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Before ever entering a trade, we need a plan. For example, we want to know whether we should avoid earnings, or trade with earnings. Knowing where to place a stop loss, and even a limit gain. Knowing which strike to trade. Knowing whether to trade the monthly or weekly options. But it even goes further – even if we know which direction we think the stock will go – do we sell puts or sell a put spread? Do we buy calls or a call spread? Should we be net owners or sellers of volatility? Has there been measurable edge in the trade in the past, or not? This is how people profit from the option market — it’s preparation, not luck. All of these questions were designed to be answered with the CMLviz Trade Machine, which is an option back-tester created by Capital Market Laboratories (CML). I have been in the same circle as this company’s founder for years. CML is in fact a member of the famed Thomson First Call roster. Their research sits side-by-side with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays and the rest of the bulge bracket banks, but they have a different goal: To break the information asymmetry that exists between the top 0.1% and the rest. To learn more about the product, you can tap on the link below. You will see a 4- minute video demonstration. I think, for many of you, it will become a valuable tool to supplement your trading and the analysis that Steady Options provides. Tap Here to Watch the Video and Sign Up P.S. Our members know that I rarely promote other products. But this one really got me excited. I encourage you to give it a try. They plan tons of additional functionality in the upcoming months, including custom strategies to trade around earnings which can be a great benefit for us. CMLviz Trade Machine is constantly adding new features, and the price will be increasing as new features are added. Those who sign up are grandfathered at the price they signed up even as the prices increase.

Yes, we receive a percent of sales and also get a say into development to make sure the strategies we discuss at Steady Options are covered. As our long time members know, I rarely recommend any product, and if I do, It's only ones that I'm using myself (like ONE and optionslam), regardless of compensation that I get or don't get.

Coming soon!

Hi there. We cover equities, ETFs and indices, but not commodities. We are adding a custom strategy with in a few weeks, that will allow you to break out of the pre-created strategies, and create whatever you like, up to 4 legs. This will cover calendars as well as broken wing butterflies and really any other construction. You will be able to create as many as you like and save them, to use/test them again at any time. This will likely sit in a new "advanced mode" so the simplicity of the standard mode will remain, but more advanced usage will be easily accessible. We are also adding the functionality to trade 'x' number of days before earnings and close 'x' number of days after. Right now we have this, but it is set at 2 trading days -- soon the flexibility to choose your own will be available. With respect to back-testing a shortput spread over the last 3-years, I understand your point, but it really isn't the goal of the back-tester. The point is, if you have a belief that the next year (or six-months, or one week, or whatever), will be somewhat similar to the last 6-mos, 1-year, 2-years, 3-years, or whatever you select, then you can pinpoint exactly which deltas, what timing of opening and closing, which length of options and how to handle earnings. Irrespective of market direction, for example, owning a call or a call spread in some names, like Veeva Systems (VEEV) has been a big loser even though the stock is up 100%. However, selling puts, or puts with a stop, or a put spread, has returned 2-3x the stock. What we're seeing here is not some magic future telling crystal ball, what we're seeing here is that the vol dynamics in VEEV support a pretty strong thesis that being a net seller of premium (and vega, gamma and theta) has been substantially better than being a net buyer. For reference here is a link to that story: http://www.cmlviz.com/cmld3b/index.php?number=11369&app=news&cml_article_id=20170328_investing-in-upside-in-veeva-systems-inc-nyse-veev-with-options While we would expect this for a stock that has moved just a little, or even a little rise, this is not the case with most stocks that have this abrupt of a rise (100%+). For most of those stocks, should you have been a net buyer of deltas you would have done much better than the stock and certainly selling the downside preimum. VEEV is just one example of how a mass calculation with a few clicks can uncover vol dynamics for a company that would not have clear otherwise. Further, and more broadly, whether we are in a bull, bear, or sideways market, stock dynamics also tend to repeat. So, for some stocks, selling a put and closing with a 80% limit gain (i.e. sell a $2 put, buy it back if it goes to $0.40) has a massive effect on returns. That's bc some stocks tend to bounce rather wildly around expiration, or even more broadly, within expirations (the 80% limit is just random to this example, you can test any limit you want). Imagine a stock that trades for $100, we're short a 95 strike put @ $2 and option goes to $0.40, 15 days before expiration, with the stock at $98. Some stocks, this is just a hold -- let the options expire worthless.But there are stocks that tend to vacillate wildly and all of a sudden, the stock goes to $94 and the put hits $3. There's no real way to measure this behavior comprehensively without a back-tester unless you really have a lot of data and code up your own HV analysis (which is awesome if you do). Hopefully the purpose of the back-tester is clearer now. As an aside, we will be adding stock technicals as well, so you can trade option strategies with entries and exits based not only on earnings, stops and limits, but also on technical triggers. Thanks! Ophir

Well, I just got too excited and immediately bought it! But, people should be aware that they are getting A LOT more than ONLY the "Trading Machine" program. There is also a wealth of educational material and ideas, that is sort of laid out in a similar way as you do at SO. I thought I was just getting the program, but I was happily surprised to find that it includes so much more. I think I will be glued to my computer for the next 2 days. I just wish they had "Calendars" as one of the choices of strategies.

Hello all. I'm here to answer any questions you have about the Trade Machine (option back-tester). Have a great weekend! Who is this guy? Ophir Gottlieb (CEO & Co-founder) — Ophir Gottlieb is the CEO & Co-founder of Capital Market Laboratories (CML). He contributes to Yahoo! Finance, CNNMoney, MarketWatch, Business Insider, and Reuters. He was rated the 14th best finance follow on all of Twitter. CML is a member of Thomson First Call. Ophir Gottlieb is inventor of the Forensic Alpha Model (FAM) and a co-inventor of Accounting and Governance Risk Model (AGR), both now owned commercially by MSCI. Mr. Gottlieb’s methodological approach taken in creating FAM was endorsed by the head of artificial intelligence for the state of Germany as a novel and extraordinary application of advanced machine learning and quantitative finance. FAM and AGR are used by asset managers worldwide with over $1 trillion of assets under management. The FAM model has made Mr. Gottlieb one of the most recognized names in all of quantitative finance. Mr Gottlieb’s mathematics, measure theory and machine learning background stems from his graduate work in mathematics and measure theory at Stanford University and his time as an option market maker on the NYSE and CBOE exchange floors. He has been cited by various financial media including Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall St. Journal, Dow Jones Newswire, NY Times, and through re-publications in Barron’s, Forbes, SF Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and Miami Herald and is often seen on financial television.