I'm crazy excited to finally bring you my interview with Aram Basmadjian from TradeWithAram.com because it's such a genuine and honest conversation with a guy who continues to grow in his education and love of trading. In fact, he was hesitant at first to come on the show because I reached out to him after emailing back and forth for many months during his time in our membership. But I know that his story and investing journey would be invaluable to both new and experienced traders who listen to...
Oct 19, 2015•43 min•Ep. 36
This week during the FinCon expo in Charlotte I had the opportunity to sit down with "The Options Playbook" author Brian Overby. Brian is also the Senior Options Strategies from TradeKing and this 40+ min LIVE interview covers so much it's hard to summarize it here. Plus, as a very special gift Brian signed 2 copies of his hard copy book for you all. All you have to do is 1) share this podcast on Twitter or Facebook and 2) add your comment below with the #1 thing you took away from the show (the...
Sep 24, 2015•51 min•Ep. 35
Being a consistent, profitable options trader doesn't take much. In fact, I'd even go as far to say it takes very little time and effort on a weekly basis. Yet, we've been told in the media (and through other publications and websites) that you have to have lots of money, trade fast or day trade to make it in this business. It couldn't be further from the truth. In today's episode, I want to help show you what it really takes and how you can start to implement simple tweaks to your daily routine...
Sep 09, 2015•26 min•Ep. 34
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I had a chance to interview Sarah Potter, Author of How You Can Trade Like A Pro and founder of www.shecantrade.com. This self-taught trader will share her story and why this former futures trader quickly migrated over to options trading because of the better fit with her lifestyle. You'll hear Sarah's strategy for only trading weekly options on "hot" or "popular" stocks as opposed to monthly contracts. Plus, we will dig deeper into how and why she cho...
Sep 04, 2015•42 min•Ep. 33
I completely underestimated the power of how to set financial goals until about a year and a half ago. Since then I've changed the way I look at and set goals in all areas of my life (not just financially) and it's made a huge difference. In today's podcast, I want to really take the time to walk through the Top 10 mistakes people make in the goal setting area which can dramatically alter your chance of hitting and achieving your goals. Again, I wasn't much different from most people who set sil...
Jul 29, 2015•22 min•Ep. 32
You know the name, and the legacy. But what you don't know about Michael Jordan and his impressive career might actually help you become a more successful options trader. I know what you're thinking already. Kirk, how on earth does basketball relate to trading options? You see on the outside they don't but once you dig down a little deeper you'll find that the best basketball players have very similar qualities to the best traders. I've been on a mission studying what true "success" looks like a...
Jun 24, 2015•21 min•Ep. 31
You've got a stock position that you want to protect (or shield) from any impending market sell-off or crash. But buying protection or insurance typically costs money right? And in nearly all cases you've been told to buy put options that are far OTM. The only problem is that these options tend to expire worthless (which is why we sell them here at Option Alpha) and if you have to purchase them each month the costs can rack up over time. In today's show, I'll help you think about option strategi...
Jun 10, 2015•16 min•Ep. 30
It's no secret that the long-term average investor returns are pretty low. In most cases, the little guy rarely beats the market and for good reason. Frankly we are horrible stock pickers though we consistently try to find hidden value in playing directionally. Long-term this always underperforms an efficient market and the market standard portfolio (i.e. the S&P 500 Index). So what do we do about this? How do we change our mindset given the glaring stats that the media pushes in our faces d...
May 26, 2015•19 min•Ep. 29
Finding great option trades can be tough sometimes, and I get that. That's why in today's podcast I'll show you 10 detailed trades all under $100 of risk each that you can make right now. Plus, we mixed it up with a little bit of everything; bullish & bearish strategies, high & low volatility trades, stocks & ETFs, etc. And for less than $1,000 of overall risk you could have a completely diversified and balanced mini-portfolio of options trades. My goal is to prove that making high p...
Apr 28, 2015•37 min•Ep. 28
In the past couple years inverse and leveraged ETFs have been some of the most highly traded securities because of their seemingly "cool" concept for speculation. I mean where else can you get such high exposure to financials or gold than with a 3X bull/bear ETF? In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'll going to dig deep into how these products are both structured and priced so that you have a complete and full understanding of the "drag" they carry before investing. No this is not to sa...
