I thought such an eye-catching title would be appropriate for an article on risk management. Often times, beginning traders forget the fundamentals of proper trading in their quest for instant riches in the stock market. Those of us who have been trading for some time now are fully aware of the danger in that type [...]
As a beginning stock market trader, I frequently visited an unpleasant place called Loss Vegas. It was teeming with would be investors and traders with grand aspirations of making a killing in the stock market. Differing life experiences, bank account balances, and strategies separated them but they were all bound by the possibilities of great [...]
It is common to see web site banners or other advertisements similar to the title of this article, touting the benefits of options trades with probabilities of success of 85-90%. Technically, these trades indeed have a high probability of success, i.e., if you placed a trade with the same parameters every month of the year, [...]
Beginning options traders often make costly mistakes due to either a lack of knowledge or misinformation about the basic parameters of options and their exercise. Examples of common errors include being surprised that one is unable to close an index option position on the Friday before expiration, or being surprised by an unhedged option exercise [...]
You have probably heard people refer to options as a risky enterprise, akin to gambling. And it is true that options trading can be very risky, especially when engaged in with minimal knowledge and preparation. The average stockbroker or financial planner does not have sufficient options knowledge to guide you in the use of options [...]
Over the last decade, online trading accounts have swelled to the point one must wonder if the full service broker should be placed on the endangered list as a protected species. Once someone opens an online brokerage account, they must decide what sort of trading to pursue. For the sake of this article, we will [...]