I wanted to share a few thoughts about my “tilt” toward market-neutral options trading. This has been a long time coming, and I might as well explain myself.
It’s not for lack of other people trying. Dutch and The Director have been trying to convince me to experiment with various options strategies since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, and many Slopers have been pinging me to try to learn something other than shorting anything with a ticker symbol that fell into my line of sight. I ignored them all. Until now.
So what happened? Oh, I guess a few things:
- You know the old advertising saying about “reach and frequency”? That applies here. I was able to ignore the first 372 times people made their pitch to me. But the 373rd one finally broke through.
- I’ve developed a real appreciation for some of the cool products out there – – namely, TradeMachine Pro and tastyworks
- I made it a goal to overcome my aversion to – – gasp – – learning anything new. It’s taken a lot of time, but finally these concepts are getting through this thick skull of mine.
- It seems increasingly likely that the Federal Government is going to be utterly and completely in control of equities for God knows how many years, so it’s finally time to adapt and improve. It only took me a decade to realize this.
To be clear, short-selling is still going to be an important part of Slope, and God knows I’ve still got shorts going. But the split between “end of the world trades” and “market neutral” (or at least defined risk) trades has shifted from 100/0 to something more like 80/20. And, with success, it will tilt even more.
So that’s where my head is at. I am pushing through new services on Slope as quickly as resources and time permit, and you can certainly expect a steady drumbeat of improvements, week after week, here on my little corner of the Internet. Thanks for being part of it!
