The Option Alpha Podcast

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show195 It's well documented that not only do investors classically chase performance, ultimately yielding sub-par performance in pursuit but that they also do not have enough patience to stick with strategies long enough. My hope is that it ends today and you can elevate yourself above all this and objectively look at strategies for what their expected outc...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show194 This week I'm thrilled to welcome back on a very popular guest, Cameron Skinner, to the Option Alpha podcast. Way back on Show 61, Cameron and I talked at length about his consistent and religious process for trading options even though his "day job" as a real estate investor takes the majority of this focus and attention. Well, Cameron is...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show193 One of the beautiful things about shifting to fully automated trading on the new Option Alpha platform is the ability to finally be able to clone and replicate entire trading strategies using bot templates. Bot templates allow anyone to build a trading strategy and seamlessly share the structure and details of that strategy with one-click. Today, I want t...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show192 Back on Show 187 we tackled the top 15 questions we consistently get around options expiration. Today, we're taking a slightly different approach and addressing head-on the 18 biggest questions and concerns traders have around options assignment and exercising, whether on or before expiration itself. Regardless of your trading experience level, seaso...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show191 We're all subject to investment biases, often multiple biases working together at the same time trying subconsciously to derail us. And whether we offload the actual order execution and management to an autotrading platform or not, the human element or side of investing still impacts the decisions we make and the strategies we choose to execute or no...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show190 One of the most impactful things you can do for your portfolio is add money or capital to it. A consistent and persistent schedule of funding your account, even with small amounts, gives you the added boost that compounds over time. But we all know this already don't we? So why don't we do it, or at least at a higher level than we do now? On tod...

NEW Beta Site is Live: https://beta.optionalpha.com Today’s show is a massive announcement – we are officially announcing that we have our launch dates set for our new auto-trading platform. Today on the show, we’re going to answer some common questions that we've been getting around the new platform and we're also going to start going through some of the features that you are going to l...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show188 Ah, taxes, a dreaded but necessary part of investing and trading. And although you might be inclined to skip this week's show, I'd encourage you to dive in because, even for me personally, this discussion helped clarify and re-solidify concepts that were mildly opaque. After all, tax concepts and terminology can get complicated fast and our goal...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show187 We get a lot of questions around options expiration - hundreds and hundreds each week. Yet, the same vital few seem to float to the top consistently so we're pulling these 15 questions into this week's podcast episode to help you understand and effectively navigate options expiration. And in the off chance, we didn't answer your question du...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show186 Summer vacations are in full swing and as everyone rushes to their favorite social distancing hot spot, traders are often left wondering what to do with their positions and trades while away. And since we cannot build automated and trigger-based strategies yet, though it's coming soon from Option Alpha, we wanted to help with a simple but effective c...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show185 Filling option trades can often feel like pulling teeth. While some trades and orders get through easily and without issue, others are incredibly stubborn and hard to get filled. To add to your frustration, the entire order execution process appears to be just another confusing black box. There's seemingly no rhyme or reason why this trade got filled...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show184 Adjusting trades that move against you can be hard enough. Choosing how to adjust and when to pull the trigger complicates what otherwise was a simple trade to start with. Now, throw in an early assignment to the mix and you've got quite the convoluted option trade on your hands. Sounds daunting already doesn't it? But fear not. Complicated and...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show183 Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. This classic Buffett quote had echoed though the ranks of investors for decades. But does that data support the methodology? Does investor sentiment, which for many investors is widely considered a contrarian indicator, have enough predictive power to warrant our time and attention? In...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show182 Greed, fear, FOMO, anxiety, panic, over-confident, stubbornness, impatience. These are just a few of the frequent emotional and mental states that traders find themselves in. And while we cannot avoid these emotions and thought processes, we can learn to manage them through emotional intelligence. This week's podcast was curated to help you learn how...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show181 There's an old saying in investing that a "rising tide lifts all boats." And while that might be true, when the tide goes out, all the boats sink and fall just as fast as they rose together. Still, you'll hear the pounding of drums in the name of classic diversification as the portfolio savior during these downturns. Our research sugge...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show180 You've got your prized covered call setup and it's working in your account - now what? How do you manage or adjust the position in different market scenarios? Lucky for you, we are going to review the best-covered call management techniques on today's podcast. And if you think this show is just for stock traders, you'd be wrong, becaus...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show179 You've got your prized covered call setup and it's working in your account - now what? How do you manage or adjust the position in different market scenarios? Lucky for you, we are going to review the best-covered call management techniques on today's podcast. And if you think this show is just for stock traders, you'd be wrong, becaus...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show178 Box spreads and arbitrage strategies are often synonymous with one another and referenced interchangeably in the options trading community. And after all, who doesn't want a risk-free way to earn money right? But like all things that seem too good to be true, box spreads carry some serious risks if you're not careful in how you set them up. Toda...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show177 Index options have continued to grow in popularity. Potentially because they are easy to use, available in highly liquid markets, have favorable tax treatment in some cases, and offer a simple settlement process. Therefore, we've dedicated an entire show to help you understand what index options are, how they work, how they are different from equity...

Show Notes: http://optionalpha.com/show176 Hedging stock positions can be tricky business. One of the most common schools of thought is to use a simple protective put strategy whereby a stock investor would simply purchase a long out-of-the-money put option to act as "insurance" in case the stock fell. Sounds logical but we're skeptics here at Option Alpha and so we went on a hunt t...

Show Notes: http://optionalpha.com/show175 Stock trading is easy to understand conceptually because it's one-dimensional. Either the stock goes up or it goes down. Clear and simple, at least from a trading and profit or loss perspective. Options trading, however, is multi-dimensional. Price, time, and volatility all impact the value and price of an options contract. On today's show we&ap...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show174 Earnings season comes around four times a year for stocks, and as traders, we've always loved the idea of trading these events for the crush in implied volatility and quick potential moves in option strategy positions. However, after analyzing 1,546 earnings events across 40 underlyings over 10 years we decided to stop trading earnings events complet...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show173 We're excited and honored to have a very special guest this week on the podcast, Richard Hudson, co-founder of the London and Brussels-based Science Business Publishing Ltd. He's the co-author of The (mis)Behavior of Markets: A fractal view of risk, ruin & reward which he wrote with famed Yale/IBM mathematician Mandelbrot. Our discussion fra...

Show Notes: http://optionalpha.com/show172 This week on the podcast we're doing something a little different and turning this podcast episode into a full-blown audiobook. Today I'm recording the newest book we released entitled "Mastering Covered Calls". I encourage you to pick up your copy now, did we mention it's 100% free, and follow along as you listen to this audioboo...

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show171 Today on the show we welcome special guest, Rob, who's the co-author on our recent research report on Covered Calls. On the show this week we go over the top three performance insights we learned from our massive study on Covered Call Performance. If you trade covered calls right now or plan on using them at any point when dealing with assigned stock...