Options-strategy
How I Find The Best Trades Every Time: My 3 Step SystemOn my $500,000 margin account thus far, I’ve realized more than $65,000. Now, I put $250,000 in cash into this, and since it is a margin account I got $500,000 in buying power.
Today I want to show you my three-step process of how exactly I find these trades, and I want to show you two very specific examples of trades that I took today (At the time of this writing on April 15th, 2021). So let’s take a look at how I found and executed these trades with this three-step approach.
Step Number One: Find The Right Stocks
So step number one is where I use the tool, the PowerX Optimizer, and the Wheel Scanner.
I want to show you exactly what this does because the strategy that I use is called The Wheel Strategy. This strategy means that you are first selling puts to collect premium.
The second part of this strategy is, you may or may not get assigned the stock. If you do get assigned, you move on to the third step where you sell covered calls.
So here is exactly what I do, and what I did this morning. The scanner within the PowerX Software updates every two minutes and shows me a list of stocks that meet my criteria.
What criteria am I’m looking for? I want to make at least 30 percent annualized in premium that I would collect. So here’s what I do. First of all, I know that the stocks the scanner pulls up already meet my criteria.
Then I look at the charts to identify support and resistance, mainly support, which is actually step number two.
Step Number Two: Look For Support
I look to see if there is any support. This helps me figure out if I want to own the stock at the strike price that comes up on the scanner.
So for example, American Airlines came up with a strike price, as you can see, of 20 or 20.5. So the key question here is, “Do I want to own (AA) at the price of $20.5?”
Well, looking back at American Airlines to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. I see that American Airlines has been trading very solidly between $26 and $38.
So it seems to be a good company to buy at $20.50. Again, this is my main criteria here, deciding if I want to own the stock at the strike price. However, in the short run, I believe with all of the uncertainty that is going on with the pandemic right now, that the airlines might be hurt.
I mean, you might have heard a few days ago that Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine got labeled as potentially dangerous, and therefore it is paused right now.
It also seems that around the world, the outbreaks are flaring up here in the United States. It seems to be under control, but worldwide there’s a problem. So do I really want to own American Airlines?
They dropped down as low as $8. So is this a good price to own them? This is where I can flag them as saying yes, no, or maybe.
Now let’s talk about the two stocks that came up this morning that I liked (April 15th, 2021). The first one was (PLAY). So PLAY, Dave and Busters, came up with a strike price of 41.50. This is where I thought, “do I want to own PLAY at $41.50?”
I looked back and zoomed out a little bit to pre-pandemic times before the coronavirus hit. They have traded solidly around $38. They’ve been trading as high as $64. I thought about if I’d be OK owning PLAY, at $41.50.
So this is where I sold puts that expire next Friday. So the idea here is that we are staying above $41.50 by next Friday. So here is what happens if I’m right. I sold 24 contracts and I sold them at 50 cents each. Since options come in hundred packs, that’s $50. So the premium collected for 24 contracts, times $50, is $1,200.
$1,200 for a little bit over a week, with today being April the 15th. It expires on April 23rd. So in 8 days, this is not bad at all. Right? This means that I’m making $150 a day.
Now, if it closes below $41.50 I get assigned, and I am okay with this because this is where I decided I want to own the stock at $41.50.
The other one that popped up this morning was Schwab (SCHW). Schwab reported earnings and as a result of this. They plummeted down and there was some really good premium in there, so I sold the 63.50. I sold 16 contracts for 14 cents. Now, this is expiring tomorrow, so this is a different play, right?
The premium I collected here was $224. So obviously way less than the premium that I collected here for PLAY, but this is a play that expires tomorrow. So we want to make sure that tomorrow, April 16th, if Schwab closes above $63.50 I just collect the premium and have nothing else to do. If Schwab goes below 63.50 by tomorrow this is when I get assigned.
So the important criteria here is, for the Wheel Scanner, is the so-called premium per day, or PPD. So in order for my account size to make the 30 percent annualized in premium I want to see at least $100 per day.
So with PLAY, I’ll collect $1,200 in 8 days, when it expires next Friday. This means that we are looking at $150 per day. Then we had Schwab, and we collected $224. If we count today, this makes 2 days, so this brings our PPD to $112.
So my goal is to collect $100 per day, and I want to be in 5 positions at any given time. So if we can do this, this would be $500 per day. $500 per day (this includes weekends), for 365 days, comes to over $180,000 per year, and I’m doing this on a $250,000 cash account, which is a $500,000 margin account.
So, and as you can see, this is a little bit more than the 30 percent annualized, as you can see here.
If we divide $180,000 by $500,000, then we see it is 36 percent. So there we go. You know what, sometimes I achieve the goal, sometimes I don’t. Well so far, this year, I’ve realized $65,000 in profits. So this is REALIZED profits. Now I do have unrealized profits and losses, and we’ll see how this turns out.
And this is in 4 and a half months. So I’m basically on track to make a little bit more than the 36 percent here that I have as a goal. I’m on track to make probably around $200,000 for the year.
Step Number 3: Any Negative News?
This step involves checking to see if there is any negative news. Here’s how I do this. I just Google the stock and click on “News.” When you click on “news,” it shows you the Google searched for news articles, and you can scan these for any negative news.
What I’m mainly concerned about here are lawsuits, and clinical trials. When they have a clinical trial, they can either go very well or very badly. Possible bankruptcies, bankruptcy. So these are the key things that I’m looking for when I look for negative news.
Summary
So how do I find the best trades to trade? My three-step process is I like to make my life simple and easy by using the PowerX Optimizer and running the Wheel Scanner, because I want to make, on a $250,000 cash account, around $180,000 per year.
That would be $15,000 dollars per month. For me, this is trading for a living. I can cover my living expenses with $15,000 per month.
Step number one is where I get the technical criteria. Next is where you look for support and decide if you want to own the stock at the strike price. This is where you simply go through the scanner and say, “yes, no, or maybe.”
Finally, is there any negative news? Because if it is too good to be true it is. You should definitely look up stocks on Google, click on “news.” So you can just read through this fairly quickly and make an informed decision.
So that’s basically it. This is my three-step approach to finding the best trades.
$60,000 Explosion Big Short movie setupIn the movie, the big short Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley took trades with options out of the money with low probability.
This is an example of such trade, 100 options contract worth $6000 if SOS will run up again, this trade could make $60,000.
If the price will move to $21, this trade could make $120,000
This also shows that options are leveraged, if you would like to buy the shares you would need to pay $39,000 for 10,000 shares.
In this trade, the max loss is $6000, when buying the stocks the max loss is $39,000
How will it end? What do you say?
My Planning Process Revealed In 4 Simple StepsIn this article, I want to show you exactly how I am planning to achieve more in 12 weeks than others achieve in 12 months.
First of all, I’m not saying that I’m an expert on goal setting, because I’m not. I’m just sharing the planning process that works for me, it might be completely different for you.
The Most Important Thing For Me In My Planning Process
One of the things that I have learned over the years that works best for me is, I don’t create a plan for everything. Let me explain what I mean by this.
Many, years ago, I heard about a concept that they use in the military, which is called Backwards Planning. And you might have heard about this.
Backwards Planning
The idea here is that you start with the exact goal in mind and then plan backwards.
I have heard this example many years ago where it was used in the military where they say, for example, let’s say you want to invade a camp on the enemy’s territory.
