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Fear

The adventures of leveraged naked ootm option sellersAh the famous "free money" option sellers. Ah the famous strangle strategy. Option sellers. Ok. Naked option sellers. Sooo...? Way out of the money naked option sellers. Let me think... Way out of the money strangle naked option sellers. Getting good. Ultra Leveraged Way Out Of The Money Strangle Naked Option Sellers. Oh boy. Ultra Leveraged Way Out Of The Money Strangle Naked Option Sellers That Never Cut Their Losses. Not fair for other Darwin award contestants!. They have to be doing it on purpose. A strangle is an absolutely garbage strategy where the writer sells (slightly) out of the money options on both sides. The maximum profit happens when the price stays between both strike rates. Not going to make a full explanation and a drawing, but what is important is it involves option sellers that take small premiums win very often but are at high to unlimited risk. The premium basically means that even if the price goes against you a bit you are still in the green. Out of the money means you have even more breathing space before the price gets to a losing area, and then additionally you have the opposite side premium as additional "breathing room", which in all means the price has to move very much for you to even start being worried. But when it goes that far... careful. Depending on how out of the money the option is the premium can get pretty low... So the option seller won't make alot of money. There is no free lunch. A summary of those strategy is "Picking up pennies in front of freight trains." Ok here is a drawing xd A few people use this, and I know it is taught by Tom Sosnoff that runs a brokerage. You might recognize him in some old documentary & interviews about the 1987 (he was a market maker obligated to buy people bags and "add to loser" and they all were running out of liquidity & had to beg banks for more money so the whole system would not collapse). He is the creator of thinkorswim that he sold to TD Ameritrade for a big bag of money. He published a video recently where he bashed the robinhood effect where down synd- er I mean young credulous investors (and legends like Portnoy) are getting enabled to gamble on risky & complex products they do not understand. Oh wait no he praised it all, said it was wonderful and a new paradigm. Sad. "Hurray optimism" (until the suicide). Not sure what my opinion of him is right now. On the long run those strangle work, and ... well I can't say any idiot can do those clearly with all the clowns blowing up ... but it does not require any prediction ability (you are better off if you can predict low volatility thought), it is maybe complex to understand for novices at first but rather "easy". Someone running such a strategy will often win, and get consistant profits, but the profits are just... small. And funds or individuals using this strategy have to be prepared for big moves that sometimes happen and have a plan to hedge at some point. Tom Sosnoff tells people to "trade small trade often" (another broker telling people to trade often gee didn't expect that). Since this strategy makes little profit, fools have a tendancy to use leverage, sometimes alot. Warren Buffet once said, or more than once, way more, that leverage was the best way to wipe out your wealth. Especially when mixed with ignorance. He uses leverage himself, but not like this, not like these guys... The only way I see leverage maybe making sense with those strategies is say you make 1% a year, so you'd put 90% of your money in a mix of equity indices & risk free with low correlation, then use 10 leverage on the remaining 10% that is used to write options, keep risk managed, so then you make 10% on the 10% and if something goes real wrong you have deep pockets, 9 times the amount... Using a bit or even 2-3 times more capital and more leverage too would not even result in getting wiped out for those that did. They REALLY asked for it. There are plenty of naked option sellers that got wiped out, included hyped or famous ones. Naked selling means you do not own the underlying (so if you never buy until the client exercises his right you will have to first buy the asset at whatever price, or have to buy it from him if he is short potentially at a much higher price than the market price). James Cordier from OptionSellers dot com, Victor Niederhoffer, Karen Supertrader, LJM Preservation And Growth Fund (HAHAHAHA they have a great sense of humor). James Cordier used way out of the money options, so it would look something like that: Wow! We found the holy grail! You cannot lose! He really got zero sympathy, and even his clients did not get much. They either knew it was risky or did not bother how to even put this they did not even bother looking at was option selling was somehow? James Cordier was making tiny profits with huge risk, had very high winrates, and because he made little profits he used extreme leverage to get any significant amount out. He is the epitome of the concept "Picking pennies in front of a freight train". They should use his picture in encyclopedias. Those leverages aren't even poor risk management at that point we reached another stage. Seriously this guy is an absolute psychopath. Victor Niederhoffer used to be a rather famous fund guy, he worked with Soros, he was rather popular I think he wrote in big journals, probably was on tv regularly. He was "one of the best" making 30% a year for 20 years, famous people held him in high regard, he was sort of a mentor to guys that are famous today. But he missed a few braincells. He sold a big amount of naked puts in 1997 then the market crashed. Rekt. Another "myfxbook" loser. Maybe he was just bad all along and got lucky for 20 long years. Outlier. He probably whine that it was just "20 sigma bad luck". He blew up again 10 years later 😂. Rekt by the trash securities crisis of 2007. Oh ye another "free money one". If you saw the movie "the big short" you might remember scenes where bankers were laughing and partying at the "idiots that bought options against CDO/MBS". He was not a banker himself so Bush did not use taxpayer money to bail him out. He was not unlucky actually, he was very lucky to have lasted 20 years the previous time. Dumb people often have Dunning Kruger... Karen Supertrader was a random old lady that got into the Sosnoff noob strategy. It is very hard to lose money while keeping it small with that one, so idk I guess this is why he pitches it to complete noobs that would all become day traders and lose their money quickly. Hey they'd just lose their money otherwise, at least here they are making a little. It is true, can't even blame him he is maybe saving noobs. Should just let natural selection do its job just like getting rich slow is actually not slower, helping people is not actually helping. She was an outlier in a normal distribution, mistook that for greatness, and started a fund managing to get idiots to invest hundreds of million. 