This has been an interesting read. I find it understandable that many say don't waiste your money on a coach because of all the bad scams out there. However, I do not know a single occupation where your just learn it from reading books. There are coaches in every aspect of business and many charge much more than $5k. Many trading firms hire coaches for their traders. But coaching to me has to include: How to trade like a business. How to create a plan. How to track your plan. How to adjust your plan. Creating realistic, goals, timeframes and expectations. Money Management. And in some cases: Trading Method: How to entry How to exit for loss control and profit If Tiger Woods needs a coach as the best player in the world in his field, how can anyone say a trading coach is never worth it, especially for a beginner?
I have been a student of John Ondercin (Options Mentoring) for roughly 5 months and I cannot recommend his mentoring program to anyone other than a raw beginner. I have traded options since 1999 and have typically taken a very conservative approach. I have had very many winners vs. only a few losing trades. My problem has always been that one big losing trade wiped out the gains of many small winning trades. I went to Options Mentoring with the hope of eliminating the large losses through their mentoring. To some degree, I have accomplished that with only one large loss in 5 months (SPX call spread in April). Although I am using one of John's taught methods profitably, it is only because I subscribe to a separate newsletter that has a very high winning percentage of trades (>90% winners). Thus far I have had one breakeven month, one large losing month (-6%) and now three consecutive moderate to large winning months. I typically average +5%/month return and normally put on about 8-10 trades/month. In those months where I use futures options, the percentage return goes up considerbly due to the lower margin requirements. On the downside, John's material is not very professional (lot of errors, videos not edited) and he is a relatively disorganized and distractable presenter. His recommended trades do not follow his own rules many times. Emails are not answered in a timely manner. They do not devote enough time to practical trade adjustments as their favorite adjustment is to take the trade off for a loss. On the upside, the instructors at Options Mentoring place a lot of emphasis on technical analysis (primarily price support and resistance, trend, candles). The primary training instructor reportedly makes a mid-6 figure income from options trading and another mid-6 figure income from futures daytrading and is very good at technical analysis in spite of his young age (he started trading before he was of legal age). I am looking into the Dan Sheridan mentoring program since I will be trading a relatively large portfolio next year and feel the additional training and mentoring will be beneficial to me in the long run. The cost of the program is only a fraction of one month's return.
Thats a very fair assessment Nancy thanks for sharing. Interesting that your results really pretty much mirror the market ,big down in April then the last three months fairly flat (net) with higher vols. Hope you will share your experience if and when you do take Dan's course although I've heard there is a waiting list right now.
That's very odd, I've got the exact opposite experience. I've been trading bullish collars following the 'random crawl strategy' and I've been making money - but it has been a bull market. Go figure. db
Hi Nancy, If a 6% loss is a big loss, what are your typical wins? Dan's guidelines are usually your max loss shouldn't exceed 1.0 to 1.5 times your credit on an iron condor, butterfly etc. You need to have a max loss point to cut the loss on a trade from getting away; however, Dan's approach is not to give up on it and adjust it before it gets to the point you have to take it off. That is, try to give yourself more time for the market to come back to you. Dan is similar in that he's a bit disorganized, but he does answer his email. He doesn't do video but all webex sessions. Dan admits he's the worst person to ask about reading a chart. In fact, most pit traders barely looked at charts. Some trade using only volatility. The way you make money is by managing the risk corrrectly. In my opinion, technical analysis can help, but you still have to know the principles of adjusting and controlling the risk.
Sometimes you can't cover the loss quickly enough. Trust me. I know. I saw my spx far otm premiums triple in seconds after a fed meeting this year. So, I understand where Nancy is coming from. As for stop losses in options? Forget it! Bad idea!
Options Trading is not for small fish, or to put in plain English, for those who do not have sufficient capital at their disposal. Do any of you know what actually happens in the market when an Options trade is executed. Options have a lot more influence on the price of the underlying, and the Indices, than most will ever imagine, or even better, ever understand. Options trading is a highly speculative market, and you must be willing to take on high risk in order to make high returns. Many seem to think that risk is the same for every market, just put in your stop and you will be fine. This is not trading, this is gambling. The majority of traders gamble, and the reason they gamble, is simple, for they do not understand what Professional Traders really do. We are, what is called, Odds Players. We are like the Professional Gambler, who knows the odds like the nose on his face. All this talk of trading with limited risk and unlimited gains of nothing short of rubbish. If you ever get to the stage where you can afford to lose $10K in an instant, and not even think about it, then, and only then, are you truly on your way to realizing what Professional Trading is all about. RPT