The Option Alpha Podcast

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show145

Is less more? Often we hear this phrase thrown about with the assumption that when investing you should do less, sit on your hands or trade further out, in order to generate higher profits and better returns. But is this really the case and does the math and data prove this to be the point? We wanted to put this assumption to the test with a couple backtested short straddles in IWM and EFA. No filters, no profit targets, no stop-loss orders; pure option selling strategies. Our goal was to see if trading options 60 days out was more effective or profitable than trading options more actively 30 days out from expiration.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show144

On today's podcast, we bring in a very special interview guest, Larry Connors, and discuss his new book Buy the Fear, Sell the Greed. Larry is an established author in the trading and equities space and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation about market dynamics, trading psychology, VXX pricing structures, and the future of the industry with regards to automation. As you listen to this podcast interview, notice the very similar structure and thought process that both Larry and I share about creating mechanical data-driven event signals that can be replicated in any market environment. This I believe is why traders who use a more systematic approach end up performing better than those who are driven by their emotions and psychology of the environment.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show143

Choosing which ticker symbols and option strategies to use when entering new option trades can sometimes seem overwhelming. In fact, many of our pro and elite members continually ask about the rationale behind why we choose one ticker symbol over another or use one strategy over another when building our portfolio. Today's podcast will help you understand the four-step process we use for evaluating how we choose ticker symbols and strategies when creating our options trading portfolio for each expiration. This framework should help guide you into understanding why IV rank is at the heart of our selection process but also why portfolio diversification becomes the true mechanics that govern which tickers ultimately get selected.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show142

Many new options traders worry about what might happen to their portfolio during a short put option assignment scenario. They wonder how they can recover or if they have enough capital to hold onto the stock position.  just a few weeks ago we were assigned on one of our short put options in EWZ and were forced to buy stock well above where the stock price was trading at the time. In today's podcast, I want to walk through the entire trade, including the short put option assignment and help you understand how being assigned options impacts your account and how you can still trade around these events by using a couple key strategies.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show141

In the futures trading world, there are two words that sound cool to say but also might be very confusing for new traders; contango and backwardation. Yet, both of these future pricing concepts are very easy to understand once you know the relationship between three key items. In today's podcast, I want to slowly walk through the concept of contango and backwardation while offering a couple different examples to show you how it works in real life and how we might be able to use the awareness of futures pricing as part of an options strategy in our portfolio.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show140

Have you ever gotten the feeling that some of your trades just end up exploding in your face and turn into "massive" losing positions? They just never seem to go the way you thought it would and always demand or steal your attention right? Well, there's likely a couple reasons why this happens and it gets back down to some of the most basic principles of options trading. In today's podcast, I'll walk through the psychology behind many of these "bad trades" and help offer a strategy to help manage them.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show139

We all fear losing money, it's a natural human emotion. Myself included, I fear losing money just as much as the next person. But today I want to try to walk through a rational and logic sequence of questions that I believe, if follow the series, will help you uncover the only true risk in the market to your portfolio - and more importantly how to avoid blowing up your trading account in the process. I'd even dare to say that if you follow my 4 question logic sequence in the beginning of this show, you cannot help but come to the same conclusion about trading options including why the "staying alive" framework all but ensures you'll find success in any market.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show138

I'm going to go out on a limb and publicly declare that this podcast will be one of our top 3 to 5 shows we ever recorded. Aggressive and overly confident, maybe - but I have absolutely no doubt this podcast episode will be a game-changer for hundreds of thousands of options traders. The expected probability paradox for options traders, as I have coined this problem, is one of the most understood aspects of option selling and premium strategies. The root of this problem starts with the misunderstanding of initial strike price probabilities, perfect pricing of option spreads, and the impact of implied volatility on when rates and drawdowns. On today's show, we are going to dive deep into the three main areas of the expected probability paradox to help you understand why option selling, even in its purest form, even if you cannot find perfect pricing, still outperforms the market. We'll also talk about why laddering in some additional active management strategies such as profit-taking and making adjustments or rolling trades helps stabilize portfolios and increase returns. Put simply, skip this show at your own risk.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show137

Implied volatility in option pricing is one of the most critical and yet least understood aspects of this business. Today show focuses on a deep dive into options skew and the volatility smile for both inter-month and intra-month option contracts.  in addition, we'll talk very specifically about the impact of skew as expiration approaches and how Vega for near-term option contracts increases dramatically which can make it seem like option skew is predicting a huge move right before expiration - but is it really the case, and does this "predictive power" work in reality? 

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show136

Are you new to options trading? Do you have a small account and want to start trading iron condors and iron butterflies? Today's podcast will be very important as we help you understand how to calculate breakeven prices on iron condors and other risk defined strategies the correct way. Plus, we'll walk through a multi-month adjustment to an existing IWM iron butterfly in which we nearly doubled the credit received by rolling contracts to the next expiration period.