So the idea here now, is to go backward and say, “OK, what exactly has to happen right before you invade the camp?” Well, this is where obviously you need to have your troops surrounding the camp.
Then you go one step backward. What needs to happen before you have your troops surrounding the camp? And I’m making this up here as we go. I don’t recall this example exactly.
I was not in the military, this is just an example that I’ve heard. So in order to surround this camp with your troops, what do you need to do? You need to get your troops to that camp that you want to invade.
In order to do this, first of all, let’s assume that this is on foreign soil, so you need to get your troops to foreign soil. So this is what the military often uses, so I was told, which is backward planning.
The idea here with backwards planning is that you create a detailed step by step plan of what to do.
Here’s one of the challenges. I don’t do this, because based on my experience, the problem with this is what do you do if something goes wrong?
So let’s say that one of the first steps is that you are getting your troops on foreign soil, well what happens if somehow you can’t because there’s bad weather or you’re getting attacked?
This is where I found that often when you do this, the whole plan becomes kind of useless. This is where for me, I figured out that planning can be overwhelming. It can make the process daunting and can make me feel paralyzed.
I don’t know about you, but what happened in the past before I did what I’m about to show you here is, I got paralyzed. I never achieved my goals because I couldn’t get over the first hurdle of planning.
I want to show you exactly what I do these days to avoid this.
4 Steps To My Planning Process
Step One: I write down my goal.
Step Two: I plan the next two to three steps, and here’s why.
My idea is, and this is what I found to be true, when I walk the first steps the path will reveal itself.
Imagine walking down a foggy path. You don’t actually see the end of the path where it is leading.
When I have a goal, I realized that when I plan out the first few steps and start walking, as soon as I get towards the end where I can see, the path will again reveal itself.
So this is where, going back to my planning process, it works really for me to plan the next two to three steps.
Step Three: I take action and complete these steps.
Step Four: When the fog starts clearing and I see the next step, then I add more steps or to dos to it.
Planning Process Example
This article is all about my planning process and how to achieve more in 12 weeks than most people achieve in 12 months. So let me give you a very specific example of how I’m doing this.
One of my goals is to buy a resort in Mexico.
Goal & Overview
Usually I write myself a quick overview of what is it that I want to achieve. I’m meeting with my private Mastermind members usually three times per year in exotic locations to trade, relax and make money together.
In the past, we have done it in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Mexico and other locations, but finding a hotel with reliable Wi-Fi as well as getting all of our equipment there has been really challenging.
Right now I think that there’s a tremendous opportunity because I know for a fact that the travel and hospitality industry is hurt because of Covid-19.
I don’t know for a fact, but there might be a possibility to buy a hotel or resort for $0.60 to $0.70 on the dollar. So if that’s the case, it would be possible to make a 50% ROI within one to two years and that’s not bad at all, right?
It could be even more, it could be 100%. So this is now where I write down a few to dos.
This is where it goes back to my planning process. So I write down my goal and an overview of what I want to accomplish.
So now you know why I’m doing this, what I want to accomplish here, and now I plan the next two to three steps.
Planning Process Steps
My first step is I want to get an idea of what kind of investment is needed. Is a resort around one million dollars? Two million dollars? Is it more, is it less?
Then I want to get an idea if this is at all possible to make money with, because ultimately if I can make money with it, why wouldn’t I do it?
I mean, just having a hotel to have a hotel does not make sense. So what’s the best location? The location should be up to 1,000 miles away from Austin and here’s why.
I’m planning to buy a plane, and this plane that I have in mind right now has a reach of 1,000 miles.
So I’m looking at possibly Mexico, Puerto Rico, Belize, Dominican Republic, Honduras, who knows. This is where I first wanted to find out what a possible price point is?
Last weekend I was in Sacramento meeting with my head coach Mark, my CEO Debbie, and marketing director Jared. I shared this crazy idea with them and we had some fun looking for hotels online.
Based on my research, I’ve found it’s probably between 1 to 2 million dollars that I would have to invest for anywhere between 20 and 30 rooms.
That was fairly easy and only took me a few hours. I can now move on to the next step in the planning process.
Now the question is, is it possible at all to make money with this? Because if not, then I can stop right here.
Does It Make Sense?
I have been investing in apartment complexes for the past five years. To give you an example, I bought an apartment complex with 48 units here in Austin for 2.3 million dollars.
I’m making $30,000 in rent per month so I know how to run this.
$30,000 in rent per month is covering my financing, which is a mortgage, also insurance. This is also taking care of the property management, utilities, maintenance, renovations as well as capital improvements.
Now I know, having an apartment complex is not the same as running a hotel or resort, but I just wanted to see if this is feasible, and in a moment, I’ll show you why this is making sense.
So you see, I already know on 48 units, which is quite a lot, on $30,000, I can do all of this and I’m making a profit. So that’s good, not a big profit but I’m making a profit.
Now the question is if I need $30,000, let’s divide this by 30 days because now we are going to the resort, this means that I would have to bring in $1,000 in revenue per day.
The resorts that I started to look into were around 26 rooms, 17 rooms, 22 rooms, so let’s just say that I will find something around the 2 million dollar mark that has maybe 25 rooms.
This is what I’m looking for. So the key question is, can I make $1,000 per day in revenue, not in profits, with 25 rooms? It sounds like it’s possible, right?
Again, I have no clue. There’s probably more vacancy, but if I can rent out half of the rooms every day, so 50% vacancy, and I rent them out for $80 per day, this means that I would have rented 12 rooms for $80, which is $1,000.
I know that there’s housekeeping, so there’s probably more than property management and maintenance, right?
But I believe that these are quite realistic assumptions. If they are not, and if you have experience in this space, leave me a comment below and let me know.
Summary
Here’s the important thing. Let’s tie this back to what today’s show is all about, right? How I get more done in 12 weeks than most people get in 12 months.
Now, here’s the deal. How long did it take me to do the first two things thus far? Well, I can tell you four to five hours. And now I know whether it makes sense to pursue it before I go down a rabbit hole.
What is my point with all of this? My point is to stick to something really, really simple when going through the planning process.
Keep it easy where you set a goal, then plan the next two to three steps.
Or if you want to go crazy, as I did here, we could do three to five steps.
Then the most important thing is to take action and complete these first steps. Once you do this, you’ll see whether it makes sense and you can plan the next three to five steps and complete this process.
Bank nifty LongAll the levels with green line are a buy call and with a red line are shorting levels....
For me now bank nifty has entered into a bullish territory and won't bank nifty now till any sign of weekness. I will try to buy on dips bank nifty but only till I find a good risk reward and again I remind you downside my all targets of nifty and nifty Bank are not yet achieved...2 big targets are only done positionally we would try to play this bounce but positionally I won't carry any long as I still think there is more downside left ...
All the levels are informed in the chart so enjoy trading❤️🙏
Best Brokerage Account 2021Let’s talk about the best brokerage account, and in order to do this, I want to compare five different brokers for you.
I’ll be comparing tastyworks, the current broker that I’m currently trading with, Robinhood because many traders are using it, TD Ameritrade because it’s wildly popular, Interactive Brokers because it’s great for international traders, and we will talk about a new broker that I’ve been using for the past couple of months, so I have an account with them.
