Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show185 Filling option trades can often feel like pulling teeth. While some trades and orders get through easily and without issue, others are incredibly stubborn and hard to get filled. To add to your frustration, the entire order execution process appears to be just another confusing black box. There's seemingly no rhyme or reason why this trade got filled but that one didn't? So this week's show is dedicated to shining a light on order filling for option tra...
Jul 20, 2020•51 min•Ep. 185
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show184 Adjusting trades that move against you can be hard enough. Choosing how to adjust and when to pull the trigger complicates what otherwise was a simple trade to start with. Now, throw in an early assignment to the mix and you've got quite the convoluted option trade on your hands. Sounds daunting already doesn't it? But fear not. Complicated and complex trades like the one that happened to us in FXI the other month give you a great opportunity to learn a...
Jul 13, 2020•51 min•Ep. 184
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show183 Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. This classic Buffett quote had echoed though the ranks of investors for decades. But does that data support the methodology? Does investor sentiment, which for many investors is widely considered a contrarian indicator, have enough predictive power to warrant our time and attention? In today's show, we'll explore investor sentiment from all angles and help discover which readings, if...
Jul 06, 2020•40 min•Ep. 183
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show182 Greed, fear, FOMO, anxiety, panic, over-confident, stubbornness, impatience. These are just a few of the frequent emotional and mental states that traders find themselves in. And while we cannot avoid these emotions and thought processes, we can learn to manage them through emotional intelligence. This week's podcast was curated to help you learn how to more effectively recognize and manage the dozens of emotional and cognitive responses you'll come acr...
Jun 29, 2020•48 min•Ep. 182
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show181 There's an old saying in investing that a "rising tide lifts all boats." And while that might be true, when the tide goes out, all the boats sink and fall just as fast as they rose together. Still, you'll hear the pounding of drums in the name of classic diversification as the portfolio savior during these downturns. Our research suggests, however, that even a well-diversified portfolio can still completely blow up just when you need it to protect you m...
Jun 18, 2020•58 min•Ep. 181
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show180 You've got your prized covered call setup and it's working in your account - now what? How do you manage or adjust the position in different market scenarios? Lucky for you, we are going to review the best-covered call management techniques on today's podcast. And if you think this show is just for stock traders, you'd be wrong, because proper covered call management could be a lifesaver for options traders who get assigned and are forced to deal with s...
May 20, 2020•35 min•Ep. 180
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show179 You've got your prized covered call setup and it's working in your account - now what? How do you manage or adjust the position in different market scenarios? Lucky for you, we are going to review the best-covered call management techniques on today's podcast. And if you think this show is just for stock traders, you'd be wrong, because proper covered call management could be a lifesaver for options traders who get assigned and are forced to deal with s...
May 15, 2020•46 min•Ep. 179
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show178 Box spreads and arbitrage strategies are often synonymous with one another and referenced interchangeably in the options trading community. And after all, who doesn't want a risk-free way to earn money right? But like all things that seem too good to be true, box spreads carry some serious risks if you're not careful in how you set them up. Today's show then focuses exclusively on box spread basics for options traders....
May 09, 2020•44 min•Ep. 178
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show177 Index options have continued to grow in popularity. Potentially because they are easy to use, available in highly liquid markets, have favorable tax treatment in some cases, and offer a simple settlement process. Therefore, we've dedicated an entire show to help you understand what index options are, how they work, how they are different from equity options, and what you need to be aware of if you decide to start trading them in your portfolio....
Apr 22, 2020•36 min•Ep. 177
Show Notes: http://optionalpha.com/show176 Hedging stock positions can be tricky business. One of the most common schools of thought is to use a simple protective put strategy whereby a stock investor would simply purchase a long out-of-the-money put option to act as "insurance" in case the stock fell. Sounds logical but we're skeptics here at Option Alpha and so we went on a hunt to see what research and data say about the protective put strategy and it's effectiveness at protecting or hedging ...
Apr 15, 2020•38 min•Ep. 176
Show Notes: http://optionalpha.com/show175 Stock trading is easy to understand conceptually because it's one-dimensional. Either the stock goes up or it goes down. Clear and simple, at least from a trading and profit or loss perspective. Options trading, however, is multi-dimensional. Price, time, and volatility all impact the value and price of an options contract. On today's show we're selectively choosing to highlight the impact that volatility has on options because, as we've seen in the 202...
Apr 08, 2020•51 min•Ep. 175
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show174 Earnings season comes around four times a year for stocks, and as traders, we've always loved the idea of trading these events for the crush in implied volatility and quick potential moves in option strategy positions. However, after analyzing 1,546 earnings events across 40 underlyings over 10 years we decided to stop trading earnings events completely. In today's podcast, I'm going to walk through the research on earnings moves, and how different opti...
Mar 31, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 174
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show173 We're excited and honored to have a very special guest this week on the podcast, Richard Hudson, co-founder of the London and Brussels-based Science Business Publishing Ltd. He's the co-author of The (mis)Behavior of Markets: A fractal view of risk, ruin & reward which he wrote with famed Yale/IBM mathematician Mandelbrot. Our discussion frankly should be required listening for any investor and was recorded in January of 2020 immediately preceding t...
Mar 27, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 173
Show Notes: http://optionalpha.com/show172 This week on the podcast we're doing something a little different and turning this podcast episode into a full-blown audiobook. Today I'm recording the newest book we released entitled "Mastering Covered Calls". I encourage you to pick up your copy now, did we mention it's 100% free, and follow along as you listen to this audiobook. We've included dozens of charts, tables, and graphs to help as part of this new book and we hope you enjoy listening or re...
