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It's about time. Personally I still prefer brokers who lead the commissions revolution and not those who are being forced to join the party. For years, brokers like TDAmeritrade, Fidelity, Etrade and others were robbing retail investors by charging $5-10 base fee. I just see no reason to enable them. It's time the retail investors punish those greedy brokers and switch to brokers like IB, tastyworks, Tradier, RobinHood etc.

As I’ve done the past few years, I’ve broken down the Steady Options 2018 trade performance by trade type. Numbers were taken directly from the data in the Performance screen. Here’s are this year’s stats along with some comments from my perspective. Where applicable, I added totals from prior years for comparison... Pre-Earnings Calendars 40 Trades – 31 win, 9 loss (78% win) – Average Gain +9.61% 2017: 31 trades (84% win) – Average Gain +13.81% 2016: 44 trades (80% win) - Average Gain +15.07% 2015: 51 trades (80% win) – Average Gain +12.67% 2014: 48 trades (71% win) – Average Gain +13.80% 2013: 24 trades (88% win) – Average Gain +20.60% Comments: Average gain% down from prior years, largely because of 2 really big losers caused by large stock price movement away from calendar strike. Not really surprising given the bigger market swings this year. Without those big losers the average gain was right in line with prior years (we avoided big losers in prior years). Win rate comparable to prior years,. and very high. Pre-Earnings Straddles/Strangles 72 Trades - 60 win, 12 loss (83% win) – Average Gain +5.40% Breaking down further by hedged and non-hedged: Hedged – 49 win, 10 loss (83% win), average gain +4.66% Non-Hedged – 11 win, 2 loss (85% win), average gain +8.76% 2017: 77 trades (79% win) – Average Gain +5.02% 2016: 18 trades (72% win) – Average Gain +5.19% 2015: 44 trades (68% win) – Average Gain +2.61% 2014: 74 trades (62% win) – Average Gain +2.54% 2013: 104 trades (57% win) – Average Gain +1.35% Comments: Highest average gain percentage ever. Highest percentage of winning trades ever. Very low risk trades as it takes RV levels going much lower than prior cycles for these trades to be significant losers (only 4 of 72 trades had losses over -10%). Trade count down slightly from last year due to periods of elevated market volatility. These are riskier trades to open when IV is very high, as the risk for significant straddle price decline due to falling IV can really hurt trades. Index trades (RUT, SPX, TLT) 22 Trades – 19 win, 3 loss (86% win) – Average Gain +15.35%. 2017: 9 Trades (89% win) – Average Gain +19.72% 2016: 27 Trades (67% win) – Average Gain +3.01% Comments: RUT Broken Wing Condor: 3 win, 0 loss, average gain +10.00% SPX Butterfly: 7 win, 2 loss, average gain +17.08% TLT Butterfly: 9 win, 1 loss, average gain +15.41% Typically longer duration trades, can be open for 30+ days. Gain percentage down slightly from last year, due to 2 large losses. As with the calendars, this is not surprising given some of the bigger market swings. VIX-based trades 15 trades – 6 win, 9 loss (40% win) – Average Loss -10.89% 2017: 16 trades (75% win) – Average Gain +9.25% 2016: 16 trades (56% win) – Average Gain +1.34% Comments: Typical trade was for VIX to decline after spikes, but with larger and more sustained spikes this year there were many losing trades. Two 100% losses really hurt the overall average. Reverse Iron Condor (RIC) trades 7 trades – 7 win, 0 loss (100% win) – Average Gain +30.96% Comments: Started using the RIC trade later in the year during times when VIX was high (20+). Trades were designed to take advantage of larger price swings for stocks that was somewhat common during these elevated VIX times. When the stock prices moved, we saw some great gains. Going forward into January/February earnings cycles, will look to use RICs as alternative to straddles if VIX is still high – because although RICs hurt to IV decline, they are hurt by a lesser degree than straddles. However, downside of RICs compared to hedged straddles is that you need the stock price to move to make a profit. Other Trades 5 other trades than had an average loss of -5.35%. Nothing significant to note regarding them. Summary 2018 was unlike prior years for significant chunks of time. Prior years had low volatility and any VIX spike above 20 quickly reverted back down. 2018 had VIX near 20 for about 5 months of the year (7 months were much like prior years). Despite the increase in volatility, 78% of all SO trades were winners with an average gain of 7.07%. The biggest take away from this year is that certain trade types are better for certain market volatility conditions – hedged straddles and calendars are great to put on when volatility is low but they are riskier when volatility is elevated. When volatility is elevated, other trades like RICs and butterfly are less risky to put on during these times. SO is a great community, where members share ideas that benefit all of us and we all continue to learn more and more. Looking forward to continued success in 2019.