I want to talk about this and compare them to the others and tell you why I really like this new broker and why I’m in the process of switching over all my accounts.
The first thing to keep in mind when you’re comparing different brokers, you have to pick criteria that fit your needs.
These are my criteria and they might be great for you, or your criteria may be different. So what I’m looking for when finding the best broker.
My Criteria For Selecting A Broker
So the first thing that I would like to know is how much do I have to pay in commissions per month? I use a certain baseline for this.
With my current broker, tastyworks, I looked back over the past three months and I wanted to see how much I spent. From 1/1 through 3/31 I made 150 trades and traded 1,665 contracts.
So I use this as my baseline in order to compare these different brokers. I took to see what if I make 150 trades, or 50 trades per month and 500 contracts that I’m trading per month.
Again, for you, it might be different, but we need to have somehow a baseline, especially when we are comparing the commissions per month that I’m spending right now, that I would be spending on Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, interactive brokers, and this new broker that I’m trading with.
Now, every single broker has some other fees, and you need to see which of these fees are important to you. Here are the ones that are important to me.
I want to know if there any wire fees and if so, how much are they?
Also, are there any assignment fees? Assignment fees are important to me because I’m trading The Wheel Strategy, and part of this strategy is getting assigned shares, so I want to know how much this will be.
Information about their customer support is also important to me. What happens if I need help and I need to call or e-mail them? Do they have an online chat feature? So this is important for me.
What about the platform? Every single broker offers a platform for you, so which one best fits your needs?
This is where we get a little bit more technical because I want to talk about levels three and four. What does this mean?
Well, it means that, especially when you are selling options which you do with The Wheel Strategy, you need certain option trading permissions, so you want to know how easily can you get level three and four if this is important to you.
Now, last but not least, I love having live data. I don’t know about you, but I want to make sure that live data available with these brokerages.
I also want to know how much it costs if anything. So let’s get started and let’s talk about the first broker here, tastyworks.
tastyworks
I am currently using tastyworks, and I know exactly how much money I spent on tastyworks.
On this particular account, I spent $550 dollars in commissions.
For the baseline of 50 trades and 500 contracts per month, I spent around $180 in commissions.
Now for tastyworks, how much are wire fees? When I wire money out, which is once a month, it costs me $25.
What about the assignment fees? The assignment fees for tastyworks are $5. I want to explain to you exactly how they are charging.
So with tastyworks, they charge $1 per contract and they do have a $10 maximum. So you’re never paying more than $10.
Even if you’re trading 50 contracts, you will only pay $10.
They also have no closing fees and this applies to options trading. For stock trading, these days, trading stocks is free pretty much everywhere.
So we want to worry about options here because that’s what I’m mainly trading.
What about customer support? I must say their support is good. The experiences that I have had thus far when I contact them by chat are very quick.
When contacting them through chat, they usually only have me on hold for three to ten minutes.
Now, what I do not like about tastyworks? You cannot call them, and sometimes I would rather speak with someone on the phone, so this is why I’m not labeling it “very good,” I’m just labeling it as “good” because you can’t call them.
As for their platform, I think it is pretty good. However, I’m just using a fraction of the platform, so for me, the most important function is actually placing trades.
I’m not using any of the complicated curves that you can have and all of the analysis tools, but again, if this is important to you, then you need to make sure that this platform meets all of your needs.
For me, it does what I need it to do, which is entering trades.
Now level three and four is actually something that is quite easy to obtain with tastyworks. So no problems there, and live data is actually free.
Robinhood
As for Robinhood, how much would you pay in commissions per month? Well, Robinhood has always advertised you pay zero commissions, and that is true. For options trading, you also pay zero dollars, which is actually pretty cool.
Wire fees are a whopping zero dollars with assignment fees being zero dollars. So thus far Robinhood is really good in terms of commissions, right?
Well, what about customer support? Now, full disclosure, I do not have an account with Robinhood, so I’ve never contacted them, but based on what I have heard, it is pretty bad.
What about based on what I’ve seen? I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but back when we had the GME craziness, Robinhood restricted trading for several days.
I don’t think that was fair. I don’t think that they should have done that, but they did.
This makes it seem to me they don’t have their customers in mind. Now, again, full disclosure, I don’t have an account with them and never contacted them. I’ve just heard that customer support is pretty bad.
What about the platform? I don’t know first hand, but I’ve heard it’s good. Again, this is where I go from hearsay because I don’t have an account with Robinhood, never had one, & don’t want one.
In terms of levels three and four, I heard from traders who have an account with them say it is fairly difficult to obtain levels three and four.
If you’re trading The Wheel Strategy, this is super important. As for their live data, it’s free.
TD Ameritrade
Now on to TD Ameritrade. How much would you spend with TD Ameritrade based on my baseline? You would pay 65 cents per the contract that you trade.
So if you’re trading like me, 500 contracts per month, times 65 cents, that comes to $325.
What about the wire fee? The wire fees here are also $25, the same as with tastyworks, but assignment fees are zero.
Now, what about customer support? Customer support used to be good. Right now I would say it is decent.
There was a time when you could call them they would pick right up. These days you are probably on hold for anywhere between 15 minutes and 2 hours because they got bought by Charles Schwab.
There seems to be a lot of consolidation going on and because of this, and because of this, it seems that customer support is suffering.
What about the platform? ThinkOrSwim is probably one of the most powerful trading platforms out there, and it is fairly complex.
For me, I just need to enter simple orders such as buy and sell orders. So for me personally, it is too complex.
It took me a long time to learn it. For those of you who have ThinkOrSwim, you either love it or you hate it. Either way, it is so complex, so you probably had to spend hours and hours learning it.
Levels three and four are fairly simple to acquire, and also live data here is free.
Interactive Brokers
Now with Interactive Brokers, I personally do have three accounts. I’ve been using them since 1999.
They’re a great choice for international traders. However, Interactive Brokers charges 65 cents per contract.
So very similar here to TD Ameritrade. If I would trade on Interactive Brokers I would actually spend $325.
The wire fee here is a little bit cheaper, $10. The assignment fees, if you get assigned, are zero.
Now their customer support, based on my experience is pretty bad. I’ve tried contacting them by chat, by phone, by email, and if you’re trying to contact them by chat, you will most likely be on hold for at least 20 minutes.
If you try to contact them by phone it is not unusual to wait 30 to 60 minutes until you get connected.
Their platform here is actually simple to use, but I find it’s pretty clunky. So just if you want my opinion and again, this is just my opinion.
You on the other hand might find this platform blazing fast and think it’s the best trading platform there is.
Now, in terms of levels three and four, yes, it is fairly easy to obtain, but they charge you $14.50 for live data, so just keep this in mind.
This is a monthly fee so you just need to know what you need.
So with the new broker, and I’ll tell you in a moment who that is, but when I saw all this mess going on in February where several brokers restricted trading, I said, “you know what, this is not fair.”
When I heard from some of you say, “My broker suddenly raised the margin requirements and I didn’t have a margin problem before and now I have a margin call,” or that you’re on hold forever before you get any customer support, I set out to find a great broker, and here is the new broker that I’m currently using.
Tradier
The new broker that I’m using is Tradier. I will move all of my accounts over to them because of what they’re offering.
The commission per month, it’s a $10 flat fee. $10 no matter how many options you trade.
