8:15, THAT’S where I’m currently struggling. I’ve had very good trade ideas that I’ve planned and prepared for, entered, stopped out, and watched run in my direction. Stopping out was the right idea at the time, rushing the entry with as much size as I did was the mistake. Discipline, discipline, discipline.

Hey Seth, just wanted to say thanks for the video. Any back testing software you recommend?

Thank you ! For me, the biggest things that stood out to me were #2, #3, #5, & #10 on knowing how to lose. I started trading options in August of 2016, back when i was 17yrs old. I started with a $3k account, and I just haven’t gotten anywhere. And looking back at all the trades I have done, it has come down to the losses and being inconsistent. Really appreciate all your videos! Been taking notes as much as possible on all the videos and just taking it all in and learning.

Hi Seth. I have just started doing option trading, this is a great video for me to understand what it takes to become a good options trader. Thanks for all your videos , they are absolutely awesome.

Thank you for providing these videos. Maturity is the key aspect that I need to work on. I trade with fidelity and they do not offer backtesting so I am opening up a think or swim account today. Thank you in advance for your feedback on becoming a mature trader.

Watched your video and the biggest thing I am missing as a options trader is a mentor. Hard to trust many people who have claims to fame, but also hard for real trading firms to trust a trader without 10+ yrs of experience. I will keep learning and growing, looking for the right fit and tracking my trading journey ups and downs. One thing I definitely have is tenacity. Good luck out there SMB as you guys are definitely somebody I learn from and look to help me grow. Thanks for all you do for us newbie traders out there.

My biggest problem is position sizing. I tend to undersized my trades. It's a fear issue I believe. Thank you for any help.

Thank you for your Videos. Do you have any Traders that will hedge equity options bread and butter with bond futures options /zn bread and butter with tight stops?

Hello, I love you your videos and I have a question: When I place an order, for example, a Bull Put Spread, my max risk is between 1-2% of my portfolio, even knowing that is something goes wrong I will adjust and loss much less than my original max risk (sometimes even a lesser win). In your trading desk, what is usually your max risk that you would take?

Hey Seth, My personal style is Naked Puts and Wheel strategy. These maneuvers have worked for me. In the new year I am going to work on Straddles and Strangles. I have never tried these strategies before. This video was helpful. Be well. Happy New Year. Jeff.

Sir, thank you all so much as the officers and administrators of SMB for your generous sharing of all the information and experience you have accumulated over the years. God's Speed.

There is no place for "Emotion" or "Ego" in the Stock Market. Cocky, arrogant traders or scared traders are two extremes of the same totem pole. The measured trader has a better grip on understanding Market Situations. "Slow and Steady wins the race," is a proverb that comes to mind. Great informative video, Thank you, Seth Freudberg.

Seth, your comments touched a few raw nerves. Would you do a session on the types of records to keep. Would you also continue doing videos on the butterfly strategy.

Thanks for the video. Currently in your Options Foundation Course. Have not found my “B&B” Trade yet, but have traded Covered Calls for many years, recently cash secured puts, and most recently Verticles and Iron Condors. Learning how to Backtest in the course with Optionvue in addition to TOS. Have not worked directly with a mentor trading, just the SMB course as of now. I’ve taken some lumps, learned some lessons and moving on. Have not come close to blowing up an account due to risk management, but feel progress is too slow, due to too small of position-sizing. Reading, following, listening, chatting, watching, everything I can get my hands on to find common traits of trades and traders, from setups, to strategies, to, most importantly, psychology and risk management.

Honestly I have been trading for years and I still come back to learn. It never hurts to touch base.

Very good video great knowledge!!! is there any place where we can get the IV history of a share especially on the day before earnings (ie IV value of the stocks in the past earnings before the earnings release)

You're absolutely right about thinking you have it nailed. Just as soon as you start thinking that way, the market will devise a way to turn whatever you're working with and turn it inside out on you.

Bread and butter trade. This week I will endeavour to trade options using this strategy. Many parts but essentially macd cross over from below to above zero, price crossing above the twenty sma.