Apr 16, 2015•22 min•Ep. 27
You’ve often heard us talk about the important of trading liquid options until you are blue in the face right? In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast we’ll put a real dollar figure to this concept and show just how much “slippage” is costing you trading options that are illiquid. Specifically markets that show a bid/ask spread of just $0.20 could end up costing you more than $3,840 each year - and that’s just the cost of getting into or out of the trade! Throw in the risk that the stock doe...
Apr 08, 2015•28 min•Ep. 26
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I have the great pleasure of interviewing long-time trader and industry veteran John Carter - founder of SimplerOptions.com . One of the many benefits of doing this podcast has been the opportunity to meet and connect with other traders with whom I admire and have followed for years. John has been on my short list of those to contact for this podcast (with many more coming that you all will enjoy!) What's so great about his story is that he never had t...
Mar 31, 2015•46 min•Ep. 25
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'm going to actually take a look at unique investment outside the stock market that is comparable to how we should be trading options. My hope is that you'll clearly see how being successful with Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending is extremely similar to the requirements for long-term options trading success. In fact I'd even go as far to say that most investing requires the same underlying fundamentals for success regardless of where you money physically goe...
Mar 24, 2015•21 min•Ep. 24
Investing money can be scary (no doubt). . . In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I want to help you overcome the 3 biggest fears that people have when they start trading options. You see, as kids we were scared of all kinds of things; monsters, our siblings, "Dad" etc. As adults now we still get scared and when we combine the "unknown" with our hard earned money it becomes a nightmare. If I were to ask most investors about options trading their default response would be things along the ...
Mar 21, 2015•17 min•Ep. 23
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast we talk with long-time trader Kim Klaiman from SteadyOptions.com. As you'll hear in this interview, Kim's goal is to trade trade variety of non-directional trades with low correlations. One topic that we dive into a little deeper is the strategy of buying straddles pre-earnings to profit from the rise in implied volatility. And while I personally prefer to trade the IV crush you'll hear Kim's take on how his backtesting research has found some likely c...
Mar 03, 2015•36 min•Ep. 22
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I want to help you be a better trader even if you are currently still working a full-time job. Because the reality that even though I stay at home with my daughter, she's a full time "boss" if you know what I mean. So over the last year and a half I've had to change and adapt my own trading style to be even more efficient and productive. This means cutting back and hyper focusing in on the things that really matter in order for me to be successful. Tod...
Feb 25, 2015•26 min•Ep. 21
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast we'll have an in-depth talk about trading commissions and broker fees. Specifically, people always ask me about commission and with more members now than ever it’s becoming more and more important to negotiate great commission rates. So I'm here to help you save money by getting your trading commissions reduced. And I give nearly the same answer to everyone each time they ask but there's a special twist on how I did it and why it dropped my rate by 17%...
Feb 17, 2015•16 min•Ep. 20
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I had a chance to flip the script on Joshua Belanger from www.OptionSizzle.com. A former CME runner in Chicago, Josh has been a long time industry trader both on the professional and retail level. What's so great about his story is that over the last 10 years he's been able to learn how markets work from many different angles including being a broker, raising private equity, managing money, and running orders on the CME floor. During our interview he'l...
Feb 10, 2015•48 min•Ep. 19
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'll explain why you shouldn't be afraid of the assignment and exercise process when it comes to trading options. You see, all too often it's just a lack of understanding as to how the process really works. Who are the parties involved? How do they select who gets assigned? How long do I have to manage my new risk? I'll answer all of these questions and so much more in today's show and by the end you'll finally be empowered with all the information you...
Feb 03, 2015•22 min•Ep. 18
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I completely break-down one of the worst trade alerts we've ever seen using a debit spread. And it honestly gets to the heart of why I started this website and blog more than 8 years ago; because there are still horrible companies and services out there publishing crap that doesn't help investors. In this show we'll compare and contrast this unnamed company's call in NFLX vs a trade we look at live in HPQ. At the end you'll be the judge and add your co...
