help greatly in making your life more comfortable and enjoyable.

    By Kim,

    • 0 comments
    • 34,715 views
  • Gamma Scalping Options Trading Strategy

    Gamma scalping is a sophisticated options trading strategy primarily employed by institutions and hedge funds for managing portfolio risk and large positions in equities and futures. As a complex technique, it is particularly suitable for experienced traders seeking to capitalize on market movements, whether up or down, as they occur in real-time.

    By Chris Young,

    • 0 comments
    • 24,629 views
  • Short Gamma vs. Long Gamma in Options Trading

    Gamma is one of the primary Options Greeks, which measure an option's sensitivity to specific factors that could affect an option price. Despite traders hyping up several different Greeks and second-order Greeks like "Vanna" and "charm," there are only four primary Greeks that you need to be familiar with to understand options trading.

     

    By Pat Crawley,

    • 0 comments
    • 40,259 views
  • Predicting Probabilities in Options Trading: A Deep Dive into Advanced Methods

    In options trading, the focus should not be on predicting the exact closing price of a ticker on a given date - a near-impossible task given the pseudo-random nature of markets. Instead, we aim to estimate probabilities: the likelihood of a ticker being above a specific value at a certain point in time. This perspective turns trading into a probabilistic exercise, leveraging historical data to make informed decisions.

    By Romuald,

    • 1 comment
    • 10,987 views
  • SteadyOptions 2024 - Year in Review

    2024 marks our 13th year as a public trading service. We closed 136 winners out of 187 trades (72.7% winning ratio). Our model portfolio produced 116.7% compounded gain on the whole account based on 10% allocation per trade. We had only one losing month (of 0.6% loss) in 2024. 

    By Kim,

    • 0 comments
    • 2,696 views
  • The Options Wheel Strategy: Wheel Trade Explained

    The “wheel” trade is variously described as a beginner’s strategy, a combination to exploit features of both calls and puts, and as “perfect” solution to the well-known risks of shorting calls, even when covered. The options wheel strategy is an income-generating options trading strategy that both beginners and experienced traders can leverage for profit.

    By Pat Crawley,

    • 0 comments
    • 63,449 views
  • Why Dollar Delta Will Change Your Trading

    Delta is one of the four main option Greeks, and any serious trader needs to have a thorough understanding of this greek if they hope to have any chance of success in the trading options. If you’re a beginner, you can visit my blog to learn more about understanding option delta

    By GavinMcMaster,

    • 0 comments
    • 32,309 views
  • The 7 Most Popular Cryptocurrencies Right Now

    There are thought to be 20,000 cryptocurrencies currently in existence. While a lot of these are inactive or discontinued, a lot of them are still being traded on a daily basis. But just which cryptocurrencies are most popular? This post takes a look at the top 7 most traded cryptocurrencies.

    By Kim,

    • 0 comments
    • 9,127 views

  Report Article
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0


We want to hear from you!


There are no comments to display.



Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account. It's easy and free!


Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.


Sign In Now

Options Trading Blogs