The Option Alpha Podcast

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show213Last 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.

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show212Allocating 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. 

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show211The 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.

Show Notes: https://optionalpha.com/show210Sometimes 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.

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

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show208The 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show207Earlier 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show206On 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show205Often 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show204Ever 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show203Futures 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show202Decision 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show201This 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show200Well 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

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show199As 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.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show198After 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.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show197There'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.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show196Trading 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.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show195It'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.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show194This 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.