I have been buying and reading books for the past 4-5 years, and I still have not found a tradable plan yet that consistently makes money. And I have read lots of books, from options to mechanical trading systems, to TA to momentum trading etc. Just like learning how to cycle or swim, I believe that it is very very difficult to learn trading by reading a book. Most of us were shown how to do it by someone who could. It will take a long time, but then I would have lost enough money trading one lots to have given up. I think it's cheaper, both in terms of time and money, to just go to someone who has a model that works, and just pay him to teach you how to do it.
Rallymode, are you aware of some fact that Dan is not profitable trading the strategies he teaches? One of the red lights I had was when I watched the old CBOE webcasts on iron condors, and then watched the newer ones, the steps he teaches are different. For e.g. in the old one he said go out 30-45 days and 1-SD OTM to place your short strikes. In the newer webcasts, he says go out 70 days, so that you have more room to adjust, and now instead of using SD, use deltas of the short strikes instead! I mean, if someone's making such major changes to their trading strategies within a year or two, it surely raised some red flags with me. Did the previous strategy fail terribly? What happened? That's what I'd like to know. Like all the others here, everyone I've talked to about Dan had only good things to say about him, and that he's a very nice person. But one guy who's taken the course told me he had the feeling Dan was just trying to learn how to trade from a retail standpoint himself, and that he's lost confidence in the methods. Personally, I've learnt more from watching Dan's webcasts about options trading then I've learnt in all the books I've read. It's filled with loads of practical tidbits that you can't find in books, like watching out for skews and things like this. Or at least they don't explain it as simply as he does. But I'm approaching it with a slanted mindset you see. I desperately want it to work so much (so that I can trade for a living) that I sometimes don't think very objectively. Thus I'd love to hear from someone who has traded his strategies for a longer period of time.
Seriously, has no one ever heard of John Ondercin? According to his website he's been doing this for 12 years and counting, surely there must be lots of people who've taken his course by now? The thing I like about Ondercin's course is the unlimited lifetime support. And the fact that he indeed trades options for a living, and has done it through the tech bubble crash, and he's trading the same strategies he's teaching. Or at least that's what he says. I also like his heavy emphasis on risk management. His advertising sounds like he's commited to his student's success. His fees are also very much lower than Dan's asking price. Dan's strongpoint is that he's been a market maker and trader/trainer for Mercury for a long, long time. However I don't know if the strategies he teaches are the same ones he trades on the floor. His course fees comes with usage of OptionVue which will allow you to backtest strategies, which is a very useful feature, and one that I would like very much. The things Dan says in his webcasts (learning the craft, risk management) also make a lot of sense to me. Of course his asking price is almost double that of Ondercin's and there's a 6 month waiting period.
Which webcasts do you mean? I've watched them all and he still seems to be talking about the 1 SD otm short strikes and going 49 days out to give himself some 'wriggle' room. 70 days seems a bit far since time decay is then less than optimal. daddy's boy
I was looking to expand my trading into options and decided to take Dan's course. I am not here to badmouth Dan(he is a great guy) and maybe some people got something out of the course but I thought it was a big waste of money. His strategies are not new and debatable if they work for off the floor traders. You will learn more from his web broadcasts. Save your money.
I've been following Dan's strategies as well and I think you will learn most of the stuff he's going to teach you on the webcasts which are very good. Dan's a great person. I don't like the fact you have to subscribe to OptionVue even tho they say you get a few free months. Heard thru the grapevine around the middle of 06 was not good especially for the people who were making a lot of money earlier in the year and eased up on their risk mgmt. But that probably happened to a lot of people.
I went through Dan's mentoring program and think it's well worth it. I disagree that you can just read a book. I have a LOT of books and I never learned as much as live one-on-one mentoring with Dan. You can certainly do hundreds of spread trades and learn it yourself; however, Dan drastically shortens the learning curve. Dan approached trading differently when he was in the pit due to different margin available to market makers. For instance, they would buy and sell stock as a hedge without thinking about it. Dan does change his approach on the surface, but the principles are the same. Whether you adjust based on underlying price, delta or some other reason, the principle of reducing delta's in a delta-neutral trade are the same. They are implementation variations imo. There are several students of Dan who are now full time traders. Some are now with pro firms like Echo Trading. I personally feel very confident now and am meeting or exceeding my monthly targets. NOTE: I heard optionvue raised the course fee to $6k and there's a six month waiting list.
I heard Dan's sales pitch (in person) and didn't buy it but 2 good friends did and were only mildly pleased with what they learned. As someone said - can he show you his statements proving he really makes money doing exactly what he is teaching.? I have only found one person that would bring their last years trades -- all of them to a free pitch and it was impressive - his name is mark larson. I dont' have his link handy and he doesn't do mentoring - but he does do monthly calls and I think his fee is all of $20 a month. H wrote a good book on optons and is big on leaps. No shameless promotion - just the facts.