This is a special rate for those of you reading these articles, and following me on YouTube.
So I think it is an absolutely cool model because it is a flat fee no matter how many contracts you trade.
Now, this, of course, is great if you are trading a lot of contracts like me. You have seen it, 500 contracts per month, with 150 trades, so I’m a very, very active trader.
I think it is absolutely cool that instead of paying $180 per month, all I’m paying right now is a $10 flat fee. That is pretty cool.
Now the wire fees are a little bit more expensive. The wire fees are $35, but again, I’m using it once a month.
So, therefore, if I’m adding this up, all right, and I say, well, that is $205 per month versus $45 a month, and for me, that adds up.
Right. It’s only a $10 difference from tastyworks, and I’m not wiring money in and out like crazy. I’m just wiring it out once a month and that is okay.
So the assignment fee here is a little bit higher, at $9 as of right now. So over the past three months, I had 3 wires and I had 8 assignments.
This is for the year. This means that per month I have 1 wire and approximately 3 assignments.
So as you can see, this is why the assignment costs here for me are not that important.
Again, these are my numbers, your numbers might be completely different, and that is fine.
This is where the cool thing is you have probably your brokerage account statement, so you can take a look at that, and then you know exactly how much you’re paying right now.
So the customer support, I must say based on my experience, over the past two months that I’ve been using them, is awesome.
What do I mean by awesome? By awesome I mean that I can pick up the phone right now.
I can call them, and within two to three rings, somebody picks up. The customer support team is in North Carolina, so I’m not going overseas, they are here in the United States.
They have been super responsive by email and by phone. I don’t even know if they offer a chat on the website because I was just so happy that I can finally talk to somebody.
Again, I’m coming from tastyworks, and on tastyworks, I’ve never, ever been able to talk to somebody because their business model is that they’re all doing it by chat, so I love this.
What about their platform? Their platform is simple, and in my opinion, it is super easy to learn.
So you can learn this platform in literally 10 minutes because that’s what they do. They just say, hey, if you want to enter trades, which I want to do, it’s fine.
They don’t have all of the bells and whistles that the other platforms have. So I would say it’s more comparable to Robinhood instead of a platform like TD Ameritrade because with Robinhood you just enter the trade and it is good.
So it’s simple and easy, does the trick for me.
Levels three and four are super easy to get. And live data is free. So this is what this new broker is all about.
For our members, we have created in our private community a special discussion group, and in this discussion group, we are here to help you, support you, with this particular brokerage. Which again is called Tradier.
So, for example, people have been asking if they open an account for business, an LLC for example? And the answer is yes. So you can ask us if you want to, of course, you can contact them.
So this is what we have here. We have a Tradier discussion group.
We do have tutorials for you such as videos on how to open an account, how to set up a paper trading account, and that reminds me, they offer paper trading. As you know, I highly recommend that you trade on a paper trading account first.
There are also videos on how to fund your Tradier account, how to place a stock entry order for the PowerX Strategy, how to place options order for the PowerX Strategy, entering orders for The Wheel Strategy, how to check your positions.
Summary
OK. So, again, my promise is to show you the best broker and this is the best broker for my needs. Now, for your needs, it might be different, but I thought that I compare here that the top five brokers that most traders are using right now.
$TSLA bulltrend continues? Long call vertical spread!TESLA smooth RSI confirms the breakout, well defined loss level.
Max profit: $165
Probability of Profit: 60%
Profit Target relative to my CAP: 46%
Max loss with my risk management: ~$100
Req. Buy Power: $355 (max loss without management at expiry, no way to let this happen!)
Tasty IVR: 16 (relative low)
Expiry: 51 days
Buy 1 TSLA May21' 595 Call
Sell 1 TSLA May21' 600 Call
Debit Call spread for 3.35db, because IVR is relative low.
Stop/my risk management : Closing immediately if daily candle is closing BELOW the box, max loss in my calculations in this case could be 100$. Probability of loss in this way: ~20% .
Take profit strategy: 50% of max.profit in this case with auto sell order at 4.2cr. Probability of profit this way: ~80%.
Of course I'll not wait until expiry in any case!
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AMD/XILINX - WILL THE AQUISITION PUSH THE PRICE HIGHER?NASDAQ:AMD is slightly up today, POSSIBLY on the hopes that the XLNX acquisition will be passed at their meeting. I am still bullish on AMD with the first price target being at the 50% fib retracement level of $84, and the second being $89.
Options activity has been 3 to 1 calls to puts for this Friday with the average strike price being $82, which suggests we will not drop far in price unless market sentiment shifts. XLNX news will make or break this asset in the very near term, however I strongly expect a earnings run up if the price is effected negatively by today's news.
TRADE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
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Are Trading Courses Worth It?So let’s talk about trading courses. Are these trading courses really worth it?
As you know, there’s definitely no shortage of them out there.
With all these free videos out there, do you really need to buy a trading course, and if so, what is the best trading course?
What Is The “Best” Trading Course?
Let’s actually start with the elephant in the room. Which trading course is the best?
This is one of the questions that always hear, as well as, “Which trading course should I buy?” and “What is the best trading course?”
Here’s something that may surprise you. There is no “best” trading course. You see there’s only “best for you.”
So what does this mean? This is where many traders make a mistake in the beginning. You need to know what you want from a course before you buy it.
So what do you want from a course? You probably want to make a lot of money, and that’s cool, but how exactly do you want to do this?
Criteria To Consider
Let’s go over some criteria. What do you want to trade? I mean, do you want to trade stocks, or do you want to trade options?
Maybe you don’t care and you just want to trade whatever makes the most money, and that’s cool, we can talk about this.
Do you want to day trade or do you want to swing trade? What’s the difference? When day trading, you need to be able to spend time in front of the computer.
You might not be in the position right now to be able to do this, to be in front of the computer. So, therefore, swing trading might be better suited for you.
Another important factor to consider, your account size. Do you have a small or large account?
This is important to consider depending on your goal. Are you trading for growth, meaning that you want to grow your account, or are you trading for income?
So do you want to have a strategy that you can trade on a larger account, like a $200,000-$400,000 account, or are you in the stage in your trading life where you have a rather small account of maybe $5,000 or $10,000 and you want to grow it?
These are important criteria to consider when deciding what the best trading course is for you. There is no one-size-fits-all trading course.
I mean, I would love to tell you, “you know what? I have the perfect trading course for you.” This actually might be true depending on your criteria. It’s really super important that you understand what to look for when you look for a training course.
Let me give you just a few more criteria that I think are universal criteria for any training course.
For example, is the instructor of the training course a real trader? I mean, is he actually putting money on the line?
Is he trading a real account? Or is he just showing you woulda, coulda, shoulda trades and say,
“You know what? Here is how much money you could have made if you bought Tesla last year and now it is up, 500%” or something like this?”
So is the instructor actually placing real trades so that you see he is actually trading for income?
That’s actually a bonus, right? So I would say, are they trading for income? How is the instructor making money?
Because honestly, I think if you can’t make it as a trader, if you cannot trade for income, you have no business teaching others.
In my opinion, one criteria of great trading courses are those that provide coaching and support. Now let’s talk about are trading courses worth it?
Are Trading Courses Worth It?
So let’s talk about this and let’s be honest. There are many free resources available out there.
