Options Mentoring

Quote from paladincomp:

Dan emphasizes to stay small for six months at least. The idea is to keep losses small while you're doing the Laurel and Hardy imitations and learning. Try doing 4-5 live trades per month for six months. Mix up the types...iron condors, butterflies, calendars, etc to get a feel for how different strategies work. As we all should know, there is no one holy grail of option trading. One strategy is not better than the other. They all have advantages and disadvantages.
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I understand one of Dan's veteran traders is very successfully trading one strategy.

I recently read an article written by a World Champion Poker Player. One of his learning strategies was to focus on one champion player -- learn his moves to the point that he could predict what the player would do in certain situations. He would then move on to another player and do the same thing.

I focus on one strategy, and get to know the fine details of its personality. Learning one strategy, for me, is better than "mixing it up".

That's just me.
 
Quote from hlpsg:

Cache Landing,
Not saying I disagree with you, but this has been my personal experience, and my thoughts on this.
.....

Just one (still searching) man's perspective on this whole retail trading business.
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The idea of what you're saying is very good. The reality of it is quite flawed. I've never met a mentor charging $5K that is worth the money. In my opinion there are two types of mentors that are worth it.

1) Free
2) Those who you couldn't really pay enough to make them willing to teach.

The interesting part is that the latter type are often free because they realize that there isn't a monetary compensation that is worth the hassle. Anyone worth learning from on a personal basis already makes enough money from trading. The notion of a measly $5K making it worth the hassle is ridiculous, and this only applies to someone who is more interested in making money from subscribers than trading.

I belong to the first group. I have a small group of people that I guide through the process too, but I don't charge them anything. I like charity, and it is fun to watch them progress. They know exactly what they are getting. Them paying $5K would only hurt the relationship. They'd need every moment to be worth the money; I'd feel pressure to make it worth it.

A good trader accepts that idea that there are frequent losses. A novice with $5K in sunk cost expects the mentor to eliminate those losses. The novice tells himself that he can lose money on his own and wonders why he paid money for someone else to show him how.

The fact still remains, a person who has what it takes to be a successful trader, also has what it takes not to need a mentor. The vast majority of people who must have a mentor, will need that mentor throughout their entire trading career. It's like learning a foreign language. If you sign up for classes and have someone teach you in an isolated environment, you'll eventually be able to get by. Conversely, if you grab a couple books/tapes and move to the applicable country you'll be fluent in a few months. Will you make a bunch of mistakes durning that first few months? Sure, but the mistakes are worth it. You simply must make sure that the errors are of little consequence.

I'm just saying that none of the "professional" mentors mentioned are any better than a few people here. Only the people here (or on other forums) are offering the same advice for free.
 
Quote from hlpsg:

Cache Landing,
Not saying I disagree with you, but this has been my personal experience, and my thoughts on this.

Each year we spend trying to find a workable strategy, we could be making 20-30% on our money.

There are tons and tons of books out there, but very few of them have workable strategies that are imparted to you in their entirety. The objective of most authors (I realise) is to 1) sell their books, and 2) promote some service that they're offering.

Having read my fair share of trading books, only 2 come to mind as having made any kind of tangible effect on how I would approach trading. The rest offer nice information, but I would have difficulty applying them to the markets in any meaningful way. Some are just a total waste of time and money.

So the time spent to read through so many books, how much has that cost us in terms of personal time as well as the cost of not having a viable strategy to trade?

We could go on trading one lots to try out strategies, and I'm sure someone who's persistent could make it. But trading one lot will still cost you money, and without the certainty that you'll finally succeed, few people will have the persistence to press on.

Having successful mentors who know what they're doing to model our trading after will greatly shorten this journey, and you could always get your questions answered. And you could probably start slowly ramping up your trade size after trading one lots for 2 - 3 years and got everything figured out and been through most kinds of market conditions.

I think I've been reading trading books for 7 years? Still haven't found anything viable that I would dare to commit my life savings to.

