All posts by Ted Nino

Forex Trading

Iron Condor – Owe, That’s Gonna Leave A Mark…

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The iron condor is one of the most popular option strategies available to traders. Unfortunately, it is also possibly the most dangerous.

See here’s the deal: when a new fresh faced option trader first hears of this trading strategy – he or she becomes so enamoured with it that they just can’t seem to help but jump right into trading them – risking way too much money – and without much thought of what they are going to do if the trade starts to go wrong.

And unfortunately what always seems to happen to a high percentage of them is that they promptly wind up getting their trading accounts demolished and their heads handed to them on a platter.

Now wait –

Before you start to get the wrong impression, please, let me clarify something here.

I actually LIKE iron condors. I like them ALOT.

I think the iron condor really IS a great trade.

And yes, I absolutely believe all those stories and claims you hear swirling around about iron condors generating ten percent plus monthly returns and providing trades that have the probability of winning somewhere in the range of eighty to ninety percent. In fact, I KNOW those stories are true because I see it happen all the time in my very own trading account.

Here is the problem: All those fresh, green and excited new option traders have no idea what they don’t know. This trading options for income thing is like an alien planet – with a whole new set of rules inside a brand new reality. And when the person who has introduced them to this new way of trading just tells them about the good but forgets to tell them about the bad – they wind up jumping in with way too much confidence, misunderstanding, and expectations that are completely wrong.

See, while it may be true that the iron condor and credit spread strategies can kick off yields of over ten percent monthly and that they favor the trader by offering high probabilities of winning (in some instances as high as 80 and 90 percent) – what isn’t being talked about is the risk to reward ratio of these trades – which can be as high as 10 to 1.

10 to 1! That means that in order to try and make just one dollar, you need to be willing to risk ten. Or, put another way – in order to make 100 dollars, you need to risk 1,000 dollars. Or – risk $10,000.00 to hopefully make just $1,000.00!

And as my mammy used to say (God bless her soul) – that risk to reward ratio is ‘an awful bad egg’. In fact, it’s an honest to goodness stinking rotten deal.

Just do the math. With a risk to reward like that, even with the great probabilities and wonderful monthly returns – before long a problem month could come along and completely wipe out your entire account!

However…

All is not lost…

As I mentioned earlier – I really do LOVE trading iron condors.

It’s one of my favorite trades – and it continually generates profits for me.

So clearly there must be a way to profitably trade this strategy without allowing that awful risk to reward issue to get in the way.

And there absolutely is.

It all revolves around how you go about handling the trade.

That risk to reward problem quickly becomes a complete non issue as soon as you educate yourself on the proper way to initially set these trades up and how to correctly manage and adjust them.

You just need to take the time BEFORE jumping into the iron condor pool to equip yourself with this little bit of knowledge. A few simple ‘tricks of the trade’ – so when those problem months DO come along (and they WILL believe me) – you will know exactly what you need to do to immediately squash that threat, easily adjust yourself out of the problem, and experience the iron condor for all it’s ‘really’ cracked up to be.

To learn how to properly trade the Iron Condor Strategy for consistent monthly income, go to this Iron Condor website and watch our Free Video and get our Free Report.

Forex Trading

Butterfly Spread – Milking The Butterfly Spread For Consistent Bling

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The butterfly spread trade – with is a trade made up from puts and calls , is a preferred strategy with option income enthusiasts. Not only does this trade give the trader a substantial quantity of premium at the start of the trade which might be parlayed into an important monthly cash flow, it also provides an extremely effective position structure which can put up with and tolerate a variety of trading circumstances, including particularly volatile situations like the ones we are seeing now. In a wild stock market exactly where a lot of other option methods do not have a chance, the butterfly spread may be put on and if appropriately monitored, come out smelling like a rose.

When you look at a risk graph of the buttefly spread, you will see that the butterfly payoff is tremendous – specially when analyzed side to side with other option income methods – for instance the iron condor, the credit spread, the diagonal, double diagonal, the calendar, double calendar, and so on.

Depending on where exactly the wings are set on these trades, or in other words how close or far the long options are acquired in relation to the strikes being sold, it is possible to create a butterfly trade where the possible reward is numerous times greater than the risk of loss is that is being taken on.

Even so, in the situations where the reward in the trade is so many times greater than the maximum possible loss in the trade, it is because the wings which are being bought are very close to the sold short strikes in the trade – creating a quite tall yet highly narrow ‘profit income tent’ – which the underlying needs to stay within throughout the duration of the trade to realize that massive payoff – which the odds will probably be extremely low.

Even so, if the underlying remains inside of the overall location of this tall, narrow income tent – and the trader does not decide to try and remain with the trade all the way until expiration – an excellent profit can still be extracted from these lower probability straddles trade, as the 0 day earnings line rises up quite rapidly and a good quality return can be snapped up in a short period of time.

Ted Nino is an option selling evangelist – particularly fanatical about trading straddles , the Double Calendar, the Credit Spread, and the Butterfly Spread. Visit his puts and calls Blog to learn more about these option strategies.

Forex Trading

Calendar Spread: Whatever Goes Down Must Go Up

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Even though the Calendar Spread can be utilized in various stock market circumstances, they function finest in low volatility situations. Increasing volatility levels help these trades, while sinking volatility winds up hurting them.

Because calendar spreads generate profits the fastest at neutral to rising volatility levels, many calendar spread traders will wait until an underlyings volatility levels are either at the lowest level of their average range or at least until they are in the lower end of their average volatility levels before placing a trade.

By waiting for these lower ranges, the calendar spread trader is increasing his or her odds that the volatility levels will either remain wherever they’re and not go much lower which could wind up hurting the trade, or will start to rise back up which could put their calendar trade into significant earnings pretty swiftly.

Normally volatility levels sink as the market moves upward and rise as the market moves down. This is why many option traders will place calendar spreads when they have a bearish view on the market.

A favorite method for option income investors who have a bearish outlook is to put on a calendar spread just below where the market or stock is trading at. If the market or stock they are trading does move down as they believe it will, it will likely move with into the center profit zone of the calendar spread – while at the same time benefiting from the rising volatility that inevitably occurs when there is a bearish move. In such a scenario, a very good profit can be realized in an extremely short period of time.

This method can also be used with double calendars, and in fact many option traders would argue that it would be preferred. Using a calendar spread could increase the probability of taking profit from the trade as it could be placed with a skew that would not only create a wider sweet spot inside the profit tent for the underlying to get caught in, it could also supply an extended profit tent coverage over the area where the underlying is trading at when the trade is first initiated, providing a safety net if it turns out that the traders speculation on direction turns out to be incorrect.

See more about Calendar Spread . go over to Ten Nino’s website where you can find out all about how to trade Calendar Spread method for consistent monthly cashflow.