This is great information. I don’t think I would ever qualify as a pro trader, but this gives me information to work on my personal trading. One point I’ve taken is to learn more about back testing. I’ve done a lot of paper and live trading and I’ve had success but I’ve never done back testing. I’m also going to develop a better disaster plan. Thanks for the videos. I’ve watched a lot of them and they’ve made me a better trader. This type of information helps me be more consistent.

Thank you it was more informative than I ever watch this month! 👍🏻

Hi Seth, The trait I'm lacking is #2." You've Worked With a Mentor To Improve" .- I don't have a community or 1 on 1 mentor to help me develop my bread and butter mean reversion strategy. I've developed the basic framework over the past 2 years but not rigorously applied it. I feel a mentor could help with addressing some of my risk management/sizing gaps. A mentor might also help me find opportunities that I normally overlook but where my ideas could work. Thanks for any feedback you can offer

Simply, Thank you. God bless

I have a bread and butter trade, but I'm not sure if I should expand or focus on it more. I sell cash secured puts on SPY on 20 delta of one of the near expiry option that has relatively higher Implied Volatility, but I feel like I could fine tune it more, just not sure how.

Excellent Presentation!!!

Mentor ship and mental discipline. I’ve handled a big account, lost a percentage and freaked out.. need to move up slowly. From hundreds to thousand swings daily

Hello Seth. Your content has proved extremely educational in my progress towards successful options trading. I'm looking for a mentor and a reading list; I have a basic understanding of options strategies in different market regimes.

Mr Seth is a natural teacher, very well presented. The link on the top right doesn't work. I personally don't have a mentor but have been trading with real money. No stranger to being greedy and taking a loss or being a hopeless romantic thinking my play will turn around and be profitable. Far from a pro but plan to make all my losses at some point.

I am interested in what system do you use for back testing options?, also where would you get the options pricing history for intra day - or is this done end of day? - thank you .

I know a firm here in Atlanta they lost almost 1 billion selling naked puts. My mentor in PE told me they were looking for capital from him to survive. You have to be able to hedge or take max loss and still be profitable. Marty Schwartz took 25 million hit selling puts few months back but he was able to make it back after a few months. The key is capital preservation and making money by taking smart calculated risk. Looking forward to joining you guys in a year or two. Been trading options since July 2018 but only off and on because of forex/futures; didn't go full out options til May 2019.

Great video!👍 If you could suggest any info on improving stop losses. Also any recommendations on mentoring.

Great video. I am trying to improve my "Go to Strategy" like you mentioned, and implement the use of back-testing by the use of a software (recently found out that my broker has one and will be using that).From the points that you mentioned my strongest are passion for the markets and the urgency of being prepared beforehand. I would like to see a video where you elaborate more on how you get prepared for your trading day i.e. News, scans, calendars, tweets, etc. Thanks again.

Thank you for sharing this valuable insight, Seth. I am a DNA Student, slowly working through the course and have been studying and paper trading options to get a feel for how the process functions (I learn much better by doing, so paper trading has really helped without exposing myself to unnecessary losses). I now have a much better idea of how to proceed with my trading education/career. I would love to join the team eventually, but for now I will keep testing and honing my skills. There's a lot of room for me to improve.

Hello Seth. I am new to Stock option trading. I feel a Mentor would be my immediate need. This video was very helpful and I appreciate your experience and insights.

Great content. What backtesting software or platform do you recommend, Seth?

Just looking for a place to start, so much info i just cant seem to get on the right path. I've always loved watching the markets and looking at the graphs but have no idea what to do.

this is really informative. I wonder why they would put this information in such a free platform. I always thought option trading was like making high returns with low costs which was wrong. I'll be starting from the point 1 mentioned in this lecture.

I just started income options trading in December 2021. I have no idea of what I am doing, I do not have a strategy as yet, am just following instructions. So far I am doing better with income options than with equity trading. I am learning the income strategy after blowing through $10,000.00 in lost, buying calls, and puts.

