How Option Credit Spreads Ruined My Life
June 29, 2010 by Johnny M Junior
Filed under Investing
Welcome to this article on credit spreads. With this class we will be learning the importance of adjustments and what can happen if you do not know how to correctly handle your option positions. The best liked option spreads is called a “credit spread”. We will take a good look at this particular spread today. There are those that consider this to be the best type of trade to do, but until working with this trade you will not know nor understand the high risk it can be. If it is traded by itself, an options credit spread can be very risky. This means it is not being guarded by any other option trade.
In most cases the “credit spread” is the first spread you will learn. It is very simple to learn, but in the beginning you will not realize how dangerous this type of trade can be. You will find many teachers will teach this way of trading, since it is easy to learn and easy to sell, but they do not tell you the risk it can expose your account to. Teaching beginners how to trade “credit spreads” is a very good business, but if you trade “credit spreads” and nothing with it to protect your trade, you can lose a lot of money. Not only can you lose a lot of money, but it is a very stressful way to live. Let’s see why.
It is a known factor that an option trader can go into a “credit spread” with a 90% certainty that he will make money on this trade. Most beginning option traders believe in this trade. This is true, but do not close your eyes to the other side of this picture. Though you may have a 90% certainty to make a good profit on this trade, you need to consider what is going on while this trade is in play. People will not tell you about the high stress that is involved.
People don’t talk about how they can be way behind on the trade sometimes the whole time they’re in the trade. People don’t talk about how they get down to the very last day and they are risking 90% just to make a small 10%, and they don’t talk about how they can’t sleep at night and how they are praying to God for their stock to go up tomorrow. Finally, one of the most important things that nobody tells you about the credit spread is that a 90% probability doesn’t mean that you’re going to make money nine times in a row and then lose one time. The sad truth is that you might lose 90% on your first trade. This happens often to new option traders.
The problem with the credit spread is that it’s a very directional trade. Even though it has Theta on its side, it has Delta and Gamma working against it. For the small amount of Theta that you get from a credit spread, you are picking up even more danger by trading this option spread with very high Gamma. What this means is that as the price of the underlying changes, the profit and loss on the trade also changes very quickly. This type of trade is a lot more volatile and risky than most beginning option traders are aware of.
Now that you have learned about the high risk in “credit spreads”, I would like you to know that there are many other types of trades that are a lot safer than the “credit spread”. If you do trade “credit spreads”, please learn how to combine them with other trades so they are not so risky.
Learn more about low-risk Option Trading. Stop by San Jose Options Mentoring where you can find out all about Broken Wing Butterflies and Credit Spreads.
You Must Read This Before Investing In Penny Stocks
February 7, 2010 by Johnny M Junior
Filed under Investing
Are you looking for a cheap and easy investment to make a good return on? If you are, then you should look into penny stocks. Penny stocks are great for investors who are looking to buy a good opportunity to dramatically increase the value of their holdings, even though they may face a substantial amount of risk.
Penny stocks offer a great opportunity for large gains very quickly, because the prices of these investments are more volatile than most other investments available. This is why these stocks are great for anyone looking to make large sums of money quickly.
The most common reason a stock is trading at such low prices is due to the fact they are an undiscovered company. When a company has not gained a large amount of popularity yet, they may have a great deal of value behind their stock, but they do not have investors to push the price of the holdings up. It is not uncommon to see stocks triple in short periods of time once they are discovered to be an excellent investment by the public.
These stocks are also very volatile at times, so investors have even more chances to profit from their market prices. There is not a requirement of millions of shares to be sold before the price of the stock doubles. Usually, just a few investors can move the price of a stock with a few large trades.
This volatility opens up doors for people looking to make money quickly, but this can also pose a risk to investors. A few investors can cause dramatic dips in the price of a stock if they no longer desire to hold onto the investment.
Fraud in the over the counter penny stocks market is rampant. Even the companies themselves sometimes join in on the deception of investors in order to increase profits from stock price adjustments.
The most common form of fraud in these marketplaces is due to pumping of stock. This pumping is then followed by a dumping by those who were promoting the company. This technique is performed in a variety of ways, and there is not any real way to avoid these issues when you are investing in the over the counter market, because the standards for a stock to be listed are not very stringent here.
One way fraudsters take advantage of these investments is by using cold calls to the general public. Once an inexperienced investor is found, they receive recommendations to buy a certain stock to push the price up. This promoting allows the people doing the cold calls to sell out at a much higher price than the stock is worth. Then, the unsuspecting investor is left with nothing to show for their investment whatsoever as the price of the investment dives.
This method of pumping and dumping can be done in a variety of ways too. Radio hosts have been known to mention these cheap stocks to the public in order to quickly drive up the price of their holdings. There are often websites established to promote stocks as well. These fake websites tell potential investors that the company is doing great. There are also people who spam the Internet to pump up stocks. The messages these investors leave around the web indicate the investment is a once in a lifetime opportunity. All of these methods just push the stock up in order for the fraudsters to sell their shares at a higher price.
If you are investing in penny stocks, you can have a potential gold mine on your hands, but you should also be prepared to lose everything you put into the over the counter market due to the risks presented by fraud.
Want to learn all about investing with Penny Stocks? Learn all about how to handle your trades of Penny Stocks and what signals to keep your eyes open for. You can make a lot of money if you buy a large amount of shares in these stocks. Learn about Penny Stocks now.