Jan 28, 2015•20 min•Ep. 17
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I had a chance to interview Henrick Santander, the guy behind http://www.the-lazy-trader.com who currently works a full-time job but is passionate about creating a trading system that fits his lifestyle. You'll hear how this long time Cuban (of 26 years) moved to Canada and is now trading very successfully each year making smart bets in the major indexes like SPX and RUT. Plus, we'll talk through his most recent SPX iron condor trade including his comp...
Jan 19, 2015•40 min•Ep. 16
Ever wonder how often going back in history the stock market "crashes"? I mean we know that cyclical markets means another one will eventually happen (it's just a matter of time) but when? Or how often? We did the research for you and analyzed the market data going back to 1928 (as far as we could get it). In this podcast we'll take a look back in time for you and present our case study findings. You'll finally have a clear understanding of how often stocks "crash" and also how bad we are as inv...
Jan 15, 2015•17 min•Ep. 15
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'll explain why most traders think stop-loss orders help manage risk and protect them when in fact they end up creating more losing trades. Using the "Lazy Trader" program I'll show you with concrete numbers on live trades how a stop-loss order would create 50% more losing trades than if you did nothing at all and let the trade stay a loser all the way through expiration. You probably think I'm absolutely crazy for saying this, but listen in and see w...
Jan 03, 2015•26 min•Ep. 14
When you start to trade more often and with more positions, remaining as neutral as possible will help smooth out your returns over time. This doesn't mean that you can't get directional (betting on a move up or down in something) but it does mean that you have to know how to re-balance your portfolio. We've shown before that using SPY beta weighting is a great start and in today's show we'll continue that discussion with additional underlying asset correlations. Know how these work will help if...
Jan 01, 2015•30 min•Ep. 13
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'm going to change the way you think about buying stock forever. Because just buying shares isn't effective anymore and with the help of options you can both increase your probability of success and reduce risk (and net cost basis). But first I'll need your help with my "Financial Planner Challenge." If we are going to change the way people invest we have to educate the so-called market experts because I guarantee that 99% of financial planners have n...
Dec 18, 2014•28 min•Ep. 12
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast we are going to help you finally create an easy to use 3-step system for picking the best option strategy. Unlike most traders who try to fit their favorite strategy into every market situation, you'll find out why after asking just 2 simple questions we can eliminate the possible universe of options strategies by 80% to the best possible traders for that specific situation. Remember that in this game, strategy trumps direction every time.
Dec 02, 2014•23 min•Ep. 11
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'll give you a step-by-step guide to the top 7 things you should check before you make another trade. And this is not some quickly thrown together list; these are strategic steps that will help you make more decisive action when it comes to picking and filtering good trades from bad trades. Each checklist item is placed in perfect order so that you can quickly figure out if a trade is worth your time analyzing or not.
Nov 28, 2014•30 min•Ep. 10
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast we are going to cover the 14 stages that all investors go through with their emotions. Understanding that traders have specific emotions which have varying magnitude, is critical to learning how either you or another investor might behave. Thankfully there is a cyclic process of psychology that explains the relationship between our feelings and our judgments. And we'll show you to remove yourself from this cycle so that you can master the markets as a ...
Nov 21, 2014•26 min•Ep. 9
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast I'll answer one of the biggest questions I get when it comes to trading options with probabilities. You see with probability trading there can be this misconception that it's all a "Zero-Sum" game. But today I'll show you how you can break this cycle and start making more money with non-traditional thinking about how you close winning or losing trades. This show will make you think hard about how you trade.
Nov 17, 2014•26 min•Ep. 8
In this session of The Option Alpha Podcast we're going to have a very advanced conversation about implied volatility (IV) and why understanding IV is critical to gaining and edge in the market. Plus we'll use a very specific example with YHOO and HAL both that have IV of 32% but when we apply IV percentiles we find out that you should be trading these stocks completely different. Buckle up - this one is intense!
Nov 13, 2014•33 min•Ep. 7
