I researched Danâs program and the biggest issue I had was that although the marketing and discussions are all about Dan, as a student, you actually donât get to talk to Dan very often. They assign students to teach you, or itâs done in a group forum. For that kind of money, I want to talk to Dan, and only Dan. I liked the DiscoverOptions product better because it is not about one individual instructor. They have 2 traders, one instructor and one financial services professional, each of whom have over 20 years of experience in the markets. You also get one on one with each of the instructors. They are not group discussions; itâs just you and the instructor. I believe their instructors also have also been on the CBOEâs site. I would suggest looking at each closely, along with a few others out there in the marketplace. Look for one that fits your style and will accommodate you.
From what I have gathered from reading the forum (and no first hand experience) is that Dan does have 3 month one-on-one sessions. Theres is someone here who is a student of Dan, and anohter person who is now handling Dan's website. They welcome any questions. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87573&highlight=option+mentoring Overall, you are right, research diferent mentors listed , and see which one fits the style.
Pretty funny that of your five posts 4 are praising that over priced buggy software and its sister company Discover Options. Oh yeah, the other one had to do with Dan Sheridan, and he used to be associated with them, but left. If it walks like a duck, and smells like a duck, it probably is a duck. Anyone relying on these posts should assume that Danf is a spammer for the Optionvue gang!
I am certainly NOT a spammer and was offering my take on the discussion. If you would have taken the time to actually read my post, you would have seen I said there are many different kinds of educational forums out there and one should find one that best suits their needs. I certainly DID NOT imply that Discover Options was the only option. I have seen that you have once before been called to task for erroneously accusing someone of working for OptionVue. Simply liking their product does NOT make me an employee. If you have something of value to say, then say it, but your response adds nothing to the subject at hand. Given your one sided interest in the subject, I would ask the same of you: have you ever worked for or provided advice to Dan? Quote from Cody: Pretty funny that of your five posts 4 are praising that over priced buggy software and its sister company Discover Options. Oh yeah, the other one had to do with Dan Sheridan, and he used to be associated with them, but left. If it walks like a duck, and smells like a duck, it probably is a duck. Anyone relying on these posts should assume that Danf is a spammer for the Optionvue gang!
Too Funny Danf. Your comments reveal exactly who you are. I have never worked for Dan (or you for that matter!) And, the only advice I ever gave him was to get away from low lifes like you!!!!!!!
I'm the one in that other thread who works for Dan Sheridan. Let's clear up a few mis-understandings first: 1. Dan never worked for OptionVue. When Dan left the CBOE pit in 2004 he partnered with OptionVue to do the billing and advertising for him. Later, Steve Lentz did the first 4 sessions with Dan's students to get them up to speed on OptionVue, then Steve handed them over to Dan. Dan has always had his own company (Sheridan Options Mentoring). When OptionVue decided to become a broker, this created a problem for Dan. CBOE has a guideline that no Broker/Dealers can do webinars. When OptionVue becomes a broker, it would have interfered with Dan's relationship with CBOE so Dan went completely independent last summer. OptionVue still works with Dan by providing their software to Dan's students for six months, but that's the only relationship between the two companies. 2. Dan does do one-on-one mentoring. The only group classes are in the first month. The rest of the program is one-on-one mentoring sessions. Casey Platt was in the PIT with Dan for two decades. Mark Fenton was a broker and one of Dan's students. All three do one-on-one mentoring. After the mentoring is over, students can still participate in all live webex events. We archive ALL webex sessions so many students who aren't able to watch things live can watch them at their convenience. We now have over 2700 archived WebEx files that are nearly 70GB in size and growing daily. 3. We've only had one student do any teaching It was more of doing a walk through of a nice spreadsheet he built and doing some walk throughs of how to use our website. This is not something Dan relies on as a major portion of his program as one poster implied. The only trading discussion run by students in the weekly Student Cafe. This is something I host each Sunday for our students. Anyone can come and participate. Ask questions, discuss trades, ideas, market opinions, etc etc. It's an open discussion each week. 4. Price OptionVue wanted to raise the price for Dan's program to $7500 in early 2007 but Dan resisted so they compromised at $6000 (from $5000). Dan still hasn't raised the price. I've seen competitors charging $13,000 for one-on-one mentoring! OptionEtics and Investools have programs you can spend $25,000 if you like. It's quite common in this industry for seminars to be $1000 to $3000 per day! Dan has over 500 current and former students now. Our forums has about 5000 posts in a little over one year. We have a very active community with many professional traders, some managing pretty large accounts. It's kind of like our own elitetrader.com but all trained as income option traders by Dan and his methods. The trading groups we started in January as being paid for by Dan. His monthly WebEx bill exploded after we started this but he doesn't want to charge students any more money. That's just how Dan is. I was a professional military pilot. We definitely couldn't learn how to fly a jet by reading books. Trading is the same thing to me. It's a mix of science and art. A profession. The USAF teaches you with instructor pilots (mentors). All of the traders in the pit had mentors. I think it's the most natural way to learn by spending time with people who have done what you want to do and emulate what they are doing. You can learn it on your own, but a mentoring program can definitely speed you up on the learning curve. I still maintain sheridanmentoring.com and actively trade myself. If you have any questions, please send them to my sheridanmentoring email address as I don't visit elitetrader.com very often. Tom Nunamaker www.sheridanmentoring.com
danf: would you like to share how much it costs to join DO? As per Tom's reply, Dan charges 6k. I just want to compare.
Tom, Thanks for the udpate and clarification. I have seen Dan on CBOE, and what I have gathered is that he is not big on technical analysis. My question is, some of the income strategies are directional. Wouldn't it help to identify a general direction/trend before entering the trade? What is your experience?
I thought I'd chuck my bit in here aswell. I am a sheridan mentoring student. I joined up back in October 2006, did a few months but had to take a break due to some issues I was having. I have got back into it some months ago and was welcomed back by Dan without any dramas at all. He didnt want more money he just said come on back. I chose to get some mentoring after reading "all" of the books out there then trying toapply these theories to the market. Ther market was a great teachewr and I leanred a lot. But any mistakes are punished quite harshly. You could learn to trade yourself without a mentor as long as you have really deep pockets. I figured I could keep paying tuition fees to the market or I could save thousands and get a mentor. I did my research and went with Dan. This is a course of action I have not regretted. When I started Dan was still partnered with OV. I dont feel that the split with optionvue leaves students any worse off. The only thing that you cant find is a decent way to backtest option strategies but ThinkorSwim is developing their trading platform which now includes thinkback. It doesnt compare to OV backtrader yet but I think it will get there soon enough. But for the price I chose the free option (thinkorswim) and saved myself $3000 plus monthly data fees. The trade off is that you need to use spreadsheets to track your backtrading. It can be a bit tedious but it is a good lesson in discipline. I believe you need a teacher if you want to succeed. However the teacher should know what they are talking about and Dan and Casey and Mark seem to have this covered. Along with this the sheridan mentoring community is very helpful and there are some great thought provoking discussion on the forums there. Hows that for a first post. EDIT: thinkplus, I hope Tom doesnt mind me jumping in here and answering but Dan looks at price charts and looks to avoid too much movement in an underlying but he doesnt get right into moving averages and indicators. It more of a visual thing.
Dan's the first to admit he's not great at technical analysis. He mainly looks to see if a chart is screaming up or down as those typically are risky for income positions. I've done a lot of technical analysis and the predictive value is minimal. What's loads more important is risk management as you have to deal with whatever the market gives to you.