Just one (still searching) man's perspective on this whole retail trading business.
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Like you I've worked my way through a tonne of books. Only one author I have come across has any books that actually detail the strategy (each book only focuses on one strategy) in such a way that you can practically trade it. I have them all and found them to be very good and have more than recouped my cost by applying them, so I'm pretty satisfied - my only complaint is that he doesn't have more books covering other strategies that I'm also interested in. If you're interested they can be found at www.randomwalk.com and are a lot cheaper than any mentoring course. I find all the different methods of learning useful, it's just that some are more expensive than others.
db
 
Quote from daddy'sboy:

Like you I've worked my way through a tonne of books. Only one author I have come across has any books that actually detail the strategy (each book only focuses on one strategy) in such a way that you can practically trade it. I have them all and found them to be very good and have more than recouped my cost by applying them, so I'm pretty satisfied - my only complaint is that he doesn't have more books covering other strategies that I'm also interested in. If you're interested they can be found at www.randomwalk.com and are a lot cheaper than any mentoring course. I find all the different methods of learning useful, it's just that some are more expensive than others.
db
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Those books by JL Lord are the biggest rip off in the trading book industry. If anyone wants to learn how to trade collars and ratio spreads, I'll give you the info for free. Save the $500 per book. That guy should be in jail for charging that much.
 
There is no edge in paying someone to teach you how to trade ops whether through mentorship or expensive books and seminars. Learning theory is one thing, pulling money out of the market is something else. The less money you spent on the former, the better your chances with the latter.

And i am yet to see someone make a statement that dan sheridan is actually profitable. :)
 
Quote from Maverick74:

Those books by JL Lord are the biggest rip off in the trading book industry. If anyone wants to learn how to trade collars and ratio spreads, I'll give you the info for free. Save the $500 per book. That guy should be in jail for charging that much.
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Maverick,
I'd love to have that info. Thank you!
 
Quote from rallymode:

There is no edge in paying someone to teach you how to trade ops whether through mentorship or expensive books and seminars. Learning theory is one thing, pulling money out of the market is something else. The less money you spent on the former, the better your chances with the latter.
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This statement is spot on.

The benefit of having someone to guide you around initially is that they might prevent you from making a few incredibly stupid elementary mistakes. This in no way implies that they will help you in making correct trading choices, only in avoidance of obviously bad ones.

This service is not worth much money as every book written and every free forum contain the same error avoidance content.
 
Maverick,

I am not sure I agree with what you are saying from a practical standpoint. While that may not work on the option, why not just use the underlying to hedge until you work your way out of the spread?

I am not commenting on the rest of this thread. I have no idea about that guy one way or another.

nitro
Quote from Maverick74:

I just want to comment on one thing here. The idea that you can take off an IC when you reach a certain loss point is laughable to any of us that have traded for a living. When markets roll over, spreads explode. There is no such thing as being able to just take off a spread at a given price. Your 10 delta vertical that you are short for .30 will go to 4.00 on one print. So if you think you can just get out when the spread goes to .60 in order to preserve the credits you have earned in past months, the drugs you are taking are too strong, lighten up on the dose.

Unfortunately in the options world, stops don't work the same way as they do for futures or even stocks. Even if you put a stop order at .60 to get out, it becomes a market order when touched and your fill will likely be 3.00 to 5.00. If you decide to hold it and wait and see, you could possibly blow out your entire account.

I'm sorry, but this is not a viable risk management strategy. The only way I know of in my 13 years of trading to protect against losses in options trading is to ALREADY be long enough strikes to offset the move when that move occurs. You can't repair the position after the fact. Options simply don't work that way.

My ideology in options trading is if you are going to sell juice, you better make sure you get as much juice as possible. A .40 credit ain't going to cut it. There is nothing wrong with selling premium, just make sure you are long enough options and for God's sake people, don't be afraid to roll your shorts in.
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