The Option Alpha Podcast

We're joined by Adam Cohn, Vice President and Head of Trading Operations at TradeStation, an award-winning trading platform known for its comprehensive trading tools, advanced charting capabilities, and extensive market analysis features. Adam brings a wealth of experience, not just from his role at TradeStation but also from his extensive background in options trading in the Chicago pits and as a market maker. His deep understanding of market structure and dedication to best execution h...

Transcribed - Published: 11 October 2024

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show232 Navigating options expiration is a critical skill for traders, especially with the rise of daily expirations.This week’s podcast explores the top 7 automated tips and tricks you can use inside Option Alpha to set up your portfolio for better options expiration management.See all 7 tips hereAdjust exit options as you near expirationCheck the extrinsic value of your positions/legsCheck the probability of short legs being ITMDon’t use market orders, use defined limit ordersTag positions for their state so you can analyze performance laterSetup alerts for low liquidity exit conditionsSetup ‘critical’ alerts for positions between strikes of a spread

Transcribed - Published: 7 August 2023

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show231 This week we explore the latest and most pressing challenges emerging for investors who have embraced autotrading. As automation revolutionizes the financial markets, traders find themselves navigating uncharted psychological territory. From trusting bots and algorithms, coping with reduced decision-making control, and the novel complexities of autotrading that demand a new style of adaptation and resilience. With help from our team, I’ll peel back the proverbial onion on the evolving mindset of options traders and shed some light on these new psychological challenges popping up. See the full list hereObsessive-Compulsive Overriding (OCO)Strategy StraitjacketingCurrent Events FallacySweeping Conclusion AnxietyShiny Object Syndrome FreezeBot ScapegoatingFeature CreepEmotional HedgingVersion Control DisorderIdentity Panic Disorder

Transcribed - Published: 31 July 2023

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show230 This week I explore a deep and philosophical viewpoint into the world of automated trading and its inevitable rise for investors. I explore the evolutionary nature of human decision-making and its limitations in complex financial markets by examining cognitive biases and their impact on manual trading. I’ll also discuss the technological advancements driving this shift, risk management in autotrading, and the future trends and challenges in this rapidly evolving landscape. Get ready for a fresh perspective on the future of investing and why autotrading is poised to dominate. These are my 9 key takeaways

Transcribed - Published: 19 July 2023

AI is the hot new buzzword these days, sparked by the release of ChatGPT a few months ago. Since then, it seems everyone has used OpenAI’s software in fascinating (and sometimes scary) ways. So, I jumped into ChatGPT and asked it to come up with the top questions that new and advanced traders ask about options trading. This week's podcast explores the 15 questions - and answers - that options trades want to know. See all 15 answers hereWhat are options and how do they work?How much money do I need to get started in options trading?How do I select the best options trading strategy?What are the key components of an options contract?What is the difference between a call option and a put option?What is the difference between buying and selling an option?How do I determine the strike price for an options contract?What is implied volatility and how does it impact options trading?What are the risks involved in options trading?What are the different options trading strategies I can use?How do I calculate profit and loss for an options trade?How do I manage risk in my options trading portfolio?Should I use technical analysis to inform my options trading decisions?Can you use charts and graphs to trades options?What are some common mistakes to avoid when trading options?

Transcribed - Published: 12 July 2023

How long does it take a stock to get back to even after a large daily move down? And does the magnitude impact how long it takes the position to recover the loss? We’ve all been in losing trades and wondered if we should hang on to the position for a little longer or cut it loose. So, to help answer the question, we studied the short-term performance of stocks and ETFs after different daily loss totals. The study analyzed 324 assets over a 20-year period. We calculated the 5-day returns following single-day losses up to 5%. See the full research report here.

Transcribed - Published: 26 April 2023

Stocks have been described as a rubber band, and we often assume they will snap back and revert when prices become overextended. So, we wanted to know: How likely is a security to continue or reverse its momentum above and below major moving averages in short, medium, and long-term timeframes? And does the security’s proximity to a moving average impact its performance? We researched 20 years of data on 286 symbols, using short, mid, and long-term trends to analyze the ticker’s 30-day return relative to its simple moving averages. I'll be honest, the results surprised me. Click here to see the full research report.