Hey Seth I messed up last week on a iron butterfly on amazon options. I lost about 3k but the options team told me how to pull the calls and let the puts expire. So I lost 3k instead of 5k. But my bread and butter was selling puts and call spreads with low delta for weekly options. I definitely need to work on pulling the trigger and fear when a trade goes wrong. I was up total of 2200 so the 3k hit did not hurt me that bad. Im not going to give up.

I need to have a mentor. Being new to options trading, I would appreciate the help.

This video is pure gold. I come from a latino background and the spanish trading community is full of scammers. I started trading when I was 16 and I wish I would've found information like this one when I started my trading journey. If you don't mind I'd like to translate your videos into spanish so more people can benefit from such wisdom.

This video is absolute GOLD! Thanks! I've been 15 months into my options journey and thankfully the markets were tough when I started, so I didn't get that easy win streak in the beginning itself..... and also knowing a strategy in and out and actually trading it successfully are two very different things.....it's funny how there's only one way for you to lose on a particular strategy and the market does exactly that sometimes and you lose if you're stubborn and don't cut the trade! It's been a difficult journey, but anything worthwhile never comes easy....but I'm passionate about the markets and I'm sure I'll get there in the near future! Keep hustling fellas....👍🏻

Hi Seth, my biggest problem i currently have is getting out of the trade to early. i know i have to let go of the trade when i get down into -10% of trade (total cost of the trade) but when it goes up,after being in the dip @ -9% i tend to let go of the trade when im up only 3 to 4% since the option will expire worthless.

Seth, my biggest weakness is I have never back-tested any strategy. But we are comparing apples to oranges here bc my trading style, though successful is not an income oriented strategy using index options. I am seeking an income oriented strategy to supplement my bread and butter strategy which is a diagonal. I change up the risk of the diagonal by modifying the front month delta. If I am really bullish I sell 30 delta front month, if more neutral I sell a front month 45-50 delta. If I am a nervous nilly i sell a 60 delta. My set-ups are not on idexes but are on equities based primarily on FUNDAMENTALS. If i like the "story" i ride it. NVDA, PYPL etc these are good stories that aren't going away tomorrow. If the story changes I find another vehicle. So my bread and butter isn't an income strategy per-se. When profits come I take them. I don't hope. Hope isn't a trading strategy. But there is a directional element to my diagonals. I don't trade stories I don't understand or believe in. This gives me a "Bullish" perspective. But given any week when I need to open a new position my thesis may require my front month to change even though the story is still in tact. I find this trade is easy to defend as well. I started out many years ago with the Covered call, evolved to the credit spreads and ICs etc but never liked the gap down scenario of the Hi Prob trade. I realize this is a weakness of mine and I need to add an income strategy to my arsenal but i really have no experience with back testing. I watched your video on the BWB where you have 41 wins and 11 losses and would be curious to see how that strategy would have worked if an xtra put or 2 were purchased below the long put to reduce the loss side a bit. The reason I think this way is bc if traders are making 81% on an annual basis they should be willing to give up some of those "lofty" returns to the market gods to prevent the huge losses when they do occur. I'd be happy with 50% annual return to sleep better at night, wouldn't you? If you actually think you can fool the market gods for a year and get 81% then give up some of those returns imo. Heck 30% annually would beat almost every fund manager in the universe!!! So I would love to learn to back test that thesis and trade it as much as possible. As I said I have zero experience back-testing but I am well aware of the mkt gods and am very humble. I would love to add an income strategy but really don't have the confidence to commit to them. I just lost on MU the other day. I put on a Bear call credit spread bc RSI was over 73. I lost very little bc i closed early enough. good thing bc now MU is way beyond my short call. Instead of losing $800, I lost $70. But I have no idea how I would back test an equity. I know how to take a loss and am very humble. Do I meet all 10 requirements? No. But I have the passion and desire. I trade all alone bc I have no community of friends or family into the mkts as I am. I think they are starting to run away from me when I call, lol. Every piece of news is a potential options play, up or down. Seth I like your style and philosophy. You offer a lot to us retailers so thanks so much.