Especially on YouTube. This is where I think it is very important that you don’t feel pressured to buy anything just yet, especially if you’re a beginner or new to trading.
You want to have a basic understanding first.
You want to learn some basics like how to place an order. You should learn the difference between a call option and a put option?
What is theta in options? So for basic stuff like this, I don’t believe that you need to pay anybody anything.
I mean, on my Youtube channel there are probably more than 700 videos you can watch, all for free.
Here’s the important thing. Trading courses, or no trading courses. Trading courses are not the magic bullet that will solve all your problems, and here’s why.
You see, trading is a skill. Think about it, how do you acquire a skill? Do you acquire skills from just reading a book or watching a video? No, you actually have to do it.
If I wanted to learn how to paint, is it enough if I just read a book on how to paint to become a great painter?
No, I have to try it. If you want to learn how to play golf should you just get a book that tells you how to play golf, and you read the book and now you can magically play golf and participate in tournaments?
No. Same in trading, right?
Trading is a skill like everything else, and so I hate to break it to you, but there are no shortcuts to success.
You have to put in the work. It not what you want to hear, but if you were hoping that I give you the magic course that automatically makes your money hand over fist, honestly it doesn’t exist.
A trading course teaches you the basics and it teaches you some tips, but you have to learn how to trade for yourself.
How do you do this? The best way to do this is on a simulator. I want to give you a very specific example from my personal life right now.
My daughter is 15, her name is Vivian, and Vivian has a learner’s permit. She would like to get to her driver’s license once she’s 16.
Now, there is the possibility that parents, here in Texas at least, can teach their kids how to drive.
So I am Vivian’s instructor, and so I am sitting next to her in the car, but she has to drive. What we are doing right now, we are putting in 50 hours of driving.
Vivian has a little spreadsheet on the back of her door to her room where she’s marking off every time that we are driving for an hour.
I wish that this would exist for traders, that they have to put in at least 50 hours on a simulator with an experienced instructor before they trade live, but unfortunately, this is not how it works.
We do 50 hours of driving, and out of these, we have our goals.
For example, we will do 10 hours of night driving, because driving at night, as you can imagine, is different than driving throughout the day.
We will also do 10 hours of interstate driving. If you’re on the interstate you need different skills because now suddenly everything is much faster.
This is how we have broken it down into different skills that she needs to acquire.
So are trading courses worth it? To recap what I mentioned earlier, I believe that trading courses are worth it, and here’s why, with a few “IF’s.”
I believe a trading course is worth it IF the instructor is an experienced trader. Think about it, I mean, in order to be able to teach my daughter Vivian how to drive, I need to be an experienced driver.
I need to have a driver’s license. I need to have a spotless record otherwise, I wouldn’t be allowed to teach her, right?
If you want to learn golf, wouldn’t you hire an experienced golfer instead of just asking, your neighbor? I believe this is important because after all, we want to make money with trading.
Now, the other important thing is, trading courses are worth it if the instructor can give you shortcuts.
So what do I mean by this? I mean, you can acquire any skill on your own.
I believe this. I believe that probably you could learn how to play golf if you read a book, watch a few videos, and then just put a lot of time and effort in there, but what do I mean by shortcuts?
Shortcuts are there to save you time and money, especially when trading, right? I mean, if the trading course, and if the instructor can help you to avoid a few losing trades.
Losing trades are easily a few hundred dollars, sometimes a few thousand dollars. However, if you could trade losing $1,000 versus investing a few hundred dollars in of course would you do this?
Or if you could avoid losing $20,000, would you invest $2,000 in a course? Probably, right?
I also think that this is super important, especially for trading, but I believe trading courses are worth it if there are coaching and support involved, and here is what I mean by this. Most of you already know I am offering a trading tool, it’s the PowerX Optimizer.
Some of you have seen me using it on my “Coffee With Markus” Live streams on my Youtube channel, and I use it every day in my trading.
But here’s the deal. A tool is just helping you a little bit, right? I believe that this is a bonus. So a trading course is super helpful if there are tools involved.
Back to the golfing example, if you want to learn how to play golf and you get lessons from a pro let’s say, he says,
“Oh, yeah, and by the way, before you diddle around and get the wrong clubs, I actually have the perfect clubs for you.”
I mean, wouldn’t that be much easier?
So this is where the tool that I personally use and that is available to you is the PowerX Optimizer, and I love it.
We are coming out with a version 2.0 soon.
So I think training is very important. So this is where, for example, a training course is helpful if it gives you the important things about getting started, but then also of how exactly do you trade stocks, and how exactly do you trade options.
If we are looking at trading stocks, you need to know what are the different order types, how do you place a stock to the long? How to short?
How to set profit targets and stop losses, right? So this is one of the things where it’s really important that a trading course shows you how to do this, but that’s what I mentioned earlier.
I think the coaching and support here are super important, right? Because this is where you need ongoing handholding. For me, this makes a lot of sense.
Summary
So are trading courses worth it? Which trading course is the best? It really depends on what do you need.
I know that some of you have wasted a lot of time and money on various training courses just to find out that it is not for you.
This is why I say before you buy a course, okay, know what your goals are. Know what you want from a course.
I think that is super important. Know exactly what do you need help with. Then you choose the right one because again, there’s no one size fits all.
Trading is a skill, you have to put in the work. I wish I could tell you,
“Oh, you know what? All you need to do is invest in the PowerX Optimizer and tomorrow you will be the best trader in the world.”
No, you know that I’m giving you a 90-day money-back guarantee because I believe that it takes maybe a week, two, three, four weeks to really learn how to use this tool, to practice on a simulator, and I don’t want you to feel rushed at all to say,
“Oh, I’m under the clock and I only have 30 days to evaluate this tool and this course,” right?
I mean, take your time. Take 90 days, because most traders fail in the first 90 days and I want to make sure that you are succeeding
NOVARTIS AG, NVS - 4.0% in 35 daysI understand the euphoria of picking on a winning horse and getting returns in excess of or even more than 100%, but what you need to pay attention to is money management and managing your positions.
You can buy stocks, you can buy futures, you can buy bonds and you can buy and/or sell options.
The key is always to use the instruments that we feel confident in and to have the ideal timing.
It is never just one of these two individually.
In this case, we have opened a position in our portfolio on Novartis (NVS), which will surely generate us a 4% return within a month.
Our goal is always a monthly return between 4%/5% monthly which on a compound growth we get an average of 50%/60% annually.
NYSE:NVS
Why Options Are DangerousIn today’s article, I want to answer a few questions about why options can be dangerous.
What are the risks of trading options? Are puts or calls riskier? Why is option selling risky? We’ll also talk about the safest options trading strategy.
So let’s get started and let’s jump right in.
Buying Calls & Puts
First of all, you need to understand that there are different types of options. There are call options and put options.
So calls versus puts, which one is riskier? Some people think that trading puts are riskier, while some people might think that trading calls are riskier, but this is not the case at all.
The key question is that you should ask yourself is, are you BUYING options or are you SELLING options?
There’s a huge difference between buying and selling, as well as different levels of risk involved between the two.
So when you’re buying options, the maximum amount you can lose is the premium you paid. So let talk about a very specific example. Let’s look at a trade I took with TSLA and let’s say that we want to trade a call.
So let’s maybe say a 700 call and right now the price is $700. What is the maximum that you can lose?