Transcribed - Published: 19 April 2023

"The trend is your friend." It’s a popular saying amongst traders, and we hear it all the time. But is there validity in the statement?We backtested directional option selling strategies with a long-term trend filter to see if there is a significant impact on performance. We used Option Alpha's backtester to review the data for SPY, GLD, and TLT short put spreads and short call spreads. Short put spread tests included a filter to only enter trades above the 200-day moving average. Short call spread variants included a filter to only enter trades below the 200-day moving average.Click here to see the full backtest results. Important Note: This podcast is for educational purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results. This data is presented objectively and is not financial advice or a suggestion to use these strategies. We encourage you to always do your due diligence and test your strategies. Let's take a closer look at the performance of these strategies using different trend filters. This is a great baseline when considering how to set up your trades, and we hope this inspires you to backtest your ideas for strategy optimization.

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2023

This week we take a look at the performance of the Monthly Iron Condors ($3k Portfolio) bot template. You might recall that we previously did a deep dive on this template back on Show 214, walking through the strategy setup, the scanner and monitor automation setups, etc. But now that we’ve had it running for a little over a year, we thought it would be help to take a look at how it has weathered this year’s market volatility and explore possible ways to adjust or improve its performance in the future.Important Notes: This podcast is purely for educational purposes and my exploration of this bot template is not a recommendation or suggestion to use this strategy as your own. Bot performance does not includes in commissions, which might vary from account to account or broker to broker. We encourage you to always do your own due diligence, factor in your own personal situations, and trade strategies you are comfortable with in your account. So, let's dive in and look at how this strategy has performed in this year's volatility and explore possible adjustments and future improvements. Ultimately, if nothing else, we hope this example helps give you some ideas to help with your own trading.

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2023

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show224 Option spreads are a simple and flexible, yet powerful strategy for traders. And while spread strategies come in many forms, shapes, structures, and durations, some core elements are present in spread trading generally that new traders should pay attention to. On this week's show, we'll once again slow things down a bit and focus on understanding what option spreads are and how to trade spreads in your portfolio.

Transcribed - Published: 8 August 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show223 What if you could build an automated strategy that navigates all market conditions? And while we know there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, we believe you can design a bot strategy that assesses the market trend and proactively adapts to current conditions. This "trader's dream" finally manifested itself in a bot template that become the collective “brainchild” of the amazing Community of traders right here at Option Alpha! The Hexabot, as it's now lovingly referred to as, was a labor of love, and we are super excited to share it with you. In today’s episode, we introduce you to the Hexabot and share the entire story of it's origin.

Transcribed - Published: 1 August 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show222 Option strike prices are an absolutely critical concept to master if you're going to seriously trade options at any point in the future. Without a holistic and firm understanding of what strike prices are, how they work, why they are different than break-even prices, you cannot be adequately prepared to safely trade options. And therefore, because we want to help all traders place smarter trades, we've devoted this show to answering your questions around option strike prices.

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show221 Starting to trade a covered call strategy is a popular "bridge" for traditional stock traders or investors transitioning to the world of options trading. It's a logical, bolt-on options strategy that has numerous benefits over traditional long stock positions. Today's show digs in one extra level and explores the different setups and ways to trade synthetic covered calls with a particular focus on using call spreads vs. single-leg short calls.

Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show220 In today's show, I'll walk through four clever, dare I say "wicked-smart", ways to leverage our proprietary SmartPricing technology for routing orders intelligently to the markets. If you're already trading with us at Option Alpha then you'll learn some new techniques that will help improve the efficiency of your bots and automations. If you're not trading with bots yet and are still manually entering all your opening and closing orders yourself, waiting for your trade to fill, canceling and replacing the order with a different price if it doesn't fill, waiting again for the trade to fill, and on and on, then you'll love how much time you save when you start using SmartPricing.

Transcribed - Published: 29 June 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show219 Calculating break even prices for different option strategies isn't as complicated and overwhelming as it might seem. Yes, you do need to perform some basic math functions to find different break even prices but it's certainly not rocket science. Plus, it's an invaluable concept to master because it's critical to your success as a trader. In today's show, I'll help you understand what break even prices are and how to calculate them for all of the most popular option strategies. Yep, that's right, we're going to walk through everything together step by step so you can finally master it once and for all. Let's get started.

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show218 In life there are three things that are certain; death, taxes, and bear markets. For many new options traders, the current bear market we've found ourselves in might just be your first. An inconvenient reminder that risk is present when trading, particularly when trading options. But alas, as the old saying goes, "It's just part of the game..." and my goal today is to make sure that this bear market isn't your last. That's right, I want to help you survive this bear market, maybe even thrive in this volatility, and ensure that you live to trade every bear market that comes in the future.

