Edwin

Marco, have you tried subscribing to these sites? If so, do you have feedback on how well their indicators work and their service?

I should have clarified my question. Sorry about that, it was written from my phone. I was more specifically asking how the indicators on Trading Volatility compare to the indicators on VixContango, which I have been following. I'm able to chart and track the VRatio and Contango in TOS on my own without the site. I wonder how the VCO and VTRO indicators compare to VRP on Trading Volatility, and if there other valuable indicators for going long XIV or VXX. Thanks

I'd be interested on any feedback you have from the trading volatility site.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to talk about other sites and forums. I'm not trying to bash another site, I'm just looking for feedback if anyone has been in their trading room before. Has anyone tried Simpler Options? I've been watching their free videos, and it's apparent that they never talk about their losing trades, and they are mostly buying weekly options based on Carter's TTM Squeeze indicators. It looks like John Carter had a site called tradethemarkets with Hubert Senters? It looks like they charge an arm and a leg for their indicators. http://www.tradethemarkets.com/products/department2.cfm?affID=simpler

They said electronic transfers are also disabled, but you can always opt back in if you need any features that they disable, and opt back out.

Here are the steps to opt out of the security login for the trading platform when logging into Account Management. They said that you can't trade penny stocks when you disable this. manage account > security > secure log in system > sls opt out change the state to partial

I would think they would want to educate on the basics of options trading, and at least explain the greeks to viewers so they would come back for more learning. I'm surprised the show has been on the air that long and they are able to sustain any ratings to justify the cost of running that show considering how unprofitable their trades are.

Keeneonthemarket (now called AlphaShark) does post some of their open positions. Being in their trading room before, the entry prices that are posted aren't accurate compared to what he was actually filled at. http://alphashark.com/positions/ I'm surprised CNBC allows the Najarians, Dan Nathan and Mike Khouw talk about UOA and hardly ever talk about the losers & their p&l with these strategies, and always pump up the winners that they called in the past. It's irresponsible on their part. It's too bad they don't actually teach any options education on Options Action, and almost never educate viewers on Options Greeks. I'm surprised that show is still on the air, I don't get who their target audience is supposed to be for Options Action. Are they trying to sucker people into buying low delta OTM options? I would think if it's supposed to be an educational show to get people interested in options trading, they would at least teach viewers about the fundamentals they actually need to know.

For those who pay attention to unusual options activity, has anyone gone through and tracked the P&L of such strategies (CNBC/OptionMonster/Andrew Keene)? I wonder if someone has tracked this has a general probability of winners in relation to the delta of the options purchased. I understand that you could always have a low amount/percentage of winners and have huge winners on a few positions and have a positive P&L, but wanted to see if anyone was able to have any long term success trading this way.

Thanks for sharing Paul. How are the calendar trades doing in a higher IV environment for the jumbotron stocks? Ideally, you'd want calendars when IV is low, correct?

I have found technical analysis as helpful guides, but nothing more than that. Moving averages, fib retracements, market profile, etc. are only references on the chart to be aware of. I would say that the shadowtrader quadbox ($TICK, /ES, $UVOL-$DVOL, $ADVN-$DECN) is helpful in terms of viewing market internals at a glance. I wish there was a way to view that graphically on a mobile device, and I'd also like to graph the VXV/VIX ratio on a mobile device. Going long stock is just a painful proposition the last few weeks, unless they are for very short term trades.

rygittins, thanks for sharing your experiences. I have had challenges trading and making any real progress using TT strategies, I spend time watching them, other youtube videos, and following various traders on twitter, and watching way too much cnbc more so for educational purposes, market awareness, technical analysis, than anything. That's probably not a good idea, i'm often just overwhelmed with data, video, ideas and things to read. I also often find that non-index ETF products have medium-poor liquidity for options trading unless it's FB, AAPL, TWTR, and a few others.

Paul, how would you compare your success in return on capital and p&l using those strategies compared to other strategies you are using before the downturn last week?

I think I know who you're referring to without mentioning the name of the service. This person provides one-on-one mentoring, I've seen his youtube videos. He seems like a nice guy.

What service is this? Nothing against you, but I would have a hard time seeing a lot of people paying for a service that is already available for free by just going on TT and Dough.

Yeah, i guess you never know what's going to happen, NFLX could be at 70-140 at the end of the year.

If you're still in this position, you can thank your lucky stars that Citron is calling for a short on this. https://twitter.com/CitronResearch/status/639083537979674624

Just curious, these sound like Tastytrade strategies. I don't have a problem with them, I watch a lot of Tastytrade, though I can't trade like them. I would think that selling premium has been difficult with rising volatility in the last few weeks, even if you're short a lot of deltas. Have you been rolling the untested side, and going inverted on some of your positions?

Thanks for the feedback. Another possible strategy would be cashless collars (covered call & long OTM put) against my long positions.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'm leaning a bit more towards call credit spreads, since I want the theta decay and IV compression on my side. I guess I would have a higher probability of profit if the market happens to go sideways. We'll see how it goes.

If I want to reduce deltas on a long portfolio, what are the best strategies to help hedge against the possibility of the market going back down? Short calls spreads, naked calls, long puts on SPY/SPX, shorting SPY shares, selling /ES futures, or other index products (Nasdaq, Russel, Dow, etc.) Anything else?

Thanks for the tip. Are you using stop losses in case the trade went against you and the market were to go up and vol were to decrease in the options?

Yeah, unfortunately I've run into something similar before. It's a tough lesson to lose a lot and realize you traded too many contracts for your account. Position sizing and risk management is more important than focusing on how much you can make on the trade. It's always an ongoing realization to focus on how much you can lose rather than how much you can make on a trade.

You could scale out of your calls if it keeps going down, and add short puts on down days. Or just get out of the trade.

If you're still in your trade, you should hopefully getting back some of your losses with NFLX down more than 8 right now.