Let’s say that we are bullish on Tesla and we believe that Tesla might go above $750, and we want to buy a call with a strike price of 750.
So a 750 strike call expiring next week costs around $1.70 (at the time of writing this article on March 19th, 2021).
Now options come in 100 packs, so this means that you’re paying $170 for this option.
So in this case, if TSLA does not go above 170 by next Friday, you would lose the $170. So this is very easy, the maximum amount that you can lose is the premium that you paid.
On the other hand, you are bearish on Tesla. You believe that it might actually go down to $560 so you’re thinking about a put option with a strike price of 560 that expires next week.
A put with a 560 strike price expiring next week is $4.50 so a little bit more, pricier here. Again, since options come in 100 packs, this means that your total risk here is $450 per option traded.
It’s the same risk here because it doesn’t really matter whether you’re buying calls or you’re buying puts. The maximum amount that you can lose is the premium.
Now, on the other hand, there are SELLING options, and when you’re selling options, this is when your risk is almost unlimited.
When you’re buying options, and let’s just say you want to buy a call, this means that you want the stock to go up.
So going back to our TSLA example, if we would buy a call 750, that it is expiring next week for $170, if Tesla goes above 750, we make money.
If Tesla goes below 750 or stays at 750, we lose the premium or $170. So not really a big deal.
Now, how much money could we make on this one? Well, if we buy a call for 750, we have the right to buy 100 shares of Tesla for $750. So let’s say that Tesla closes at $800.
So in this case, our profit is $800, minus the $750 that we bought Tesla for, which is $50 per share. Since options come in 100 packs, this means that we would make $5,000 in profits.
This is why people love trading options. Because if you think about it, we’re risking $170 and can potentially make $5,000 if Tesla would go up to $800.
Now, let’s quickly do an example here for buying a put. So buying a put and in this case, you want the stock to go down. Using our example for TSLA again, we will buy a put with the strike price of 560 for $4.50.
So our total risk here is $450.
So now if Tesla goes below $560, the strike price here, we make money.
Now, if Tesla stays above 560, we lose the premium. But that is the maximum that we can lose.
So even if Tesla rallies right now to 800, we would only lose $450. So that is pretty cool, right?
Let’s say Tesla goes to $500. So we were able to sell the shares for $560, now we can buy it back for 500.
So this would be $60 per share. Since one option equals 100 shares, it means that we would make $6,000 in profits.
So as you can see, with options, you can benefit from a stock going up, as well as a stock going down, and the really cool thing is that you can risk a little to make a whole lot.
Now, here’s the challenge with this. If you buy a call, you only make money if TSLA is really going above $750.
So if it stays below, that’s not enough for the buyer of an option to make money. If Tesla goes sideways well, same here, right? Then you not only won’t benefit from it, but you also lose the premium.
If Tesla goes down, you also lose the premium. So if you think about it, there are actually three ways how you can lose money and only one way how you can make money, and this is if Tesla really shoots up.
This is why many people, including myself, are interested in SELLING options.
Selling Calls & Puts
What are the pros of selling options? The first pro is that you don’t need to be right about the direction of a stock to make money.
Here is an example I’m in right now (at the time of this writing on March 19th, 2021) with LL Lumber Liquidators.
So right here, Lumber Liquidators, I actually sold a put with a strike price of 22.
When does the buyer of a put make money? Well, the buyer of a put makes money if it goes below $22.
For me, the seller of a put, I make money if Lumber Liquidators goes up, it goes sideways, or it goes down. It can go down all the way to 22.
This is a drop of a little over 10%. So if you think about it, if LL can go down by 10% and I am still making money and this is why again, this is why selling options is so fascinating.
So you don’t need to be right about the direction and you can keep the premium.
So here’s the deal, the premium that you receive is exactly what the buyer is giving you. So the premium is rather small, right?
So the cons are the premium is rather small, and this is where your risk is almost unlimited.
So back to our example here with Lumber Liquidators. I sold a 45 of the 22 puts, and I received $0.20 per share, so $20 per put option.
$20 multiplied by the 45 options means that I’m making $900. So this is the premium that I receive.
However, here’s the deal. The buyer of a put has the right to sell 100 shares at the strike price.
So what does it mean for me? So the seller, which is me, has to buy LL at $22, and again, this is where one option means 100 shares.
So for me here, since I’m having 45 options, this means that I would have to buy 4,500 shares.
Because this is where we get to the risks of this strategy here. Now, again, Lumber Liquidators can drop more than 10% and I will be just fine.
But what happens if it drops below, let’s say to $20 from $22. OK?
So I would have to buy Lumber Liquidators at $22, and therefore I would lose $2 per share.
Here, in this case, I have 4,500 shares times $2, this means that I would lose $9,000.
Now you get the idea of why selling options is fairly risky, because I’m receiving $900, but if it only goes down by $2, I’m already losing $9,000.
But what if it gets worse? What if LL drops to, let’s say, $15, right? Again, I have to buy LL at 22, so I would lose $22 minus $15, $7 per share.
Since I have 4,500 shares, time $7, this is where I would lose $31,500. OK. So as you can see, it is super risky if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Now, I have been doing this for a long time here, selling premium, and I’ve been doing really, really well.
Analyzing Risk With RIDE
Let talk about a particular trade that I made with RIDE . I sold the 21.50 put and RIDE dropped.
I sold 47 contracts, 47 contracts, which means that I own 4,700 shares at a price of 21.50. RIDE right now (March 19th, 2021) is trading at $13.50.
So right now, RIDE is at 13.50. So this means that I lose (21.50, minus 13.50) $8. So I’m losing $8 per share and I’m having 4,700 shares, bringing me down to a total of $37,600.
Now, let’s talk about it. How much money did I make selling premium on RIDE? Just on RIDE here.
I sold the puts initially, then I sold calls, I sold calls, and I just sold a few more puts. In total on RIDE, thus far, I collected $4,935 in premium, but I also have an unrealized loss of $37,600.
So it’s super important that you understand that there is risk involved. Now I know my way out of this. I know how I can trade my way out of this if needed.
So I collected $4,900, but right now I’m down that amount. However, this means that my net loss is if I would close it right now, which I’m not intending to do, would be $37,000 minus the $4,935, let’s just say $5,000 to make the math easy, is $32,600.
That would be a real loss. This is why it’s super important that you understand the risks when you’re trading options.
Safest Options Trading Strategy
Now, one of the questions that I receive all the time is, “what is the safest options trading strategy?” The safest options trading strategy is covered calls, and here’s why.
When you are trading covered calls, it means you own the stock, and now you are selling calls against it. So what does it mean when you are selling calls? When you are selling calls, it means you have to sell the stock at a certain price.
Back to my example with RIDE I own 4,700 shares, and I own those at $21.50.
So this is where if I sell calls at 22.50, so this means that I have to sell RIDE shares at $22.50. So how much money do I make?
So I bought at $21.50, and I sell at $22.50, so this means that I’m making a dollar profit, $1 profit per share.
And since I have 4,700 shares I would make $4,700 plus the premium I receive for selling the call. OK. So this is in addition, and therefore, covered calls are by far the safest options trading strategy.
The only way how you can lose with this strategy is when the stock goes down.
This is where you already own the stock, and therefore, if you want to sell calls against it, it is the safest option trading strategy, at least based on my experience and my opinion.
