{"id":20282,"date":"2022-10-29T07:30:48","date_gmt":"2022-10-29T11:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/?p=20282"},"modified":"2022-10-29T07:30:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-29T11:30:48","slug":"three-truths-to-master-options-trading-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/three-truths-to-master-options-trading-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Truths to Master Options Trading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Jeff&rsquo;s Note:<\/strong> If you care about your wealth, the worst thing you can do right now is nothing. A $4 trillion market &ldquo;snap&rdquo; is about to sneak up on anyone who holds stocks&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>But if you understand what&rsquo;s going on &ndash; and you follow the simple steps I&rsquo;ll provide on <a href=\"https:\/\/signup.jeffclarktrader.com\/?cid=MKT682897&#038;eid=MKT685320&#038;step=start&#038;plcid=PLC158953\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">November 2 at 8 p.m. ET<\/a> &ndash; you could recoup all the losses you suffered this year&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>During this presentation, I&rsquo;ll even reveal the name of three stocks I&rsquo;m paying extra close attention to &ndash; for free. Just <a href=\"https:\/\/signup.jeffclarktrader.com\/?cid=MKT682897&#038;eid=MKT685320&#038;step=start&#038;plcid=PLC158953\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click right here<\/a> to automatically enroll.<\/p>\n<p>And below, read on to find out three things you need to know before trading options&hellip;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>When most people think of options they think of risk, dangerous leverage, speculation, or gambling.<\/p>\n<p>And if you don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re doing, it may certainly feel that way.<\/p>\n<p>But you see, most people don&rsquo;t understand options are a way to <em>reduce<\/em> risk. In fact, options were designed to help investors hedge their portfolios against big market declines.<\/p>\n<p>And today, we may need options more than ever as we face one of the most unpredictable markets we&#8217;ve seen in years. If you&rsquo;re still buying and holding stocks in today&rsquo;s market, you&rsquo;re bound to lose money&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>We&rsquo;re now just days away from a powerful event that could cause a massive market &ldquo;snap&rdquo; &ndash; and pose danger to your portfolio. (If you want to prepare ahead of time, <a href=\"https:\/\/signup.jeffclarktrader.com\/?cid=MKT682897&#038;eid=MKT685320&#038;step=start&#038;plcid=PLC158955\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here for automatic enrollment to my briefing<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>But while options can make you a lot of money during hard times like these, you need to understand it&rsquo;s a process.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to be in the options market for any length of time &ndash; and protect what you&rsquo;ve earned &ndash; you&rsquo;ll have to do it the &ldquo;right way.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The &ldquo;right way&rdquo; involves a little extra effort. But because I&rsquo;ve been trading options for over three decades, I can help you master the basics.<\/p>\n<p>Even in the worst markets &ndash; like 1987 and 2008 &ndash; I had some of my best years ever. During the lead up to Black Monday, I was able to multiply my money 10 times. And in 2008, you could&rsquo;ve doubled your money on 18 of my recommendations.<\/p>\n<p>For years, I&rsquo;ve been teaching folks just like you how to reduce risk with options and add a little &ldquo;pop&rdquo; to an otherwise conservative portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>Here are three key concepts to keep in mind before getting started&hellip;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">Truth No. 1: Buying and selling options is about the least risky and potentially most rewarding game on Wall Street.<\/h2>\n<p>Options master Victor Sperandeo racked up a nominal rate of return of 70.7% without a losing year between 1978 and 1989.<\/p>\n<p>With his astounding track record, we&rsquo;d be foolish not to pay attention to what he has to say&hellip;<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"border-left: 4px solid #ccc; margin: 0px 30px 0px 10px;padding-left: 15px;\">\n<p>Options are, many say, the riskiest game in town. Certainly, they are by far the most challenging, flexible, and potentially profitable financial instruments available.<\/p>\n<p>But if you trade them prudently, if you apply sound principles of money management, trade only when the risk\/reward ratio is highly in your favor, and execute your trades with diligence and patience&hellip; Then in all likelihood, you will be profitable over the long term.<\/p>\n<p>I can say, conservatively, that at least 40% of all the returns I&rsquo;ve made in my life have been with options.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">Truth No. 2: Want to be a winner? Watch your losers!<\/h2>\n<p>To succeed with options, you really need to limit your trading to opportunities that have at least a 3-to-1 payout.<\/p>\n<p>At minimum, you want to have the potential to pocket $3 in return for every dollar you risk. This also forces you to think in terms of reward and risk, which is extremely important.<\/p>\n<p>Most options traders &ndash; even ones that may have had good trading systems &ndash; fail because they don&rsquo;t pay enough attention to risk. If you&rsquo;re willing to lose 50% on a position, you&rsquo;d better be expecting a gain of 150% or more &ndash; at least. That&rsquo;s a tall order.<\/p>\n<p>And if you&rsquo;re willing to lose it all (meaning the potential for a negative 100% return on a position), then you&rsquo;d better be expecting a 300% to 500%-plus gain in that position.<\/p>\n<p>When you see it in terms of risk versus reward &ndash; and you realize that 500% winners don&rsquo;t come along every day &ndash; you can see that &ldquo;risking it all&rdquo; is a bad bet.<\/p>\n<p>Options are a lot like poker &ndash; your hand is only a small portion of the battle. Betting appropriately for the entire game is really what&rsquo;s important, which leads us to&hellip;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">Truth No. 3: Big winners make small bets.<\/h2>\n<p>You&rsquo;ve got to know when to hold &lsquo;em and when to fold &lsquo;em.<\/p>\n<p>You don&rsquo;t want to take a total loss with a big bet on the table&hellip; So don&rsquo;t ever put yourself in that situation. Limit the size of your positions.<\/p>\n<p>You should only have 2%-3% of the money you&rsquo;ve set aside for trading at risk on any one trade. We really can&rsquo;t imagine any combination of circumstances where you should consider putting more than 10% of your trading money on one play.<\/p>\n<p>Don&rsquo;t do it!<\/p>\n<p>To end up like Victor Sperandeo over the long run, you&rsquo;ve got to stick to the program, limit the size of your positions, and limit your downside by never allowing a small loss to turn into a big loss.<\/p>\n<p>Traders who understand these three key truths will have a chance of being winners in options over the long run. Those who don&rsquo;t will be quickly taken for every penny.<\/p>\n<p>Best regards and good trading,<\/p>\n<table style=\"margin-bottom: 20px;\">\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/files.jeffclarktrader.com\/global\/signatures\/jeff-clark-signature.png\" width=\"200\" height=\"77\" alt=\"signature\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>Jeff Clark<\/p>\n<p><!-- MAILBAG BEGIN --><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>Reader Mailbag<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>What are some unique key concepts you\u2019ve learned during your trading process?<\/p>\n<p>Let us know your thoughts &ndash; and any questions you have &ndash; at <a href=\"mailto:feedback@jeffclarktrader.com\">feedback@jeffclarktrader.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- MAILBAG END --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, I\u2019ve been teaching folks just like you how to reduce risk with options\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[7],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-20282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-jeff-clark"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20282"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=20282"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=20282"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=20282"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=20282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}