Quote from jsv416:
Has anybody used the the heatseeker service that Optionmonster.com and Jon Najarian are pumping??
Yep, did it for a few months. Their track record was pretty lackluster. And I also sent them an email saying that they left out a trade or two, but I never saw them include it. However, that being said, I stopped trying to trade on their recommendations for the reasons they gave.
Instead, I basically just started gaming their advisory...so I'd make the trade as fast as I could when the email came through with their pick, and set a limit order to sell at a 10% profit. It worked a lot...you'd see the email come through, and then sure enough 10-30 minutes later you'll see the volume turn green and the IV spike.
This only worked if I acted quickly. I had to stop because I have a day job and would miss some trades because I didn't happen to be sitting at my desk at the time. I also didn't have the balls to put a lot of money on each trade to really make it worth it...I wasn't confident enough...(ie, just because it worked 8 out of 10 times doesn't mean that will always be the case). I also thought that I didn't have enough control over how quickly I got the email advisory...ie, if my work's email server happened to be sluggish, that could make a difference.
In summary, it's worth trying to game to see what you can suck out of it. But their whole theory that a stock MUST be on the move in one direction or another because of some volume spikes in the options is wrong enough of the time to leave you with a sizable negative return. Yes, every so often, you might catch a take-over, but there are a lot of "-100%" in their track record as well.