Good day everyone, New to forums, and relatively new to the options concept. My interest was first pinged by optionetics. Powerful sales presentation! Not completely convinced of value vs. dollar though. After spending more and more time online I'm seeing all sorts of people crawling out of the wood work with their own "system" I guess this is what makes this market so unique. My question to anyone reading would be, what are your opinions about best candidates for further education, mentoring, or coaching? Also what software and analysis programs seem to be kicking butt and are leading edge with the best "edge"? I do enjoy the technical analysis and appreciate graphs, charts and indexes that can be modified for different views or filters, where are the best places to view these. To begin my trading career I aim to begin with vertical spreads (debit call), collars, and straddles. Thank you in advance for all the feed back. Happy trading.
stay away from optionetics and their overpriced software. of course they have a "powerful sales presentation" - they're salesmen! if they weren't slick they wouldn't sell. just use the TOS (now w/ TDA) software and be done w/ it for a beginner (and for a pro for that matter). re paid mentors/courses/etc. - those that can't do teach, period the end. read up on mcmillan's books on options as a primer.
There is nothing a mentor can teach you that you can't find online for free. As for the best platform, look into Think or Swim
READ everything you can get your hands on. When you understand it and you want to make some easy money, put together a slick presentation
Thanks for all the input. I plan to take trading and options very seriously. I believe that in capable and educated hands this could become a lifestyle for the motivated and disciplined individual. I have pawed thru hours of posts on several different forums on this site - incredible guys and gals thank you. I plan to read the books I have seen suggested over and over and begin a paper trading account to familiarize myself with the processes and strategies. Thank you again all. Any further advice will be greatly appreciated and accepted with open mind and hands. Good luck trading out there!
A 9 year old can give you free education too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsz_y_DXWB0&feature=related
there are two individuals posting in this thread that clearly have either never really gone through good one on one mentoring or "bad mouth" it for reasons fo their own. one of those individuals has consistently done this and clearly had some "agenda" of their own. there are some very good mentors out there. I know from first hand experience. and no I wasn't the mentor. I have posted on this before. in another thread I provided a way to contact myself about this. you'll have to search the archives to find the contact info. and no I don't financially benefit from this
respectfully, IVTrader, I see no reason for you to make people to email you, only to give them Dan Sheridan and Mark Sebastian's websites. I was appreciative of you responding to my questions and thanked you. Still will- so thank you! When I started my first thread here and got your response, you made it seem like you knew traders and trading companies first hand who were looking for employees to train them into traders (at least that's what I got out of you wanting me to email you privately- only made sense as it could be sensitive information...) While you did provide me with company names like Group1 (thank you), the two- Mark Sebastien and Dan Sheridan- their names come up frequently in a google search. Yes we're rookies and are learning but we do know "something"- enough to know some greeks (minus the second and partial orders in some cases). While I do cede there might be succesfull "mentors" let me give you an example of why, frankly, most of them suck and why people distrust them. When I first started learning about options around second to third year in university there was a $2500 course (if my memory serves me well- but it was at least a G-note) being offered on the internet- basically CDs and books and all that- a beginner's level course that would really get you grounded. I won't say whose it was. I couldn't afford that so I focused on stocks instead. Fast track to graduation of my first degree and I'd known enough about the stock markets and options as well- I'd been trading stocks on my own- with some losses as I explained in my email to you. Around the same time, I saw a web link advertising a course- only this time a certain beginners level course was being sold for $5 (for shipping handling charges) to a "handful" of interested people- the clock would run out soon and there were only 2000 copies available... IT WAS THE SAME $2500 COURSE FROM JUST ABOUT 2 YEARS AGO!!! I sensed something wrong so I went out, bought a prepaid credit card, signed up, and waited in queue to hit the button in the website that would show me the checkout page. Needless to say the website "went down" due to high volume of interest and the day after they released the copy free to everyone because they were "overlwhelmed" by the response. Yada yada yada, a week later, I get this mail with a giant CD case full with 10-12 CDs and book and etc etc. So I thought, ok, i'll go through this and see if there's any meat to it. SO SAD! Everything I read (and watched- a specially created video series) was available on the internet- had been- then and before then! Imagine all those people- $1000s swindled- only to learn about primers on the greeks, synthetics and reversals (which are of little to no use to everyday retail traders) and etc etc- absolute novice stuff freely available on the internet (provided one searched for them of course). I don't like them because I've actually studied option theory academically and know where to look for information on the mathematical side of options- I'm here so hopefully I get a peek into the minds of some professional level traders and not people who have been trained by former market makers. Others have their own reason to be disdainful. In that respect, IVTrader, as successful as you might be, you're no different than us rookies. I don't mean to denigrate you, just saying your word and ours- the "rookie" lots', probably has the same weight (most of the time). And yes, there is an agenda here- to make sure people don't fall for the traps of these high priced pseudo-courses. And just to be brutally honest, just because you are successful (we don't know if you are- but for the sake of argument I'll accept it) doesn't mean the techniques you've learnt are sound. That's all...
Babu since you decided to share some our private emails: I had you email me privately because I need to know more about your knowledge base before I was going to make my recommedations. a forum isn't necessarily the optimum place to do that to and some people appreciate that. apparently you do not I also had you email me privately because it could be an exchange free of the "noise" that is part of the forums. some people appreciate that. apparently you do not I made NO REPRESENTATIONS implied or otherwise about knowing trader or trading companies that would train anyone. I was clear about that in my emails. yes you could have found those names quite easily in internet searches by its why one would choose those names not that they are easily found. someone who has gone through their program will be in a much more credible position to comment on their coaching and describe their instruction. apparently you could really care less. you are quite right- it doesn't mean that ANY of the techniques I learned are sound. it doesn't mean they aren't either fortunately I have had some inquiries from a few others in this forum, and they were more appreciative of the courtesy I gave them what I have also learned is that you aren't very discrete and show poor judgment when it comes to the contents of private email between two individuals enough said