S&P500 Long Call Vertical 66% Probability Of ProfitI've played yesterdays some S&P500 with vetical spread.
(1) RSI in the middle zone
Any direction is possible
(2) Forming a bullish triangle - again
Similar cases in the past one year:
(3) There is a little more space to the upside
(4) Relative Implied Volatility is low
So I'm choosing a debit strategy.
CONCLUSION:
I'm using LONG CALL VERTICAL -
Buy 1 SPY April16' 375 Call
Sell 1 SPY April16' 380 Call
Debit call spread for 4.12 debit
Probability of Profit: 66%
Profit Target relative to my Buying Power: 21%
Max profit: 88$
Max loss at expiry: 412$ (Buy Power)
Max loss with my risk management: ~95$
Tasty IVR: 4.8
Expiry: 36 days
Stop/my risk management: Closing immediately if daily candle is closing below $379
Take profit strategy: I'm taking at the 55% of max.profit in this case with auto sell order. (at 4.56 credit)
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Why 90 Percent Of Traders Lose MoneyYou might have heard this, “90% of traders lose 90% of their money in the first 90 days of trading.”
This is known as the 90/90/90 rule. I don’t even know if this is true, but it seems that a lot of traders are losing money.
So this is why today, we’re going to talk about what causes most traders to lose money. Then I’ll give you practical tips on how to avoid it so that you can be part of the few that actually make money with trading.
What Do You Need To Become A Successful Trader?
There are three things that you need to really become a successful trader. If you’re missing even one of these things, you already have a big problem.
So let’s start, with the first thing you need. This is the most important thing that a trader needs and this is a trading strategy.
Now, there are traders out there who are trading without a strategy, and the number one reason that I see traders fail is they don’t have a trading strategy.
A trading strategy tells you what to trade, when to enter, and when to exit.
So as you can see, a trading strategy doesn’t have to be super complicated, but you need to know what to trade.
Here is what I see many traders doing since they don’t have a trading strategy. They are going for the flavor of the day, and the flavor of the day might be something that Jim Cramer is saying, something that Cathie Wood, the famous, or infamous hedge fund manager of Ark Investments is saying, or maybe something that they read in the news.
This is the worst thing you can do. I’ve been talking a lot to traders, or not really traders, but people who are getting started in the market, and I ask them, “what are you trading right now?”
They usually just name the most popular stocks that are being traded.
These are stocks like TSLA , AAPL , AMZN , and NFLX . Then recently, as you know, with the GME hype, the GameStop hype, a lot came up there.
But you see, if you’re not trading with a strategy, you are not a trader, you are a gambler.
Now the second important piece that you need as a trader is that you need to have the right tools, and I can’t stress this enough.
Here’s the deal, if you want to compete in what they call the game of games, if you want to really make it as a trader, you need to have professional tools.
Think about it this way, if you only have a strategy without a tool, it’s like trying to win NASCAR riding on a lama, right? I mean, it doesn’t work this way.
So it is super important that you have the right tools. You can’t win a car race on a lama or on a donkey, you get the idea, right?
The third thing you need to be a successful trader is having the mindset.
So you see, you can have the best strategy, you can have the best tools, but if you don’t have the right mindset, you will lose money.
You see, in fact, I see it all over. Sometimes people think all they need is the right tool, and they will be successful traders.
Or they think all they need is a trading strategy and they will be a successful trader, but that’s not the case.
The reason why traders fail is not having the right mindset is because they let emotions get the best of them.
The two main emotions that we have as traders are greed and fear. I mean, obviously, we are greedy.
We want to make money this is why we get into this game of trading in the first place, at least that’s why I started trading.
But then there’s also the fear, the fear of losing money, but you got to be able to control these emotions.
We will talk about losses in a moment, but one of the challenges, because of greed, traders will often trade too often, meaning that they are overtrading.
Have you ever been guilting overtrading? It happened to me at the beginning of my trading career.
I remember when I was still a young trader and new to the whole trading game somebody told me, “if you want to make it as a trader, you have to take at least 100 trades a day.”
This person was probably a broker because I tried this, and it is impossible. I traded on a one-minute chart, tried to make 100 trades a day, and I found it just didn’t work this way.
Then there is revenge trading. Revenge trading is something that I did in the beginning because I thought, after I took a loss was the time for me to make back the money that I lost.
Something important that you need to understand is that the market doesn’t owe you anything. Sometimes the markets give, and sometimes the markets take away.
So this is why revenge trading is something that you need to avoid at all costs. The good news is in the long run, usually, the market likes to give, at least to those who are serious.
You must understand that losses are part of our business as traders, and it is sometimes really easy to become overconfident.
However, whenever you think that you have the markets figured out, is when the market is going to throw you a curveball. There will be always surprises and situations that you have never encountered. Some call these black swan events.
Often what I see is that many traders who are new to trading simply focus on the wrong things.
Most young or new traders focus mostly on the entry. They think if they can just time the entry, this is when they’ve figured it all out.
Well news flash, money is made and lost when you exit a trade. So timing the exits is almost more important than timing the entries.
Sometimes traders focus on just having a strategy with a high winning percentage, but this is another mistake.
You don’t need a high winning percentage. In fact, you can make money with trading even if you’re wrong half of the time.
The magic happens actually when all three things are coming together. So how can you do this? I want to share a little bit with you about what I am doing. Well, first of all, let’s talk about trading strategies.
The Trading Strategies
First of all, what you need to understand is that there is no “best” trading strategy. It amuses me actually when people argue with me about this. People will ask me what will you do if this or that happens.
Well, you see this is where I’m not saying that you should trade my trading strategies.
I show you what I personally do, and how I’m making enough money to trade for income to trade for a living, and let you make the decision if it’s right for you.
I can’t tell you if my strategies are right for you or not, but I can tell you there is no “best” trading strategy.
Either a trading strategy is making money or it doesn’t, right? So if a strategy is making someone money, I would never, ever criticize anybody who is making money with that strategy. Who am I to say you’re doing it wrong?
When it comes to the strategies I use, sometimes people ask me, “why do you do it this way? Why don’t you do it the other way?” and I’ll be happy to explain to you why I do certain things. It’s always interesting to see that some people feel that I need to become a better trader, and I appreciate your concern for me, but I’m actually doing pretty good.
A trading strategy must fit YOU. It must fit you in terms of capital requirements.
There are some trading strategies that you can start with as little as $5,000. There are other trading strategies that require more money.
So you need to make sure do you have enough money for this particular trading strategy.
The other thing might be time requirements. Some trading strategies require you to sit in front of the computer all day long. Now, this is not for me.
I personally like to watch the markets for 10 or 15 minutes before they open, and then for 30 minutes after they open. So personally my own trading is usually just 45 minutes in the morning.
Now, fortunately, I don’t have a job, I have nothing else to do but watching the markets, this is why I do it. However, some of the trading strategies that I trade, actually don’t require you to watch the markets at all.
So there are time requirements to consider, there are capital requirements to consider, but then also possible drawdowns you need to keep in mind.
Without risk, there’s no return. No risk, no reward. See, if you don’t want to take any risks at all, and make sure that you never, ever lose any money, then you should put your money into a savings account.
In a savings account your money will be safe, right? But it also earns only about a quarter percent right now. So if you want to make more money with trading, then you have to risk some money.
