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Remember the Basics
Winning traders don't underestimate the psychological part of trading. Although you certainly cannot trade profitably without adequate capital or reliable trading strategies, your personal psychology also plays a significant role. Consider what master traders have...
How the U.S. Election Will Effect the Markets
We all know the U.S. Presidential Election is on Tuesday, November 8th, just a few days away. We've seen how the S&P 500 has had nine straight days of losses, which hasn't happened since December 1980. The S&P 500 Let's take a look at the S&P 500 chart: The decline...
Trading Options Around Earnings Releases, Part II
"We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!" Hotel California, The Eagles In my last blog post, I discussed the nuances of change in implied volatility (IV) leading up to earnings release and following the announcement....
Trading Options Around Earnings Releases, Part I
One of the advantages of an option based approach to trading is the ability to capitalize on trades that have a statistically well-defined high probability of profit. When events occur with predictable regularity, the knowledgeable option trader can effectively...
Interactive Brokers Increases Margin Due to Brexit
I remember during market crashes in the past, Interactive Brokers (IB) increased the margin for many products.There was a lot of complaining about it on certain forums but I personally was happy to see the increased margins. As an IB customer myself, I like knowing...
Tax Advantaged Options
Did you know that certain options have special tax treatment? The IRS has favorable tax treatment for anything termed a "IRS Section 1256 Contract." These are: Regulated futures contracts Foreign currency contracts Non-equity options (broad-based stock index options...
Interactive Brokers Order Management
I've used Interactive Brokers for many years. I still prefer the Classic Trader Work Station (TWS) probably because I've used it for over 10 years. A friend of mine was telling me that he was making order entry mistakes of occasionally buying when he wanted to sell or...
How to Speed Up the Playback of a Wistia Video
Many of our members like to speed up the playback of videos. YouTube has this feature built into their player. Wistia does not (yet). I've read that Wistia will be including speed control in their player in the future, but until that feature is ready, you can use a...
The Time Bomb Butterfly Versus Vertical Spread
Mark Fenton wrote an article about the Time Bomb Butterfly. Mark said "one of the best butterfly strategies is the time bomb butterfly." There isn't one best strategy as each strategy has its pros and cons. The time bomb butterfly suffers from a very low probability...
Amy Meissner Presents the Nested Iron Condor
Amy Meissner will join us on a special Round Table on Wednesday to discuss her nested iron condor strategy. Amy was written up in Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine as the “Queen of the Iron Condor.”