Transcribed - Published: 15 June 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show217 Hey everyone this is Kirk here again from optionalpha.com, working every single week to make this the most popular investing podcast offered online because it's based on one thing and one thing only and that's. . . Helping you consistently place SMARTER trades. Thank you so much again for tuning in and welcome back!

Transcribed - Published: 5 May 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show216 Hey everyone this is Kirk here again from optionalpha.com, working every single week to make this the most popular investing podcast offered online because it's based on one thing and one thing only and that's. . . Helping you consistently place SMARTER trades. Thank you so much again for tuning in and welcome back!

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show215 On this week's episode, we'll present a collection of questions custom tailored for digging deep into your psychology and mindset around trading. These are questions you should ask yourself, ones that trading coach might ask you, on a recurring schedule to help uncover and keep a pulse on the potentially harmful subconscious "self-talk" that tends to consume you. Look, trading options is already hard enough and it's certainly not in your best interest be your own worst enemy when it comes to your mindset. We cannot predict or control the markets, though we all try on some level, but we absolutely can learn to focus and control our minds if we give it the attention it deserves. To help frame our trading psychology session together we'll walk through 15 questions you should ask yourself right now.

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show214 New traders with small accounts are constantly on the hunt for option strategies that help them get started but intelligently allocate their money without blowing up. And so back on Show 159 of the podcast we outlined a framework for building an options portfolio with just $3,000 which become of our most popular episodes. But when we recorded it, almost 2 years ago, we didn't have automated trading which means you still had to take everything we discussed and manually implement and execute the trading strategy yourself. Well, the days of manually trading are history. We've entered a new era with autotrading technology and on today's show we'll blow your mind as we introduce a new bot template you can clone in 1-click that was specifically built for traders with a small portfolio around $3,000.

Transcribed - Published: 16 March 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show213 Last year during the beta launch of the autotrading platform, I decided to take some time off from trading so that my full and undivided attention was appropriately on supporting groups of beta users during the launch of the autotrading platform. Plus, my live accounts were the proverbial "guinea pigs" for lots of critical testing and bug hunting that could only be found when connecting bots to live markets. But this "reflection time" was not only welcomed because of the time it freed up in my daily routine, it also was enlightening to sit back and observe for an extended period of time. And now that I'm back to trading (with bots of course), I thought it might be helpful to share some of the the things that stuck out most during my time not trading. As they say, self-reflection is scary but necessary for growth.

Transcribed - Published: 1 March 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show212 Allocating capital used to be a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Breaking out your calculator or excel spreadsheet to manually run risk calculations and position sizing percentages before opening new trades. That's all of course if you actually remember to check your position sizing before each new position. Now, with automated trading, smart traders are creating highly efficient capital allocation systems that correctly adjust position sizing on the fly without ever forgetting or skipping this critical step. In this week's show, we'll spotlight unique and automated ways to allocation capital inside your bots and unpack some thought-provoking questions you should consider when building your trading strategy.

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show211 The iron butterfly strategy is a popular neutral options strategy. Plus, with their high probability and risk-defined characteristics, traders of any experience level can use in their portfolios. On this week's show we'll invest some time together and help you understand as many of the "ins and outs" of trading iron butterflies as we can possibly fit into an episode. We hope this becomes your new "go-to" resource for learning how to trade iron butterflies and helps answer important questions around entering and managing them in your automated portfolio.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2022

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show210 Sometimes we don't know what we don't know. As a trader, we might have been conditioned after years of using legacy platforms to just "suck it up" and grid our way through complex and tedious tasks on a daily basis. But with automated trading, you can finally offload the things you do now (or should be doing) as a trader for bots and automations. In today's show, we'll highlight at least 12 complex things that are simple to automate with bots. If you're serious about trading this year then it's time to get serious about being efficient with your time by leveraging these new automation tools.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2022

We are excited to announce that the Option Alpha platform doors are open to the trading public! This episode explains how you can get access to our new platform and what to expect when you begin autotrading. We’ll also do a deep dive on why we built the platform, what it is, what it is not, and what’s next for Option Alpha. How to Get AccessJoin the Waitlist and request an invitation.You will gain access to a FREE 30-day trial with no limitations and no commitments.You can move up the list by referring your friends and family. The more you refer, the faster you’ll move up the list.If you don't want to wait, you can get immediate access by upgrading to an annual subscription. PS - We’re giving away a 50% discount during our launch promo!You can also skip the line by using the promo code shared in this episode.Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show209

Transcribed - Published: 18 January 2022

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show208 The decades long evolution and growth in easily accessible brokerage platforms have created a self-reinforcing cycle of low attention span investors that are also now pulling even the deepest and most steadfast investors down the rabbit hole. Plus, the rise and popularity of meme stock investing certainly has pulled investor attention spans away from traditional analysis and reprogramed us constantly look for the next big move. On today's show we'll explore why the speed and magnitude of stock movements causes us to fall victim to classic investor biases precisely when we need to elevate ourselves above the noise and argue that “deep work” is more important than ever for traders.