So there’s a fine line regarding the risk and rewards ratio. So you need to be aware of the risk, and the more risks you’re willing to take, the higher the rewards will be.
But keep this in mind when you’re looking at a trading strategy, there are a few things where it might make sense for you to trade the strategy or it might not make sense for you to trade the strategy.
The PowerX Strategy
There are two trading strategies that I like to trade, and the first strategy is the PowerX strategy. Now, for the PowerX strategy, there are a few criteria here according to whether or not it's the “best” strategy.
So, first of all, the PowerX strategy is great for a trending market, and it doesn’t really matter if the market is trending up or down as long as it trends.
It does not perform well in a sideways or in a choppy market. This is what we are having right now, and this is why right now I am not trading the PowerX strategy as much as I used to last year when we did have trending markets.
Now, trading with the PowerX strategy requires a minimum of $5,000. So if you have five to $10,000, that’s actually perfect to get started with the strategy. If you have less than this, I don’t think that this strategy is for you.
Honestly, I don’t know a trading strategy that you could trade with less than $5,000. This is where I’m not claiming that I have the best trading strategies.
I have trading strategies that I personally have traded for many, many, many years that have stood the test of time and that are proven to make money, at least for me.
Now the PowerX Strategy is perfect for growing a small account, and here is why. With the PowerX strategy, you can apply money management, and money management is the turbo boost in your account.
It can help you to take your trading to the next level.
Now in terms of time requirements, when we talk about this, it takes around 15 minutes per day and you can do this absolutely while the markets are closed.
So if you have a demanding daytime job that doesn’t allow you to step away and look at the markets, then actually The PowerX strategy is perfect for you.
Again, it does have some limitations so it doesn’t work all the time. So you need to know when to use this strategy.
The Wheel Strategy
The other trading strategy that I like to trade is The Wheel Strategy.
So the Wheel Strategy is perfect for a market that going up, going sideways, even when it is choppy, or when the market is slightly going down.
It is not good for a bear market where the market is going down.
So you need to know when to apply what strategy. This is where, in the same way as you have multiple tools to fix the home, you need to have multiple trading strategies.
So here, when you’re trading The Wheel Strategy, it is an options trading strategy only. Here specifically, you are selling premium.
So this is where you could have a large drawdown, which is possible if you’re stuck in a position, as I am right now.
I am stuck actually in two positions. So let me show you the two positions that I’m stuck in.
One of them is AAPL , I bought it at 133. Right now, it is trading at 120, so I’m losing $13 per share that I own and I own 800 shares. So the question is, are we in a bear market? No, we are not in a bear market right now. Not at all.
We are somewhat in correction territory, and correction territory is when a market is going from the top from the recent high to down more than 10%. That is how a correction is defined.
According to the Nasdaq, we’re clearly in a choppy market. Since the beginning of the year, we have been grinding higher, coming back, going up, going sideways.
In fact, year to date, the Nasdaq is down .37%. So pretty much haven’t moved since the beginning of the year, but we are not in a bear market.
So you could have a large drawdown while you’re stuck in a position. Let’s talk about the other position that I’m in.
The other position that I’m in is RIDE , and RIDE is not doing well at all. So I’m flying a rescue mission here right now.
I bought RIDE at 21.50, and right now it is trading at half of what I bought it for. So obviously that’s not good at all, right?
So what I need to do right now, is work my breakeven all the way down by actually doing dollar-cost averaging.
Right now, I sold some more puts trying to bring down my cost basis from 21.50 to 18.70, then to 16. What I’m hoping for, and this is part of this strategy, is that I am getting a quick bounce.
Now, absolute full disclaimer. What happened here with RIDE, to be honest, why I got into this is because I was getting greedy. This is where trust me, I’ve been trading now for more than 20 years, even after this, I love money.
I saw a lot of premium on RIDE and I got blinded by the premium.
This could be the one trade out of, I believe, now close to 150 trades where I have to take a loss. So it happens. Losses, as I said, losses are part of the business, and never let greed get into your way.
So you could have a large drawdown. So here with this strategy, you need a minimum of, I would say, $10,000 in cash and you have to put it into a margin account so that you get $20,000 in buying power.
If you’re trading an IRA, you need at least $20,000 in your IRA because in an IRA you don’t get any buying power.
Time requirements for this strategy also require about 15 to 30 minutes per day. I think the best time to trade this strategy is during the open. So this means from 9:30 to 10 a.m. Eastern Time.
If you have been following me for a while, then you know, I’m not standing here and telling you, “You have to trade this way. My trading strategies are the best.” I would never do it because they may, or may not fit your style, which is absolutely fine.
The Best Trading Tool, The PowerX Optimizer
However, if you choose to trade these trading strategies, this is where I believe that I have the best tool in the world for trading the strategies.
I’m absolutely biased, but the tool that I have here is the PowerX Optimizer.
Here is why I think that this is the absolute best tool for it because this software has been programmed for these two strategies specifically.
Now, if you look at any other tools, for example, like TradingView, it is software with which you can do some backtesting and has a bunch of indicators built-in.
So first of all, this software, I feel is very complex to learn because you have multiple functions. And it basically allows you to trade any trading strategy whether you use a moving average strategy, you can trade with it, or you’re using a MACD strategy, you can trade with it, or you’re using Bollinger bands, you can trade it with it.
But you see, especially with the PowerX Optimizer, it has been designed to support the PowerX and the Wheel Strategies.
This is where it shows you exactly the three things that you need to know when you have a strategy. It tells you exactly what to trade, it tells you exactly when to enter, and it tells you exactly when to exit.
I’m using this tool every day, and I wouldn’t want to trade without it. I want to be absolutely honest.
If you would take PowerX Optimizer away from me, even though I know these two trading strategies inside out, it would be super difficult to find the best stocks to trade.
The other super important thing that PowerX Optimizer does is that it actually tells me what would have happened in the past if I had traded this particular stock group on here for example, according to the rules of the PowerX Strategy.
This is important to me because it gives me more confidence. The trading report basically tells you if you had followed the rules of the PowerX Strategy, what would have happened over the past year if you had traded a stock.
The summary it shows me actually the ROI, it shows me how many winning trades and losing trades I would have had, what is the winning percentage, the profit factor, the average win, and the average loss.
This here is based on a $10,000 account. So see if you have a $10,000 account, and your average loss is $122, I mean you’ll be fine, right? You’re not wiping out your account.
What is important to me in a tool? So first of all, what I want to have is a powerful scanner, because what the scanner does, a scanner tells me what to trade.
Now, the second thing is I want to see what would have happened if I traded this stock with this strategy. This for me is super important.
Then, of course, I want to get all the important data for trading. This means I want to know how many stocks or options should I trade, when to enter, and when to exit. So these are the important things.
This is, of course, combined with what can I expect from this trade. It’s so important that I also see the risk and reward ratio.
So here, for Groupon, I can expect to risk a dollar and trying to make $2.33. Now let me ask you, does this sound good? It sounds pretty good to me.
With the PowerX Optimizer, I also have The Wheel Calculator and The Wheel Scanner. The Wheel Scanner shows me what are the best candidates for The Wheel right now.
I’m actually super excited because we are about to release version 2.0 of The PowerX Optimizer.
Within the software with the new update, we distinguish between the PowerX Strategy and The Wheel Strategy.