Options Trading Advisory Services

Looking for an options trading advisory service that provides consistently profitable option trades?  Schaeffer’s Investment Research is a very educational advisory service that also offers a gamut of different subscription services designed to enable the subscriber to mix and match different options trading styles.  I am currently a subscriber to Schaeffer’s “Super Trader” aggressive alert services package and its more moderate “Weekend Trader” bulletin service. Another good option advisory service to consider here is Option Monster, which also offers several subscription services tailored for one’s particular level of trading experience and desired level of risk.  Option Monster also has a very good education section within its website as well.  I am currently a subscriber to Option Monster’s aggressive “InsideOptions” alert service, which provides up to five Options trade ideas each week.  Schaeffer’s and Option Monster are two of the more popular options advisory subscription services out there, and they have both recommended some real winners for me in the past.  But my overall returns from both of these services have been tempered by the issuance of many additional recommendations that didn’t pan out too well (i.e., especially Schaeffer’s in the past); as a result, one needs to be aware of the overall picture here when striving to achieve a model of consistent profitability with these services.  In other words, additional technical analysis and fundamentals based research on the subscriber’s part is usually required in order to proactively eliminate most of the the additional recommendations that will not work out in order to increase one’s overall level of profitability.

In terms of specific options recommendation services that identify short-term opportunities that are about to “pop”, several alert services offered by Schaeffer’s and Option Monster immediately come to mind.  For instance, Schaeffer’s “Expiration Week Countdown”, “Overnight Trader”, and “Weekly Options Trader” alert services offer these aggressive short-term “pop” types of opportunities, as do Schaeffer’s “Event” and “Players” series.  Option Monster’s “InsideOptions” service also offers similar trade recommendations as those offered by Schaeffer’s, although Option Monster tends to curb the urge to flood the subscriber with recommendations that have not have been fully researched or scrutinized by its senior options analysts.  Furthermore, Option Monster recommendations issued by co-founder and “InsideOptions” lead analyst Pete Najarian have had the highest winning percentage (for me) of all of the advisory services mentioned here.  Pete Najarian does not issue direct recommendations too often for the “InsideOptions” service, but when he does they usually work out very well; as a result, I rate Pete Najarian as being the best of the options advisory analysts that I have been following for the past several years.  One additional options subscription service that one should consider here is the one being offered by TheStreet.com, with which the folks over at Options Monster share a common history with.  In thinking in terms of comparing these different types of option recommendation services, I actually believe that quite a few of these advisory services “borrow” from each other to a certain degree and then repackage the information gleaned for their particular ongoing marketing models.  For example, Schaeffer’s and Zack’s seem to partner-up on some of the service recommendations offered by Schaeffer’s, as do Schaeffer’s and options research group What’sTrading.  In addition, Option Monster and TheStreet.com seem to partner-up on some of their recommendations as well, which makes sense based on the above mentioned common history that they share.

In conclusion, I should reiterate that most of the popular options advisory services out there will recommend some big winners to you as a subscriber, but you’ll need to do some additional “homework” to weed out the non-winning ideas in order to make the service profitable on a consistent basis.  Again, my overall returns from the above mentioned subscription services are usually tempered with many additional ideas that do not work out, so I try to stay aware of the overall picture here in order to achieve a model of consistent profitability.  Additional technical analysis and fundamental based research on the subscriber’s part is necessary in order to proactively eliminate the additional ideas that won’t work out in order to increase one’s level of profitability.  Granted, these services will recommend a few nice winners for you per their advertisements, but you’ll definitely need to scrutinize their all of their recommendations with your own research (and closely monitor them) in order to make subscribing to the service worthwhile.  As an example of this, I have now gotten to the point with Schaeffer’s “Expiration Week Countdown” service recommendations where I weed out all but one or two of the ideas issued during options expiration week of each month.  For example, during options expiration week in August, 2010 I eliminated from consideration all of the recommendations made but one, which was one of the Netflix (NFLX) call options that was set to expire at the end of that week (Call -> NFLX -> AUG 21, 2010 -> Strike Price $110).  I selected this particular idea out of the overall group that Schaeffer’s recommended due to the recent high levels of volatility associated with NFLX’s stock price and volume at the time.  And this particular option call did very well for me that week (i.e., more than enough to cover the cost of my annual subscription).  So I have found that I am able to select one or two real winners to play with from the list of recommendations made by this particular service during options expiration week each month, and my experience has shown that the rest of the ideas are usually worth ignoring after doing the requisite research. Hope this all helps!

http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/cart/ViewAllProducts.aspx#aggressive
http://www.optionmonster.com/about/products.jsp

See link below for an enhancement of finance professor Peter Carr’s instructive paper on the implementation of the Black-Scholes call/put options pricing model on the HP-12C programmable finance calculator by Tony Hutchins. http://www.hpcc.org/datafile/V23N3/V23N3P25.pdf

The Great Sirius XM (SIRI) Stock Debate!

