I’m sitting here this morning in the offices of SMB capital in downtown Manhattan, making some notes in anticipation of a blitz I”ll be doing this week, recording the majority of the videotapes that will form the core of our options training program. It brought me back to my first days as an options trader and the intense excitement I felt about learning a new trading craft. I can honestly say that options trading has not only met, but exceeded my expectations as a career that I find exciting, constantly intellectually fascinating, ever changing and profitable. We’ve invited interested intraday equity traders from SMB to sit in and participate in these sessions and I”m looking forward to sharing what I love to do with people who have a true passion for trading.
This got me to thinking, what exactly is it that caused me to fall in love with income options trading in the first place? And the answer has to do with the fact that there are SO many market scenarios in which you can make money and, once you become competent, only a few that can really cause you real problems.
If you are executing market neutral strategies, which forms the core of many income options traders’ trading approach:
1. If the market goes nowhere you should make really good money.
2. If the market trends mildly up you should make very good money.
3. If the market trends mildy down, you should make very good money.
4. If the market whipsaws, you CAN make money but it’s tougher.
5. If the market trends really hard in either direction, it will be tough, but possible to make money.
6. If the market melts down, or “melts up” you will probably lose money.
If you are trading a strategy based upon your directional bias, and this is the part that most people find really interesting:
1. If you are right you can make really good money.
2. If the market goes nowhere, you can make very good money.
3. If you picked the wrong direction, you can still make very good money, as long as you were not TOO wrong.
4. If you are REALLY wrong, you will struggle, and probably lose money, but, if you are really good, or lucky, or both, you might eek out a small profit, breakeven, or just get dented a little bit.
I find that pretty cool. And that’s why I love when 9:30 AM on Monday morning rolls around. How many people can say that about their full time careers? I consider myself a very lucky guy. And I truly look forward to working with traders who share my passion for options trading.
Seth Freudberg
Director, SMB Options Training Program
11 Comments on “What I love about options trading”
Are you going to make this video available on the blog/youtube channel or does it contain proprietary information?
Mark,
The videos we are making this week will form a part of the curriculum for our SMB Options Training program, so they will generally be available exclusively to participants in the program. However, we’ll be making lots of other interesting material available on both this blog and youtube, as we have been doing over the last several months. We will also be holding free webinars in the near future, so keep your eye out for our announcements on those as well.
Ditto. You captured my sentiments exactly Seth.
Ditto. You captured my sentiments exactly Seth.
Be interested to learn the very basics of options trading because I’m a total noob to it.
Great post Seth.
Great post Seth.
That’s exactly why I like options, I can be wrong much of the time and still make money! You gotta love that!
Our program assumes that the student has no options experience at all so this may be a suitable program for you. If you send me an email at [email protected], I’ll make sure to notify you when we launch the options training program.
Mr. Freudberg,
I look forward to your future posts on options. The SMB training blog continues to surprise me with greatness! SMB traders appear to have access to amazing training programs and teachers. Please leak as many vids as you can from the training program. Maybe a once a month video?
Thanks again
Thanks, Michael. We plan to publish lots of blog posts and videos as well as periodic webinars on options trading, so stay tuned. It’s fun.