Mar 21, 2020•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 172
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show171 Today on the show we welcome special guest, Rob, who's the co-author on our recent research report on Covered Calls. On the show this week we go over the top three performance insights we learned from our massive study on Covered Call Performance. If you trade covered calls right now or plan on using them at any point when dealing with assigned stock, then this show should be required listening.
Mar 14, 2020•29 min•Ep. 171
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show170 Factor-based strategies and trading systems are all the rage these days. We've been promoting these for many years now but it seems that more and more investors are catching on. As a result, we wanted to cover the 5 critical factors that your trading strategy should have. To us, these serve as the foundational elements for choosing which investing vehicles, indicators, or systems most appropriately fit your portfolio....
Dec 31, 2019•24 min•Ep. 170
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show169 This week we're very excited to share our exclusive interview with Kevin Davitt, a special guest with tons of experience not only as a former market maker, but as the Senior Instructor for The Options Institute at CBOE. As many long time listener's know, we are highly selective with people we choose to bring on as guests for interview and Kevin raises the bar yet again for us with an amazing discussion. During the show we'll touch on everything from his...
Nov 30, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 169
Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show168 Did you know that fear has nothing to do with logical or cognitive reasoning? It's actually a completely physical response that originates in our body. We fear to be wrong because that might mean we will be alone and people will leave us, which means that we won't be part of a tribe or community, which means it'll be dangerous and we might die. Okay, that's extreme but taken to its logical conclusion we fear because of conditioning we've had as humans ...
Nov 01, 2019•48 min•Ep. 168
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show167 Oh, profit targets. The double edge sword of confusion for many traders. Take profits too early and you feel like you left money on the table. Too late and you kick yourself because the trade could have moved against you. And because we've been getting so many questions on when and why we've let positions go beyond traditional profit targets, we wanted to record today's show to talk about the top 3 market setups that would lead us to break profit-taking...
Oct 24, 2019•22 min•Ep. 167
Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show166 When it comes to market signals and timing indicators, the Put Call Ratio is one that naturally jumps to the top of many lists. Because the indicator looks at volume in both put and call options, the logical conclusion is that we can interpret the ratio to signal us from an impending top or possible market bottom. But, is that really the case, and if so, how should we use Put Call Ratios moving forward in our analysis. All this and more on this week's ...
Oct 18, 2019•22 min•Ep. 166
Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show165 Personally, I don't like rules. Mostly because I value freedom and flexibility so when someone says that I have to follow the rules I naturally push back. Things that confine me or tell me what to do don't fly well with me. But that only applies to things outside of trading and investing. In the world of investing, and specifically trading options, you need to live by certain rules. Rules that keep you safe and protected from the unknown of the market....
Oct 07, 2019•56 min•Ep. 165
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show164 Since we are option sellers and our edge comes from selling overpriced options out into maturity it's natural to assume that if we want to sell options when IV is high that buying options during low IV markets is a way to make money in the other direction. We get it and understand the rationale argument. When IV is low, and option premiums are cheap, you can and should buy options because they are cheap right? Not so fast bargain-buyer. This type of tho...
Sep 30, 2019•24 min•Ep. 164
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show163 This was a long trade. Maybe not the longest trade we've been involved in, but certainly one of the top ones as this short put option assignment lasted over 5 months. For most options traders looking to make a quick buck, this trade stretches their patience and conviction far beyond a reasonable level. Still, I think that today's case study is important to hear because it proves critical concepts to how we think about trading here at Option Alpha. And w...
Sep 27, 2019•42 min•Ep. 163
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show162 It might seem that the markets are a game of price, and while that might be mostly true, what they are is really a game of emotions. With enough self-awareness, the "average" investor can do incredibly well. Better than many sophisticated investors. There's so much to be said about controlling your emotions and recognizing biases that we could spend hours upon hours dissecting each one. I prefer a more optimized approach which is why I decided to do a p...
Aug 29, 2019•32 min•Ep. 162
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show161 As many of our long-time listeners know, over the years I've become increasingly protective and selective with the guests that I invite to come on the show. Truth be told, we get pitched weekly for people looking to expand their reach. Somethings it's just so off the wall and disconnected to trading that I have to laugh. But this isn't the case with today's guests which I'm super excited to bring on for an interview. Kevin Smith and Tavi Costa both gene...
Jul 22, 2019•45 min•Ep. 161
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show160 Newest platform updates.
Jul 16, 2019•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 160
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show159 This podcast is a long-time coming but one that needed to be done because we get a lot of questions from newbie traders about how to build an options portfolio with a small amount of starting capital. And while we openly suggest that you really start trading with at least $5,000 or more, as you'll hear me say a bunch in this show, we realize that a good majority of new traders want to start with less. That's why in today's show we'll play "pretend" and ...
Jun 24, 2019•54 min•Ep. 159
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show158 Somewhere, possibly from another planet, this notion of trading options with a high probability of success transformed into a subconscious greed for 100% probability of success trades. And if you think that this mentality doesn't exist in the modern market we are in, you should see the emails we get at Option Alpha on a weekly basis. The truth is that you are going to have losing trades, a lot of them over the course of your career. Sometimes they'll co...
Jun 21, 2019•44 min•Ep. 158
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show157 A couple of weeks ago I was reading the story of the three little pigs to my daughters. And for some reason, I couldn't help but think about the untold story of the three little pigs who traded options? Yes, it's true, many people don't know this but the three little pigs were actually given a large chunk of money from their mother and each decided to trade wildly different options portfolios when they set out on their own. In today's podcast, I'll walk...
Apr 19, 2019•35 min•Ep. 157
Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show156 Many of our members understand the best times to trade options (i.e. higher IV setups when option premiums are expensive), but should we avoid trading during other market situations? Today's podcast walks through the four general market situations I avoid aggressively trading in and explain why each type requires that you either sit on the sidelines or dramatically scale back your position size.
Apr 06, 2019•23 min•Ep. 156