150 I think. She ended up losing if I recall a good 50 million, hide the losses as unrealized (which she rolled over each month and used new positions to offset), while still collecting fees. I remember seing her interview on how great she was and thinking "ye give it a little while" and then doing some research, and oh ye blew up haha. Didn't see that coming. I don't get people brains. If people use certain strategies, it is mathematically impossible, literally impossible, they can get certain returns without taking huge risk or committing fraud. Why is it so hard for the creatures on this planet (especially regulators) to comprehend? It is physically impossible. Proven. This is not economy or climate science where randos come up with their ooga booga opinions and apocalyptic calls, mathematical PROOF means it is true period. Really blows my mind. How are all those mouth breathers even alive? If a strategy no matter what is contained in Upper Bound Lower Bound and we are outside of the bounds it's not because of divine intervention or a parallel universe. I don't even know how they think. Lmao I crack up when I try to imagine their thought process. It's like the market moves 10% in a month, and someone tells you they simply bought & held, made 60%, and used no leverage. And some people are stupid enough to think this is possible??????????????????????????????????????? Wow. LJM Preservation And Growth is just the funniest. "Preservation" in the name, then goes to the option selling casino with infinite leverage. People trusted it blindly because it has preservation in the name? XD Reminds me of some groups in the USA self proclaimed "good guys". Idiots that fall for this get the karma they deserve. You can find stories and read about it on the internet it is all over the place. The best bits is how they always find excuses. The fund came up with "there is no way we could have predicted the 911 attacks". The stupidity of this excuse is really beyond. I don't even know where to start. Well I don't think I need to explain. They clearly were in the wrong business entirely. "Oh no there are risks in the business" 😂 One of optionsellers client shared a google doc of his 1 million (in total) portfolio, here it is, it goes from left to right day by day so you can see how the positions evolve and how James Cordier holds onto his losers forever, until death pulls them apart. docs.google.com You can find the second to last idea James Cordier published on seeking alpha here: seekingalpha.com He got all excited at the "free money" (greed & euphoria) and then sh** his pants (fear), held the bags, blew up. The he was less excited (pain regret sorrow etc). Emotions -> Emotions -> Emotions. Mistakes -> Mistakes -> Mistakes. Like a baws. And the guy had 20 years experience or so. His last idea was a short on coffee and he was very right. Should have just went short for real with leverage since he was gambling anyway rather than sell for "only" 1.8 million. The website has his ideas since 2009. You know these people I think they just hate losing. He probably was right often enough but I am not going to backtest his ideas got better things to do (got a new zombie game to try haven't been able to play games in weeks because idk they bore me but at the same time I really need a distraction I must be alone having to force myself to play games rather than the other way around). It is not the case for all of them of course, but I am sure alot would make money without having to use 50 leverage if they just applied their analysis and accepted to take the risks, rather than look for some really stupid trick to always win. As a speculator you get rewarded for absorbing risk/volatility. Sometimes down sometimes up, but on average more up than down. How can some people be in the business, and not as market makers or arbitragers or brokers, for 20 or 30 years and still look for "sure thing" strategies and be afraid of taking a loser? Who cares if the portfolio moves a bit in 10 or 20 years the end result is what will matter. It is clearly not for every one. They should know better and be prepared for the "big events", but they go pavlov brainwash and emotional and feel good about it, as long as it has not happened they think it won't (and even once it does some don't even learn and think they really fell under the wrath of god and did nothing wrong as demonstrated by Victor Niederhoffer, seriously how dumb is this guy? I don't have a quarck of respect for him.) If you are able to survive those big events, accept small drawdowns and they do not cause you to make mistakes, you are already ahead of many. Another obstacle to be making money in this game. When you "have it" it really seems like a no brainer, but yes there really are alot of people unable to climb that obstacle. Aren't 90% of casual investors bagholders? With "strong hands". So afraid to take a loss. Strong hands ye right, weak chins. The receding chins are using computers now so they don't piss themselves, but I don't think the computers will be able to do everything, just the small day trading. If we get to the point computers can go THAT far to predict the future weeks away (not just M5 stat arb etc) we won't even need markets anymore anyway, and we'll be too busy visiting other galaxies xd Imagine science without all the dogmas and politics. Imagine politics without all the politics. And so on. I ain't worried. My tip to profitable speculators: learn to invest, find a passive income stream, you never know if you'll still be making money in 10 years, but don't be too worried all opportunities just disappear (unless communism). Yes you never know if it is a pullback or the end, it is easy to look at it in hindsight compared to being in it and think "oh it just goes up".