Transcribed - Published: 13 September 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show207 Earlier this year we officially rolled out a massive free resource for traders with our launch of The Option Alpha Handbook. No more wasting time searching endlessly across dozens of unreliable sources cluttered with ads to get answers to all your burning questions about strategies, markets, options, and so much more. We built this just for you and our goal is to make it the ultimate reference guide for traders seeking clear, non-subjective answers to thousands of investing questions. Consider this your new "go-to" digital encyclopedia for everything trading you've been looking for but never found until now.

Transcribed - Published: 16 August 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show206 On this week's episode, I wanted to try something new and explore just a single bot template in detail together - a full and complete deep dive into the origin, strategy, automations, and decisions for one bot template. For this maiden voyage I chose the Trendy Short Put Spread bot which I believe is a great starting point for the potential series of "Bot Talks" in the future. Inside the show, we'll talk about everything from the backtesting we did leading up to outlining the automations to the tweaks and modifications we've made along the way as we've watched it perform through multiple expiration periods.

Transcribed - Published: 11 August 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show205 Often the terms hedging and diversifying are used interchangeably by traders. You might hear someone say, "You need to hedge your positions..." or, "You need to diversify your portfolio..." and in either case we understand the overarching goal as broadly the same objective; reduce risk inside a portfolio. However, the means by which you might accomplish this and the manner in which you get there via either hedging or diversifying, or a combination of both, are very different and require a better understanding of each. This week on the podcast we'll unpack these two juggernaut concepts.

Transcribed - Published: 2 August 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show204 Ever wish you could intelligently use automated technology that tracked and or trailed option trades for specific exit criteria without having to watch, edit, and replace orders day after day? Not some boring, outdated Good-Til-Cancelled order or generic, static Stop-Loss order either. Well our team granted this #1 wish from our beta users months ago and in week's show we're going to walk though one of the coolest new features developed for traders in a long time. We call it SmartStops.

Transcribed - Published: 26 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show203 Futures trading is on the rise and continues to grow in popularity. The trouble has been however that for most traders getting started in futures they find it overly complex and hard to manage. Though more capital-efficient than stocks, futures contracts come with a slew of complex sizes and specifications that turn many traders away from them. Thankfully this week's guest is on a mission to help make futures markets more accessible with small, standard, and simple futures contracts.

Transcribed - Published: 19 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show202 Decision recipes use easy to read natural language to help you setup detailed instructions for your automations to follow inside a bot. These decision recipes can also be grouped and linked together into infinite combinations so you have as much flexibility and control as possible. The last few months we've seen thousands of automations created inside the new Option Alpha platform and today I wanted to highlight eight of the more popular decision recipes being used right now.

Transcribed - Published: 12 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show201 This week on the podcast we finally release our much anticipated interview with Jason Goepfert of SentimenTrader.com. Inside Jason and I dive deep on investor psychology, market sentiment analysis, and discuss the concept of adjusting and managing risk exposure using sentiment as opposed to market timing. You don't want to miss this very timely and important conversation.

Transcribed - Published: 5 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show200 Well today we celebrate the 200th episode of the Option Alpha Podcast. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has made the show possible, and most importantly, you the listener who has supported us in this journey to get to 200 episodes. It's pretty incredible that we got to this stage with this podcast. I hope that you really enjoy all of the upcoming shows that we have scheduled. Here's to another 200 more episodes on this podcast in the coming years.Today, we're going to do a deep dive and case study on the volatility of bid-ask spreads. To help with this conversation. We invited back on for an encore, our Chief Market Strategist Ryan Hysmith, who's going to be diving deep into some research that we did recently on bid-ask spreads. You're not going to want to miss this, because if you think you understand bid-ask spreads and the volatility around them, you might have a different perspective after listening to today's episode.Again, thank you so much for supporting the podcast and doing everything you can to get us where we are here. We couldn't be here without you. As always, we really appreciate it. We're working hard to make this the best podcast for you all, our traders in the community moving forward.

