Optionetics: Good or Bad ?

panlee · Mar 21, 2005

Just attended the 2 hour preview of Optionetics in Singapore. It costs about USD3000. With this price you get:
- 4 books & 4 DVD to study before the hands-on
- 1 audio set
- 2 days course hands-on and course by expert trader
- expert trader support (could be 1 year) to help you place order
- your spouse and associate pay about USD1200 only.
- Children before 18 is free
- unlimied reattendance of hands-on (can come back to attend). They admit you are not able to grasp all after first hands-on.
- guarantee - if you follow their system and not make back the course cost within a period (I think 6 months) then they will refund the money in installments
- guarantee2 - they give the dvd and book when you sign up, and when you are not happy you can return and get back the money before noon of 1st day of hands-on.

Hope its useful. Not sure if US have the same as above. I am not attending...
Regards

Samson77 · Mar 21, 2005

Look at the end of the day you still need a market bias to make money (You need to know the correct market direction UP Down or Sideways)

Options are a fantastic way to make a nice leveraged return BUT they are useless unless you have the CORRECT market direction.

Every options strategy can be found for FREE on the internet and there are 3 or 4 excellent $50 books that will teach you all you need to know about options.

So the question is "Does optionetics give you a viable method of determining market direction" ???

The answer is NO!

They sell Advanced GET a second party software that anyone can buy and even after being an optionetics grad you will have to pay for it too and it stinks.

So the bottomline is learn the strategies from the $50 books and then find a reliable method of determining market direction and there you have it.

Save your money and do not buy a $150 education for $3k.

It's ridicules!

MYDemaray · Mar 21, 2005

Another thing I love about options is, you don't need to know the market direction exactly. You have three choices:

Up, Down, Sideways (as Samson77 mentioned). But with options, you just have to eliminate 1 of those choices. Then put on a position that profits from the other two. I love it.

DTM · Mar 22, 2005

Quote from Walther:

Any 2 day seminar for 3K is a ripoff.

I used to trade options and teach option trading so I can tell you that only way to trade options profitably is to be able to time the underlying.
For example : use credit call spread if you believe that top is in place.
use credit put spread if you believe that bottom is in place.
buy calls and sell puts on pullback in uptrend.
buy puts and sell calls on pullback in downtrend.

I just saved you 3 K .

"The complete idiot's guide to Options and futures" by Scott Barrie for $20 and the Walther's above information would be more than enough for a comprehensive introduction to options.

Unfortunately I didn't get Walther's advice so am left out of pocket for 3k.

LoosenUp · Mar 22, 2005

Quote from Samson77:

Look at the end of the day you still need a market bias to make money (You need to know the correct market direction UP Down or Sideways)

Options are a fantastic way to make a nice leveraged return BUT they are useless unless you have the CORRECT market direction.

Every options strategy can be found for FREE on the internet and there are 3 or 4 excellent $50 books that will teach you all you need to know about options.

So the question is "Does optionetics give you a viable method of determining market direction" ???

The answer is NO!

They sell Advanced GET a second party software that anyone can buy and even after being an optionetics grad you will have to pay for it too and it stinks.

So the bottomline is learn the strategies from the $50 books and then find a reliable method of determining market direction and there you have it.

Save your money and do not buy a $150 education for $3k.

It's ridicules!

I am not so sure if you absolutely need market direction to profit from options because a few of the top performing funds explicitly state that they believe that market is efficient and that it is pointless to time or predict the market. They just execute market neutral strategies and are having good results. Who's to argue with them? I believe that if you have certain risk management, it might not be absolutely necessary, although there is no harm having additional edge. I am interested in what others think too.

mhashe · Mar 22, 2005

Quote from LoosenUp:

I am not so sure if you absolutely need market direction to profit from options because a few of the top performing funds explicitly state that they believe that market is efficient and that it is pointless to time or predict the market. They just execute market neutral strategies and are having good results. Who's to argue with them? I believe that if you have certain risk management, it might not be absolutely necessary, although there is no harm having additional edge. I am interested in what others think too.

How can hedge funds make substantial amounts from market neutral strategies. If you hedge both sides of the trade, does'nt the resultant profit/loss leave only a marginal profit at best.

MTE · Mar 22, 2005

Quote from mhashe:

How can hedge funds make substantial amounts from market neutral strategies. If you hedge both sides of the trade, does'nt the resultant profit/loss leave only a marginal profit at best.

Using market neutral option strategies and hedging both sides is not the same thing.

For example, you can use straddles, strangles, butterflies, condors, vertical spreads and so on...the possibilities are endless really - that's the beauty of options.

Samson77 · Mar 22, 2005

Quote from LoosenUp:

I am not so sure if you absolutely need market direction to profit from options because a few of the top performing funds explicitly state that they believe that market is efficient and that it is pointless to time or predict the market. They just execute market neutral strategies and are having good results. Who's to argue with them? I believe that if you have certain risk management, it might not be absolutely necessary, although there is no harm having additional edge. I am interested in what others think too.

OK go ahead and write the WRONG market neutral stratgies in a sideways consolidation or run away trend , see how far that gets you!

You need a bias but as (MYDemaray) said you only need to have 2/3 rds of the equation right with some stratagies.

To help with the bias part I recommend "Technical analysis of the Financial Markets" John Murphy

and there are several excellent beginner options books by Natenburg and McMillian.

AlexJ - if you are serious about trading pm me and I will share some of my experiences with you.

hjcolvin · Mar 22, 2005

Here is a website where you can get some educational material http://www.onlinetradingstore.com/index.html

I personally have purchased some of the self study courses and found them informative.

To echo the others who have posted here. There is no quick/easy road to success. Because if there was everyone would be doing it.

Joe

Madison · Mar 22, 2005

Quote from Lefty62151:

Alex:

There are no (none, zero, 0) weekend courses that are worth $3,000.

Learning about options is demanding. You need to have a basic background and then work at it gradually. Retail traders especially new participants have very little chance of making money unless they take time to get their act together.

well put. another resource is Natenburg:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-9688609-3507218?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

as Lefty said, take the time to get a solid grasp of what's involved - at the least you will see why anyone claiming to "teach" the subject in a weekend is full of it.