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NYMEX:NG1!Education
by MrRenev
6
Psychology of OTHER People in the Market Matters More Than YoursMorning Traders - The next in our series of education posts is going to focus solely on Psychology. specifically regarding the psychology of OTHER people in the market. Once you nail this topic its going to give you a huge edge on the market. Any trader is always looking whether the next few price swings are going to be bullish or are they going to be bearish? That is the essence of trading - If you know the next few price swings are going to be bullish then it makes it easy to make money right?! Once you have this identified then you simply just need to time your entry, the safest way to do that would be to be watching for a short term pullback against your bias of where the price swings will be headed. Its important that when looking at these price swings, you watch HOW the price moves, don't need to concern yourself with any chart patterns or candlesticks, but ask yourself as you watch the price move, is the price moving with strength or weakness? If price is pulling back from your bias with weakness then this is an opportunity to place your entries and wait for the price swings you have anticipated. If price pulls bask with strength then it could be time to consider you bias again and stay on the sidelines. The real key when analysing price action both in the long term price swings you see and in each movement within those price swings is the psychology of everybody else that is trading in that market with you. Much has been written and spoken about regarding making sure you own mindset and psychology is right within trading but I personally feel understanding how other people are feeling within the market is worth so much more. Once you understand how other people are feeling, their emotions etc then its becomes easier you predict their actions. One of the most powerful emotions we feel that affects our decision making is fear. Im sure everyone can easily anticipate the actions of a fearful person, so we just need to translate that into the chart. So start watching where are people getting trapped into bad positions? When are they feeling fearful that they made the wrong trade? When are they praying for the market to turn around? These are the traders you want to target because by their nature these are weak traders and likely unprofitable ones, you want to watch for points in the market where these traders know they have got it wrong.. So you should be looking to take the other side of their trades and profit from their mistakes. The other major aspect of fear you should look for in markets is FOMO. Fear of Missing Out. You see this type of emotion ALL the time in markets, its essentially the market equivalent as when you see people run for the tube / underground as the warning beeps have started and doors are closing... People who have been sat watching the market for a while suddenly see it moving in one direction and start running to enter the trade as quickly as they can... the psychology of this is that they will likely enter with the wrong position size, they haven't analysed the new market conditions that were different from when they were watching the market before, and most importantly their risk management has now gotten out of control. When you see after an already strong price movement that it starts to slow down momentarily and then rockets again in the same original direction - This is typical of FOMO trading. Its wise when you see this to start thinking about places some trades opposite to these traders. So when people say you should analyse price action - this is the most powerful way to do that. Its not about head and shoulders patterns, its not about doji candles or anything else you hear spoken about... Its simply about human emotions and how they are expressed within the charts. To be successful you need to start identifying the moments and points in the chart where you know people will buy after you have already brought, or where they will sell after you have already sold.