Transcribed - Published: 1 July 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show199 As automated trading starts going mainstream for retail traders, we wanted to ensure that expectations are set properly. Particularly, this includes discussing why we believe that automated trading does not mean unattended trading. To help guide and frame this conversation I invited our Chief Market Strategist, Ryan Hysmith, back on the show with me. Inside we'll talk about the future of automated trading, if automated trading provides an edge, and what some of the possible downsides to automated trading might be that you'll have to consider carefully.

Transcribed - Published: 14 June 2021

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show198 After a couple of months on pause for the podcast, while we focused on the beta launch of our automated trading platform, we're thrilled to be back and ready to rock and roll again. On this week's show, we'll do a mini "State of the Union" on what we've been up to, what's new, and what you can expect moving forward. We think this is a great way to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time and make sure we're all aligned together moving forward.

Transcribed - Published: 7 June 2021

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show197 There's a lot of research to support the usage of trend indicators as simple risk reduction elements that can be layered onto an existing strategy. The trouble, however, was that in the past investors had to monitor the trend and execute the appropriate trade reversals when the trend changed. With automation, we can now offload this simple portfolio strategy to bots - and cleverly defined multiple possible trend exits all from one simple automation. This week's podcast walks through the two Macro Trend bots we built to show you how you can start leveraging the new automation tools at Option Alpha to trade either stocks or options in a trend.

Transcribed - Published: 22 October 2020

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show196 Trading short naked puts (i.e. put selling or put writing) can be an effective and profitable options trading strategy. Often the attraction to naked put selling is the ability to collect premium with a margin for error if the stock drops, and have the ability to purchase stock at a discount to the current market price. The trouble comes however when the stock moves lower and challenges the naked put position and today's show is dedicated to helping you understand all the ways you can hedge short naked puts.

Transcribed - Published: 19 October 2020

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 outcome range is, not what it's done in the last couple of months or a handful of trades.

Transcribed - Published: 15 October 2020

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 back for another interview, and this time we dove even deeper into his strategies and how he thinks about risk and the markets. Please enjoy our follow up conversation with Cameron Skinner.

Transcribed - Published: 13 October 2020

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 to walk through just one type of strategy that I think is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to situational trading and hedging bots. I have no doubt that this discussion will spark some creative ideas, allow you to dream of what's possible, and show you that the future of trading is incredibly bright once you adopt autotrading.

Transcribed - Published: 9 October 2020

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, seasoned investor, or complete options newbie, I promise you that today's episode will help you more clearly understand and navigate any future options assignment or option exercise situation you might find yourself in. After all, this is part of the business and if you trade long enough you'll have to manage through this, dozens of times.

Transcribed - Published: 6 October 2020

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 not. Until we take the time to label and recognize these major investor biases, we cannot overcome or manage them in the future. Therefore, today's podcast is geared specifically at exposing these classic and detrimental investor biases that ruin your performance. You're either going to learn how to manage and deal with them or be unknowingly controlled by them for the rest of your life.

Transcribed - Published: 29 September 2020

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 today's show, I'm going to help you break down the zillion ways you can save money to invest into core concepts that I have used in my own life to save money at an incredible pace. I'm a firm believer that these "big ideas" around saving money will help free up some cash for you.

Transcribed - Published: 15 September 2020

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 love about it.We have all the information you need right now about the platform and how to use its new features on https://beta.optionalpha.com.

Transcribed - Published: 6 September 2020

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 is to help educate and explain things so that it's useful to you moving forward. Plus, I brought in a special guest to help chat through the different sections and I know you're going to love this week's episode on taxes for options trading.

Transcribed - Published: 10 August 2020

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 during the show, you can always reach out to us anytime for help and support. If you're going to trade options, you can't avoid going through expiration. So, if you're going to trade options, you can't miss this week's podcast.

Transcribed - Published: 3 August 2020

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 checklist you can use to square up your account before going off the grid. Make no mistake though, this checklist isn't just for when you go on vacation, it's also a great workflow to help you before a long business trip or busy week at home when you have limited time to manage your account.

Transcribed - Published: 27 July 2020

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 but that one didn't? So this week's show is dedicated to shining a light on order filling for option trades and helping to demystify what is otherwise a simple market process.

Transcribed - Published: 20 July 2020

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 complex trades like the one that happened to us in FXI the other month give you a great opportunity to learn and grow as a trader. On today's show, we'll walk through the entire FXI position from start to finish, including all the profit and loss calculations including adjustments and an early assignment. Lean into this show and don't skip it - your future self with thank you for taking the time now so that you don't have to freak out later when it happens to you.

Transcribed - Published: 13 July 2020