What does Karen the Supertrader and her results say about volatility? Oversold?

[newwurldmn]

I think she's legit but they misrepresent her returns.

She didn't make 100mm selling vol. she manages 100mm selling vol. she's probably making 10percent a year or something.

If she was targeting a low leverage style strategy she probably did lose in 2008 but not so much that she couldn't recover when vol was crazy bid in 2009.

Lots of articles about her in the Tennessee newspapers. She has like 7 people working for her (mostly Vanderbilt MBAs) and she donates the fees to charity.

 

[crayon851]

I also think she's legit. I think that tastytrade is reputable in what they offer. I doubt they would do anything to jeopardize that. Sure, everyone has a hidden agenda of some sort, but the information they put out there without selling any sort of strategy is very helpful.

Secondly, Tom Sosnoff is a millionaire, a million times over. I doubt he would have any need in trying to earn a living off bringing fake successful traders onto his show. he's the creator of Thinkroswim, last I checked he is $600 mil in the bank.

 

[sellindexvol66]

I think she's legit but they misrepresent her returns.

She didn't make 100mm selling vol. she manages 100mm selling vol. she's probably making 10percent a year or something.

If she was targeting a low leverage style strategy she probably did lose in 2008 but not so much that she couldn't recover when vol was crazy bid in 2009.

Lots of articles about her in the Tennessee newspapers. She has like 7 people working for her (mostly Vanderbilt MBAs) and she donates the fees to charity.

well, i know i'm way in the minority...if someone can find her records from 2008 ie:trades, etc it would be interesting.

 

[kinggyppo]

well, i know i'm way in the minority...if someone can find her records from 2008 ie:trades, etc it would be interesting.

in the latest interview she said she was basically selling 2 puts for every call, her return was very similar last year to being net long spx. No dog in this fight, I think her story gives hope to people that it can be done. There are similar stories of people like this over the years. Sosnoff would be the first to admit that he doesn't trade that way due to tail risk and that her accomplishments are pretty rare. Tony Saliba or Stanley Druckenmiller are two examples off the top of my head. The largest guy in the oex pit back in the day was never written up and most of these guys keep a low profile. Riskarb is someone from et who is playing the game at a different level. I have learned alot from chatting with him, and reading and rereading his posts.

 

[Pekelo]

12% is nothing , i bet she didn't trade at 2008 or had a huge DD or blew up .

At one point she was down during 2008, the quote is something like "we were checking the plane ticket prices to Mexico".

But there was also a huge bounce in 2008 August if I recall, so depending on when she rolled the options, her position might have come back nicely. And remember, she is playing both sides of the market...

Also, the Tastytrade interview wasn't PR for her fund(or of it was, it was a very subtle one) . They never mentioned the name of her fund or even her full name and as we know direct advertising of funds is prohibited anyway. They just showed a successful trader that yes, it is possible to do it.

 

[Surprise]

At one point she was down during 2008, the quote is something like "we were checking the plane ticket prices to Mexico".

.

ROFL , that says it all ! Why go to Mexico ? to run away from her clients ? There is something alternative called risk management ...

 

[shooter]

In the latest interview she said they handle each side (puts and calls) separately, which would explain how they made $50 mill last year in a pretty much straight up market. They stayed on the bull put side, and stayed small or nonexistent on bear calls (I'm speculating). If she and her team have a good transition from bull to bear, they could do okay in 2008.

To my question, is volatility oversold here (multi-year timeframe) ? I just don't think the market can reward premium sellers forever, otherwise too many people catch on. There's a thread on bigmike ('selling options on futures') where guys are/were selling nat gas calls. If nat gas by itself is called the widowmaker, selling NG options must be called the grim reaper.

Sidenote, I could see a premium selling fund bundled up, packaged and marketed in a bitcoin kind of way and take social investing to a new level. A Timothy Sykes in premium selling. Not gonna be me, but there's somebody out there getting the ball rolling I'm sure. Could easily see the Kickstarter hedge fund startup, Instagram of luxury lifestyle through trading, Snapchat trade alerts angle. A cryptocurrency tied to fund results (Volacoin). Hell these may all already exist and I'm just slow.

Karen would be the Ourtime.com version.

 

[RichardRimes]

admittedly i'm not following her in any depth...but selling otm vol going in to 2008 i say no chance she could have made money. i'm not sure if you guys were in there then but that spx sliced through way otm stuff like it was a hot knife in butter.

based on my belief i say in time we will find out she was a fake phoney fraud.

I think she was/is legit. TS was actually watching her account in that time period (he was still with TOS/TD and she had/has her accounts with them (still I understand). She just must have had a pretty good cash cushion because I know what really killed me (and I was trading similar) was the margin calls. I was trading too big for my account and got caught both to the upside and downside.

 

[Pekelo]

Getting slightly offtopic, here is a fighter pilot trainer, who also trades options and shorted the market in 1987 October but got out with a 5 folds gain 1 day before the crash!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p64dqYZqpPY

The interview is almost a year old. He had 1 (little) down month in the previous 2 years or so...

------------------------------------------

The newest Karen interview is here:

https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/?utm_...etadata+link&utm_campaign=youtube+description

Her funds returned 27.5% and 24% in 2013....No losing month, they close every month hard, no rolling over...

This January they were up 2.5% when the market was down 3.5%... Made 50K trades last year, average trade is 500 contracts...

 

[kinggyppo]

I think she was/is legit. TS was actually watching her account in that time period (he was still with TOS/TD and she had/has her accounts with them (still I understand). She just must have had a pretty good cash cushion because I know what really killed me (and I was trading similar) was the margin calls. I was trading too big for my account and got caught both to the upside and downside.

look at the average true range on the ym here that was pretty wild.