More and more, Sirius XM stock (ticker symbol ‘SIRI’) appears to represent a good, low cost bet on making some attractive  gains in the not too distant future. Nothing is ever guaranteed in life (other than the two main stays), but now seems to be very opportune time to get on the train at the beginning of what could be a very profitable ride based on the increasingly cost-effective commercial uses of satellite-based technologies (led by SIRI, for one). In a nutshell, the currently low price of SIRI stock coupled with its promising future based on the vertical integration of its product lines makes it a very inviting bet in my book.  And the announcement today of the availability of Sirius XM’s new app for Android-powered smartphones (coupled with existing apps for BlackBerry and iPhone) is just the latest in a ever expanding portfolio of value adding products being offered.  Finally, SIRI is starting to  remind me of Apple’s stock in the late 1990′s, when it was priced around $2.00 per share and the introduction of Apple’s industry changing iPod products was just around the corner.  Stay tuned!

Click on URL for the latest on SIRI stock:  http://www.thestreet.com/quote/SIRI.html

The Proposed Financial-Transaction Tax Bill Issue!

There is a financial-transaction tax bill being proposed by the U.S. Congress that intends to levy a 0.25% tax on all equity trading transactions.  The passing of this bill would severely marginalize the financial trading industry, making our financial markets even less efficient than they have already become.  The end result would be the loss of untold numbers of jobs, and financial markets would become even more susceptible to crashes due to the resulting lack of  liquidity. Obviously the passing of this absurd bill would negatively impact the financial trading (and related) industries; but it would also severely curtail a critical market capitalization vehicle used by small to medium sized companies, thus rendering them less able to compete and grow.  And with banks and other financial service entities either unable or unwilling to capitalize small to medium sized businesses these days (but able and willing to pay out absurd bonuses to undeserving executives), taxing financial trade transactions would only serve to make the current economic downturn more pronounced, possibly leading to even more disastrous consequences down the road. The resulting dissipation of market liquidity, trading volumes, and market price discovery, along with widened bid/ask price spreads, would destroy the positive aspects afforded by arbitrage and speculative trading.  Along with the addition of other possible government regulatory actions, this problem would then be further exacerbated by the resulting mass migration of American based trading volumes over to foreign (i.e., non-taxable) exchanges.

The one thing that really irks me about the proposed financial-transaction tax bill is that it is being framed as a so-called “sin” tax by its partisan proponents in order to appeal to the current populist mindset that the financial industry as a whole is guilty for the current state of the economy (i.e., high unemployment levels, etc.). Basically, the transgressions of a few that were enabled by the lack of understanding by government officials and regulators per the complex financial-engineering instruments being utilized are the primary culprits here. The imposing of a financial-transaction “sin” tax by the government is not a good substitute for developing an understanding of the new financial order and obtaining the level of competency necessary to effectively regulate the industry, thus establishing a stable (level) playing field for the economy as a whole.  So in my mind, this proposed financial-transaction “sin” tax is nothing more than an attempt to sweep a certain portion of the blame (or responsibility) for the current state of the economy under someone else’s rug.  In addition, the potentially negative impact of this “sin” tax would be exacerbated by the resulting changes in premium requirements by investors across the board due to the tax costs being passed on to them.  The potential drain on market liquidity and the resulting decrease in the capital available for struggling small-to-medium sized businesses would be hard to justify, especially for reasons of partisan politics.  So this proposed tax is not a viable solution or option in my mind, as it conceivably could lead to even more problems down the road as the state of our economy continues to evolve (or unwind). 

Finally, perhaps the biggest question in my mind is why do some of our elected government officials seem “hell bent” at times to make things worse for us rather than better (i.e., at both the micro and macro levels) in order to pursue partison based agendas?  This potentially dangerous bill needs to be dismissed (or vetoed) ASAP before it has a chance to cause serious long-term damage to our still frail (and unwinding) economy.  Click on the URL below to sign the revised “Financial-Transaction Tax is Detrimental to Many Industries” petition and have it forwarded to your representatives:

http://www.rallycongress.com/greentradertax-traders-association1/2720/a-financial-transaction-tax-is-detrimental-to-many-industries’