Original poster you said that TOS are "giving you the fish" I am an account holder with them and have been educated in options by them for over 2 years now and they definitely do not give you the fish. They teach you to fish. Make that point in their chat room "trader lounge" and see what response you get. Sounds like contrary to your desire to be taught to fish, you instead want to be given the fish in my opinion because these guys to a lot of teaching and just a little giving of fish. The TOS guys explain the mechanics of a trade and yes they do even suggest specific trades but when they do that, at least lately, they have been wrong more than right. But those suggested trades are a small sample in a wild market. Tom Sosnoff himself is open about how he has not been trading well lately. Happens to the best and he is one of them. There's no free lunch.
i have written a detailed to you on your e-mail in response to your inquiry.i hope we get going with active communication in regard with trading soon enough regards thistledown
MY experience with TOS was a"NIGHTMARE". I used their Virtual Trader for 10 months and was up 80%. Yes life was GOOD .....REAL GOOD!! But they never really explained NEVER !!! that what you gained in 10 months you can LOOSE !!! in SIX-EIGHT WEEKS!!!. What a disaster. Not only that but when my account went from $18,000 to under $10,000 in NO TIME! I was Ignorant Enough-defined as lack of knowledge to think that I should TRY it again and listened to Sosnoff as you said when HE CONTINUED ON HIS INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE investing and now sit on $4,500 of my original $10,000 down from the high. THEY REALLY LEFT ME OUT TO DRY. !!!I feel like a Virgin who was raped twice !! Don't walk run away from TOS.!!!
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience. I assume you were buying iron condors because that's Tom's favorite strategy (as far as I can tell). It's also my strategy of choice. But understanding risk is far more important that choosing a strategy. The best I can do for you right now is to suggest that you do not trade more options until you take the time to determine the potential loss for any trade. It's also useful to determine the likelihood of incurring that loss, but, as 2008 has shown, extremely unlikely events occur more often than anticipated. One problem with starting your trading career with a string of wins is that it breeds overconfidence. Not your fault, unless you have been warned about potential losses and chose to ignore that warning. Take a look at this post: http://blog.mdwoptions.com/options_for_rookies/2008/08/premature-celebration.html If you understand what you are doing, if you are not just along for the free ride on a high probability trade, if you truly respect what can go wrong, you can be a successful option trader. It's a shame that you have taken a hit - but better now than later. Best of luck. Mark The Short Book on Options
Does anyone know if this thread is continued anywhere else? I had it in June and then it jumped to other posters in January.
Coach, Having just read through the thread again the actual discussion ended around page 16 where you gave a homework assignment reference using the TOS analyze tool. I will pick up with that assignment, using a current price and 2 and 3 month expiration strikes. I have a TOS account, one papertrade and one very sad little funded account. I went to an option trading seminar in August. Not really a seminar but the Investools $99 2 day infomercial. I was completely appalled by the hard sell and the number of people, especially seniors, signing up to pour money into the premiere educational opportunity. Basic options $4999, intermediate $11999 and advanced at $24999. The actual material comprised 3 hours and led you to believe that trading options was taking candy from a baby. The instructor did not always hit home runs but his bread and butter trade made 12-15% monthly. I then found another options course and went to that for 4 days, leading to an apprentice program. I was fortunate enough to win an essay contest and attended for free. I learned alot and also got to go to the CBOE for a tour. I then found that the CBOE has an excellent educational program with quizzes and tests, available online, that is free. I also found the Options Industry Council site mentiond previously, www.options888.com, which is another fantastic source of free education. I have Natenberg's volatility and pricing. Murphy's technical analysis and a couple of other books. The apprentice program I was in was trendfollowing and focused on technical analysis. I had a blowup that was completely my fault and that really knocked me back on my heels and made me realize that I was going about this completely wrong. I have since spent alot of time on the net reading about trading and the psychology of trading. I am going through the trading courses at www.informedtrades.com and have found that to be a great website and the owner, David Waring, is extremely gracious. My blowup was the typical story I learned. Came in from a technical analysis point of view with no grasp of the reality of trading, which is (my perception) that the trader is the important part and the analysis for the entry is secondary, if not much lower on the list. I had two small gains and then listened to CNBC one night in November. That night I went into the TOS analyze and checked out a SPY Bear put spread that was standing right in the way of the massive bear charging downhill. I kept looking up at the profit line, dismissing that little line below the zero. I kept adding contracts and the profit kept growing and growing. I later read that the problem with a small account is the nagging worry that your account is too small to get you anywhere so you need to accelerate growth. I put in the trade that night and then left the next day for a class. Driving to the class I was gripped with fear and almost called my wife to talk her through cancelling the order prior to the market open. I didn't and was out of internet contact the whole day. Who needs an initial stop loss order when you are certain and haven't really bothered to learn the TOS system all that well and weren't really sure how to put that on the initial order. Glued, screwed and tattooed. What followed was the highlight of the fall and the best two days in the SPY in decades if not ever. Rode the pig all the way into the dirt. Blowout of 90% of account. Just had the cojones to tell the wife about it today. She took it surprisingly well and still supports me learning this. My goal is simple. I want to learn. I am not trading for a living or attempting to but I do not want this to be a hobby, this is a business and deserves respect. My goal is to have the Dec. SPY bear put spread be the best trade I ever made. I am going to print it out, frame it and hang it over my monitor. Risk management is no longer a concept. Thanks for agreeing to pick this back up.
Good decisions. Have a bit of patience. You found some excellent free information. Think about what you are learning. Don't be afraid to paper trade again, even if it's with another broker. You have a lifetime to trade. This may sound trite, buy try to <i>understand</i> how options work and how they differ from stocks before placing your money at risk. Mark The Rookies Guide to Options
You almost have to blow out once to have the lessons ingrained into you. From your brief story your losses have nothing to do with your lack of option knowledge at all but was a result of common human mistakes and poor risk/trade management. No trade should have the ability to lead to a 90% blow out and I think you learned that now. My initial advice is you have to realize that simply overloading yourself with options education is not going to make you a better trader. Keep it Simple, graps the basics and try to learn how to apply them correctly. First homework for you is to read the following Chapter 1 on Risk Management to put your mind in the right state of mind. It is free and the link is below: http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/78/04715670/0471567078.pdf