Education
by JoelWarby
😱Types of Fears in Trading😱Link on a good view👇🏻 There are several main types of fear: 💡- fear of losing all capital in the account. One of the most common fears. The trader clearly understands that the numbers in the terminal are his money, and their reduction limits his financial capabilities in the future. Under fear of losing an even larger sum, a market participant does even more stupid things or even refuses to trade; 💡- fear of losing money in a losing position. Similar concerns arise during the transaction period under the influence of strong market volatility. This kind of fear is easily correctable; 💡- fear in time not to see a signal to enter or exit the market. More often it's faced by newcomers, who will not imagine what risks are in the trader’s deals and how to protect themselves from them ; 💡- general fear of working on the market . It can act as a negative background and prevent you from making the right decision. Often, such fears are eliminated by gaining certain knowledge and experience on the exchang e; 💡- fear of receiving another disadvantageous deal. Such fear leads to the appearance of excess fuss. As a result, the trader misses a really good deal; 💡- fear of early fixation of income (fear of loss profit). The position could still be kept open, but the trader reduces his risks, closes the deal and receives less profit. For many market participants, the fear of making such a “mistake” is even stronger than the fear of losing trad es.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by RocketBomb
16
Hope. 🙏🏻 Fear. 😱 Greed. 🤑 Welcome, guys! 😊Today I wanna talk with you about our feelings and emotions💋💋💋 💥 Fear of falling prices provokes a sell , and the opportunity to lose chance to make monney leads to an unreasonable buy .💥              ⚡Such pernicious emotion like greed is a manifestation of the trader’s arrogance and his thirst for a good income as soon as possible, which also provokes the unfoundedness of transactions.🤷🏻‍♀️         Many psychologists and scientists do a lot of research in the study of human emotions and feelings, the results of which show the ability to control their emotions. 💪🏻 In trading, managing emotions is a very necessary. 💪🏻 Let's consider three seemingly simple emotions on which a trader’s work in the market depends in more detail: 📌Fear 📌Hope 📌Greed 😱 The role of fear in trading 😱         In fact, fear plays a significant role in the market. Fear often deprives the trader of the opportunity to earn money, but also saving him from making fatal decisions. The emotion of fear often serves as a kind of "brake" for the trader.        A frightened trader is obsessed with the adverse aspects of trading. Fear of losing money generates a lot of other negative emotions in your head. 🤑 Trader's greed would destroy. 🤑 Greed is a disastrous and dangerous feeling, especially for a trader. The prevalence of greed rarely can help to achieve the desired result. It depriving people of the ability to think soberly and objectively. Often, having felt success, a trader wants to earn more and more by making the following mistakes: ❗ Untimely exit from the transaction ❗ Hold position more then you need ❗ Overstatement of risks 🙏🏻 Hope is the last thing to die 🙏🏻 Of all three emotions, most market participants live with hope. This emotion is completely opposite to fear, because its presence affects the positive thinking of the outcome of the trade. In moments of hope, the thinking of market participants is aimed at making profit, not losing it. People trade in order to achieve success and financial stability, taking income from the market. The circle of such people was divided into optimists and pessimists, absorbed in hope, fear and greed, only to different degrees. One way or another, an overabundance of these emotions can lead to losses . The best option is to find the “golden mean” and learn how to manage your emotions.💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 😊😊I hope you enjoyed my post, don't forget to support me with like 🌞, subscribe,for don't get lost!💋 Below are links to my previous ideas👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 Stay with me🌞 Your Rocket Bomb🚀💣
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by RocketBomb
23
Crypto Fear & Greed Index can tell you when to buy BTCWhy Measure Fear and Greed? Crypto market behavior is very emotional. People tend to get greedy when the market is rising which results in FOMO (Fear of missing out). Also, people often sell their coins in the irrational reaction of seeing red numbers. With our Fear and Greed Index, we try to save you from your own emotional overreactions. There are two simple assumptions: Extreme fear can be a sign that investors are too worried. That could be a buying opportunity. When Investors are getting too greedy, that means the market is due for a correction. Therefore, alternative.me analyze the current sentiment of the Bitcoin market and crunch the numbers into a simple meter from 0 to 100. Zero means "Extreme Fear", while 100 means "Extreme Greed". You can find the indicator in TradingView and it is quite amazing what it shows. In a bull market, it actually shows you great buy opportunities for buying the dips or playing the swings! Hope you will enjoy it! If you like this post give us a like also. Thank you!
COINBASE:BTCUSDEducation
by Samoto
3
"VIX, a powerfull tool to use on SP500" by ThinkingAntsOk -Today we are going to show Vix Index on daily chat compared to SP500 (orange line). The first thing we noticed is the Wedge formations on the chart. -As Vix starts going down, SP500 keeps rising, the concept is that people trust on the strength of the bullish trend, on this process we can see the Wedge patterns on VIX, and bullish trends on SP500. -To see the Wedge Pattern we only need to draw a line between the higher lows on VIX. -OK great! But how can I do something with this? -Let’s see it on this way, imagine you have been following a bullish movement on SP500 and you see that is about to face a major resistance zone and you observe that the bullish trend is losing strength. When you detect this, you are going to Focus you attention on the VIX chart, and you are going to ask yourself the next question. -Is price inside the Wedge Pattern or is about to break out? -If the price has broken out the structure and SP500 is on a Major reversal zone, then, that’s a strong bearish confirmation to start thinking on bearish setups. -Why should I look for bearish setups? Because that means that people is starting to have fear of a possible bearish movement that’s the reason VIX is making new highs and has broken the Wedge pattern, we should complement this by seeing bearish candlesticks on SP500 with high volume on them. -Conclusion: see on the pictures how Vix preceded the beginning of the two previous bearish trends with a breakout signal. -Complementing charts is always a good way of making your setups more solid. *Please note that the above perspective is our view on the market, We do not give signals and take no responsibility for your trades.
