The Option Alpha Podcast

Part of our mission here at OptionAlpha.com is to offer the highest level of transparency possible in order to help you gain more confidence in your own options trading system.

This week we launched our newest feature after spending more than 5 months developing a propriety portfolio tracking software that monitors and reports key statistics and metrics in real-time. This software tracks and categorizes real money trades, not paper or backtested trades.

Want to see the most recent stats updated in real-time each day? Just head over to the Option Alpha Performance page.

In today's show, I want to introduce our overall findings and numbers to you (both the good and the bad) and explain how this has already shaped my outlook and trading strategy moving forward.

As part of our higher level memberships, we stress that options trading is just a game of numbers and statistics. Your focus should be on placing lots of small, high-probability trades that captures the long-term overstatement of implied volatility.

Hence, our performance metrics that we'll walk through in this podcast will focus on win rate, average profit/loss, time held and IV differential which to us represents the ability to generate consistent income.

http://optionalpha.com/show37

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 this show.

As we move through the interview you'll hear his strategy for both short term weekly trades and longer term positions that he enters. Plus, we'll cover some of the major indicators he uses for a "collective" determination in future market direction.

Ready for another amazing interview with a real trader who's making it happen each month? Let's dive into the show with Aram.

Quote: "You develop your own style by taking the best of everyone else and put a little of yourself into it."

http://optionalpha.com/show36

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 "ah-ha" moment you had).

If you're ready for strategy questions, account tips and a real live trade example with SPX options then let's get started. . .

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 to become more consistent and profitable.

Plus, we'll cover a recent trade we made in APC with a 70% chance of success selling options far away from the current stock price.

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 chooses to use multiple timeframes when trading including the weekly, daily and 60 mins charts. It's a can't miss episode!

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 silly goals at the beginning of the year just to let them wither away and die 2 months later.

But I made a huge commitment to myself, and my family, that goal setting would be dramatically different for me in 2014 and since then it's changed my life in all areas.

I encourage you to post your goals in the comment section below and share them with everyone here. I'll be posting mine here after a few people comment and share theirs.

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 and when I discovered a little more about Michael Jordan's struggles and victories I knew it was too good not to share with you.

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 strategies a little different then maybe you have before. Specifically I want to show you how to use different options strategies as building blocks to pay for and finance other protective strategies for your portfolio.

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 daily.

I believe the first step is to recognize the 3 biggest excuses that average investors have. Rarely spoken these excuses typically manifest in the subconscious part of the brain.

My goal on this podcast is to bring out these excuses, shine light on them and help you move past them so you can become even more successful as an options trader. 

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 probability trades doesn't require having a huge portfolio to start with or taking a lot of risk. In fact, you'll find that I'm an advocated of small positions regardless of your portfolio size. But by the end, you'll see that trading options for income is a completely viable strategy even if you are not starting with thousands and thousands of dollars.