I came across an excellent article explain Why Most Traders Lose Money. Key facts: 95% of all traders fail. 80% of all day traders quit within the first two years. 60% of all day traders quit within the first month. Trading is a profession and requires skills that need to be developed over the years.  Yes, there is a steep learning curve in trading, like in any area in life. It takes 4-7 years to become an engineer, a lawyer or a doctor. Why people expect it to be different with trading? Can you become a doctor by following a skillful group of doctors? 'If you are not willin ..read more

Its the time if the year again, to start setting aside to share your trading profits with IRS. It hurts to see almost 50% profits gone in addition to say 15% for commissions. Our hard work is only returning 35% . This is too less for amount of time/ stress and risk taken. What kind of structure do you guys recommend ? Yowster ? Kim ? The account is now too big. Also by paying 50% tax , I am loosing on compounding. That is huge loss of opportunity.  By the way , this is for someone in california, where we have state tax as well. So 50% should not be a surprise. Best I guess is to use a ir ..read more

  As has become my end of year tradition, I’ve broken down the Steady Options 2024 trade performance by trade type.  Numbers were taken directly from the data in the Performance screen (plus some recently closed trades).  Here’s are this year’s stats along with some comments from my perspective.  Where applicable, I added totals from prior years for comparison.   2024 was a year where market volatility was calm with VIX under 20 for the first half of the year.  The second half of the year turned more volatile with several VIX spikes into the 20’s an ..read more

For those that don't know, my firm also runs several commercial real estate properties in the US.  From time to time a new one comes on board that we like to share with our investors and potential investors.   We have under contract a 55,000 square foot building in College Station, Texas (see 3101 University Dr E, Bryan, TX 77802 - Office for Lease | LoopNet).     It used to be a Wayfair call center, but it is currently unoccupied.  The property is quite close to Texas A&M University, on one of the main streets (University) in town.     We ..read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghl_GfNs99c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Tm_GBJauk The Black Swan Hedge trade structure, as described in the two videos above, is a 3:5 put ratio backspread designed to be a sustainable self-financing hedge. The trade is run as an ongoing campaign (legged in when certain market criteria have been met), resulting in a net 5 long puts per tranche at no net cost (or even a net credit). Over time, multiple long puts can be accumulated this way, increasing the hedging power. Has anyone considered whether this is a viable pairing strategy with Anchor Trades? Th ..read more

I know this has been covered before but the search and my search-fu leaves a lot to be desired. What's the magic to chart the midpoint of an options spread in TOS? I've added the symbol to a chart with what I believe to be the correct syntax, for example this PLTR straddle:   .PLTR241108C41.5+.PLTR241108P41.5   The chart shows the mid and the bid/ask at the top in the data section, but doesn't actually display a chart: it just keeps spinning "Waiting for data...". Do I need to tweak a setting or does this functionality no longer work on TOS, or perhaps only work for certain spreads ..read more

Just got the following notice from IB. Does anyone know what the consequences are of passing over the threshold for "Professional Customer designation"? Does it mean being on the hook for Professional data subscription fees?    This notice is intended to assist with monitoring your U.S. option orders for purposes of the Professional Customer designation. As background, the option exchanges require any retail customer who submits over 390 listed option orders on an average daily basis for a given month to be designated as a Professional. Professionals are then treated the same as ..read more

thought I share come of the web pages I use regularly. Maybe others can do the same. Options and volatility Option Strategy finder, all sorts of combos listed/explained http://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx Option Strategies and their greeks explained, interactive analysis http://www.888optionsnet.com/investigator_2/wi_strategyExplorer.asp?disclaimerread=true number of tools and data around (historical) IV http://www.ivolatility.com/home.j historical IV data http://www.optionistics.com/ probability calculator (I actually use that to quickly look up HV for a name ..read more

I am a bit confused.  I received a text telling me subscription rates are increasing to $188 per month. Is this the rate for the Steady Options service?  Does this mean this service is now open? Or is this rate for some other service?  Or is the $188 charged in addition to the services listed on the services web page ..read more

I have a question for the Reg T experts... I currently have two Reg T margin accounts with Interactive.  To make it as simple an example as I can... let's just say they each have $50K in them.  I want to use margin to buy $50K of stocks plus up to $50K of options in each account.   In account 1 I own $50K of stock and it will then let me open additional stock and/or option positions (can purchase on margin).   In account 2 I own $50K of options positions and it will then not let me open any additional stock or option positions (can not purchase anything on ma ..read more