By strategy do you mean set-up or option spread

Former Prop Trader -- Man o' Man...I miss being around the Desk. The companionship, the competition, caring about one another's successes...and working hard to correct the failures. The incredible, AMAZING feeling on days or weeks when you have just OWED the globe and everything in it. When you do ..every...little...single ..thing just right. and it all works exactly as envisioned. AND, the whole desk has the same outcome. Regardless of how well-appointed it may be...serious, professional trading from a home office SUXX! The 20 step commute is nice. Gotta have the ENERGY & the multiplicative IQ/EQ of a Desk, the Participants of which are all pulling the same direction.

Great video

Definitely, the maturity is an issue. Lack of planning/ homework to start the day hurts as well. The lack of a mentor/ coach is what hurts me the most. The lack of experience at this game as well as a lack of sufficient back testing keep me overly cautious, wheeling my favorite stocks in and out of cash puts and covered calls my bread and butter trades for the moment. While I can glean a lot of insights from this KZfaq Channel, and ideas I can back test (so far, with no better success that what I'm doing now), I do believe the success will come as I deal with the above shortcomings; including finding that mentor.

Thanks for the video. there are a couple of things that stood out. 1. I tend to focus on weekly or 2 week out options because I'm inclined to day trade, instead of swing, especially in this volatile market. 2. Since moving to the west coast, I've struggled to keep a consistent schedule, always staying up way too late looking at tickers. This is a major gap I need to address. Just need to plan better.

I must become more proficient with the butterfly trades! Thank You!!

Thank you for the video. I have been trading for approximately 17 years... my bread and butter strategy is credit spreads. I have had months that I have done very well and then other times that it just does not work. I am primarily self taught, and in your presentation you nailed me in the section about being a mature trader. My weakness is knowing when to cut the loss and to be willing to preserve capital and go look for another trade and a set up that can be a winner. I am very interested in learning more and having a mentor to help me become more educated and disciplined in my approach to becoming mechanical in closing out the losing trade. Last year (2019) I was able to get a 400+% return on my account, and in 2018 I was one the same pace until October through December came along. I just signed up for the free work shop and I am looking forward to what I can glean from that. Thank you again John Slater aka roodoc

i love your videos only suggestion if you show more on chart will be much easy to understand for us .

I need to work on backtesting my options strategies, so I know what profit targets and stop losses are appropriate for each strategy.

This video is great

I haven’t done a lot of back testing other than looking at charts and hypothesizing how a strategy might perform, Any software you recommend for that? Also I probably experiment too much looking for a holy grail strategy and veer away from my b&b strategy too often.

I am very new, and I clearly need to grow A LOT in my preparation and responsibilities. I’m still learning what I need to be looking at to prepare for the market, I haven’t even thought about a disaster plan. I can easily see myself getting too interested in too many styles and having a jack of all trades issue. I really appreciate the videos you produce. I’m 33 and hoping if I’m diligent I can keep growing the money I work hard for, and be independent enough to manage my own capital, and find a bread and butter strategy that is truly mine. If you have the time, question for you: Is it reasonable to think you can master options and scalping (with years of dedication) with the idea that you can pivot in highly volatile markets to do more scalping and take advantage of the situation? Or would that be folly? Thank you so much in advance.

Hi Seth, How do I go about finding a mentor? Or, maybe even a competitive trading club? I know I would improve faster if there was direct competition.

What is the people turnover at your firm?

Thanks Seth

This makes great sense. How does one get started? In the past two years made 2 trades similar to those you highlight in your videos. I did make mistakes (pour setup of data causing a delay in structuring the trade - it did end up successful (gain) but not as anticipated. Do you have tools/methods/procedures/guidelines that cover this essential beginning knowledge? I am not looking for a trading gig. I am looking for solid information (lessons?) with guidelines. I understand (not at an expert level) how options work and their function. I have traded options successfully less than 50 - 60 times and lost money on 14-15 times. Any advice, help, or counsel would be greatly appreciated.

Points 2&9 are paramount

I'm struggling with a “go to bread and butter strategy”. I've listened to a lot of your videos and I like the weekly SPX strategy as it's simple. Is this my “bread and butter” strategy? