SteadyOptions closing to new members

[PaulCao]

Hi Kim, 

 

Can you shed light as to why you are closing SteadyOptions to new members? 

 

Is it because any of the following reasons, 

- Difficulties in getting good fills as there's more people chasing the same earning trades, opening and closing at the same time

- Membership roster has reached a good point and you want to focus instead on trading your strategy

- SteadyCondor and the Anchor trades taking up your administrivia timeslot (although they are traded and managed by Chris and Jesse)

- Just for the benefit of your existing members? 

 

Best,

PC

[Kim]

It is combination of things. The first point is less relevant since we are trading mostly fairly liquid stocks (you will never have issues with vehicles like AAPL, RUT, GOOG, IBM, VIX etc.) and I think that even with less liquid stocks like TIF or TGT, members did not have issues to get filled.

 

However, there are a lot of other things involved. My goal is to provide the best possible service to existing members. Some services don't mind having thousands of members. Good luck getting timely response from the service provider of those services. In my case, I sometimes spend hours on email exchange with potential members providing all necessary information and responding to questions. We had a lot of new members for the Condor service lately, they all require attention.  

[SeanM]

I think it's the right move.  Having only been a member for a few months, I can already clearly tell that the service is exceptional, as member questions in the forums are always promptly answered.  And, with more members I could see liquidity becoming a problem for some of the trades we do that include a weekly leg.  I'm sure it was a difficult decision, but I think you're doing the right thing, Kim, to guarantee that you'll be able to continue delivering the top notch service that members have come to value.

[Kim]

Thank you for your kind words.

 

At some point, each successful and fast growing service will face this dilemma. Ultimately, it comes to two options:

 

1. Limit the number of members;

2. Limit the trades to more liquid stocks.

 

There are few services that brag about having few THOUSAND members, and trade stocks with just few million dollars daily volume. Of course, there always will be few dozen members who will be able to enter at lower prices, but what about the rest? And I'm not even mentioning customer service - there is no way they can provide decent customer service to few thousand members.

 

I already stopped trading less liquid vehicles (but I still mention them and some members take advantage of the analysis and trade them successfully), and periodically limiting the number of members is another step. Providing the best customer service was and always will remain the first priority.

 

On a separate note, I would appreciate if members could post a review on Investimonials. There have been couple negative reviews (one of them from someone who was not even a member), and I think people need to see a different perspective.