Options Mentoring

Quote from daddy'sboy:

Far too late, I've done them. Remember I'm a retail guy who has a day time job and need someone to help me learn this stuff as efficiently as possible.
If I had to do it over again I would do them in the following order:
1. optionetics 2 day seminar as an introduction (~$3500) followed by
2. sheridan's mentoring (~$6000) and finally
3. cottle's (currently $6434) course.
total cost: $15934 or $12434 without optionetics.
Cheers
db
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This comment is not for db, just wanted to reference the 3 courses.

My main complaint against optionetics is that you do not get the right detail for the price. When people ask me about attending Optionetics I simply tell them to grab Trade Options Online and The Option Course by Fontanills and sign up for Optionetics online forum for free where you can ask questions of many different experts for free or read past threads with free info. Total cost is less than the $3,500 and I think you get more detailed info.

I am not saying they are a bad resource, just saying that I learned their info is available, plus more, at a lower price. I used to spend a lot of time on the online forums there without ever taking a course and the instructors are very open when answering questions from outside people. In fact when I was there, they used to go out of their way to say the forum was not for discussing Optionetics but open for general option discussion to anyone and they still follow that somehwhat in the general topic threads.
 
Quote from daddy'sboy:

What would be much more helpful is for a retail trader(s) to comment on what course he/she has taken to become a successful options trader and over what time frame. Maybe Mav can get the ball rolling and tell us how he went from retail to pro without joining some firm or other and how long it took. I hope others can chime in and tell us of their successful journeys.
I'm listening.
db
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db:

I am glad that you like taking courses. All courses serve one important psychological purpose. They give you confidence to start trading. Everyone can make money in this market if he is not greedy.

Last April, I wrote an option model program and started trading options exclusively. I learned a lot from OptionCoach's journal. My portfolio is up 36% so far. If I were better informed (say for example I knew TOS has a similar software), I would have saved a lot of time.

Everyone has his own learning style, and everyone has his own experience. By taking courses, you are better informed. You feel good about your strategies. Please continue your education.

For those (including myself) who don't believe in these courses, they will get nothing from those courses. They should not take it. They should continue to learn from ET as long as they feel they can. LOL.

db, have you analysed your return? How well did you do when compared to indices? If your return is not better than indices, your return is not better than a random walk.
 
Quote from daddy'sboy:

Lol. You think $15k is a lot of money for a business?
You're funny but I like you :).
db
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No, 15k is not a lot of money. Look, here's the analogy. You send your kid to Princeton and spend 150k on a degree in advanced mathematics. That is a good value. You send your kid to Dade County Community College in Florida and also spend 150k, that is not a good value.

What I'm trying to tell you is, not that spending 15k on education is a bad thing, just spending 15k on optionetics, Sheridan, etc is a terrible investment. To be totally frank, you might be better off taking some classes at your local university.

I don't know where you live, but you can survey courses in many cases without pursuing a degree. You can sit in on some economics, stats, computer science and financial engineering classes at a fraction of the cost of optionetics and get 100 times the value. Just an honest suggestion.
 
Quote from Maverick74:

You send your kid to Dade County Community College in Florida and also spend 150k, that is not a good value.

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I am applying for my Doctorate at DCCC. They were the highest rated community college in Dade County.
 
While not exactly a mentoring course, the monthly Virtual Trader program from Redoption/TOS is a cheap ($100/mo) way to learn the basics of trading spreads and short gamma. You basically get to listen in to the traders at TOS and they will trade a few positions in your account and explain the adjustments they make as time unfolds. They also give realistic expectations on how much you can make trading in that manner.
 
Recently I posted that Tvgram was working for Optionvue and his post was Spam. (I believe that the moderator has since removed the offending post.) I have received information just now that I was incorrect. My apologies to Tvgram and everyone else. Sorry to have lowered the discourse here with my post.

Cody
 
Quote from ajna:

While not exactly a mentoring course, the monthly Virtual Trader program from Redoption/TOS is a cheap ($100/mo) way to learn the basics of trading spreads and short gamma. You basically get to listen in to the traders at TOS and they will trade a few positions in your account and explain the adjustments they make as time unfolds. They also give realistic expectations on how much you can make trading in that manner.
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this is the most stupid way to learn to trade.

They set a meeting date, and tried to find the best available trade on that day.

Well, I don't think trading work that way. You WAIT for the "best" day to enter your trade, not the other way around.
 
Quote from Maverick74:

No, 15k is not a lot of money. Look, here's the analogy. You send your kid to Princeton and spend 150k on a degree in advanced mathematics. That is a good value. You send your kid to Dade County Community College in Florida and also spend 150k, that is not a good value.

What I'm trying to tell you is, not that spending 15k on education is a bad thing, just spending 15k on optionetics, Sheridan, etc is a terrible investment. To be totally frank, you might be better off taking some classes at your local university.

I don't know where you live, but you can survey courses in many cases without pursuing a degree. You can sit in on some economics, stats, computer science and financial engineering classes at a fraction of the cost of optionetics and get 100 times the value. Just an honest suggestion.
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I know what you're saying Mav but the problem is that anybody starting up in options has a huge choice of what to read, boards to go to etc.. Maybe my money was poorly spent but that is only possible to say in hindsight. All I can say is that my trading is now better than it's ever been but again, maybe I'm on a lucky streak at the moment - time will tell. We all make mistakes, read the wrong books, listen to the wrong advice, take the wrong course but lessons are learned from all these mistakes anyway. I've certainly lost a lot more in my early trading days than the cost of the education - and this was after I took the cheap courses offered by our stock exchange. My losses eventually became less and finally I can show some profit (yes, I know it's only 20% over 9 months but I'm still learning) after doing more study, courses etc..
You're right, courses aren't for everyone, and some people like MTE and yourself have the skills to work it all out yourselves using books and discussion boards. I'm not like that but I don't really like going to seminars/courses either but see it as a necessary evil.
Anyhow, I think this topic has finally had it and I've got a lot of stuff to study.
Cheers
db
 
Wow, I've just spent the last 4 hours staying up all night to read every single post in this thread. Terrific stuff, and thanks to all who've contributed.

What I've read has me persuaded that Dan Sheridan's course may be worth the money. The arguments against it are good, I admit, but on balance, I think I am now willing to pay the money to learn from him. My own personal reasons are as follows.

I work 50+ hours a week in a demanding profession and by the time I'm done with that and with my family responsibilities, I realized a while ago that I don't have the energy and time that equal my ambition to master this area. So last year I changed tactics and tried to learn from more hands-on materials instead of options text books like McMillan. You can tell I'm loathe to part with my money on training material when I tell you that I bought all the Optionetics books and videos on eBAY for something like a few hundred bucks. I consider that my first good trade in options.

But after doing as much self-study as I can up till now, including the Optionetics materials (not seminars), I feel like I now need practical know-how advice that can either come from (a) school of market experience, or (b) a mentor like Dan Sheridan. Frankly, it scares me to trade options without being armed with that kind of knowledge. Yes, I know he doesn't hold the key to success since knowing mechanics of a system is only part of the secret (see the new Turtle book by Curtis Faith, where it is discussed that the same exact trading system failed many of the original Turtle trainees), but I see the value of a good mentor in almost any endeavor worth pursuing and I've heard enough good things about him to give him a try.
 
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