CBOE:VIXEducation
by ThinkingAntsOk
1
Trading Psychology 3 Fear Keys to building a strong Traders Mentality (Probability Mindset) There are many hindrences to developing the probability mindset, and it would be easy to write an entire book dedicated to them all. However most of these issues fall into four broader categories; fear, false beliefs, trading the "now moment", and edge execution. In the following paragraphs we will touch on these key issues and simple ways to address them. Fear As humans we all experience fear throughout our lifetime and so much so the "fight or flight" response has been genetically enbeded into our DNA. Many traders believe they will natuarlly be able to “trade as a computer” after X amount of practice or experience. They assume these components of human nature will eventually give way and soon they will be able to trade without fear or emotions. There is a problem with this theory. We are not computers, and never will be. We are human, which means we are susceptible to emotions and fear responses that are built into us. We are also far from perfect, and full of mistakes, furthering us apart from computers. With this said, it is extremely unlikely a trader will be able to over-ride his natural insticts without slowly and gradually changing his way of thinking first. The best way to overcome fear is through exposure in small doses. For example someone who is afraid of heights, is not taken to a fifty foot cliff and forced to jump off. And he surely does not overcome this fear spontaneously, or naturally after any period of time. Instead he is slowly exposed to heights and as he gets comfortable, taken to increasingly higher points. He may jump off a ten foot cliff, then twenty, and so on until he reaches the fifty foot cliff and jumps off. It is important to realize his fear was never removed completely, but rather he was able to cope with the fear and still jump. This model can be applied to trading, whether it is slowly building a position size, executing an edge every time it is present, or getting comfortable being in the market with looming uncertainty. Fear can often be debiliating, and is a major hurdle to overcome when transitioning from an amateur to professional trader. The most common result of fear is "anaylsis paralysis" where a trader is unable to make an action due to information overload. There are many different types of fear that occur while trading. Fear of failure, success, missing out, leaving money on the table, and mistakes, just to name a few. It is normal to feel uneasy when putting on a trade or while in a position. The problem lies within hesitation when fear prevents you from entering an otherwise reasonable trade, or any other necessary market action (take profits, cut a loser, hold longer, ect). If you find yourself not entering a trade, there are only two reasons why. First, the trade does not meet your edge criteria, which is a completley valid reason to not enter a trade. The second which is a problem, is fear. When a trader stops entering trades meeting his criteria due to internal fears, he begins to cherry pick trades, and skews his traders equation. This can mean the difference between a profit and a loss at the end of a series of trades. Understanding and recognizing fear within yourself and the market is vital to profitable trading. Awareness of fear within yourself is the first step to overriding and correcting it. And recognizing fear in the market is often a good opporunity to position a profitable trade. It can also be helpful to realize fear only exists in terms of one's ego and is not actually real, only percieved. Using "Halfsky" position to overcome fear Many traders experience fear and hesitation after a series of losing or winning trades. When he passes on a trade which works, he is upset he missed out. If he enters and loses, he is upset he gave back profits. This back and forth continues to build, and again leads to cherry picking trades as he believes he can identify w
Education
by tradersmentality
The dangers in listening to the newsI'm sharing a chart to give my sentiments about listening to the news. New traders especially tend to listen to the news and website opinions about where markets are heading. I show a bit on how I approached a particular situation on the US30. A lot of news is late and people who create news items or blogs have their own biases, based on the information they have. The news can be dangerous to trading as it can cause a trader to become apprehensive, doubtful and stay out of trade setups that may be quite sound for entry. News can be depressing and cause a trader anxiety. Some very important earthshaking news may be useful e.g. some major monetary policy change in Europe or America. But on the whole, listening to or reading news is fraught with problems. I've found that I make better decisions when I approach the markets with a kind of fearlessness described by Mark Douglas . The fearless state of mind is not 'recklessness'. It is about calmly making decisions and accepting risks in a reasonable way, based on a tested strategy. None of the above or the video is advice to traders.
FX:US30Education
by Captain_Walker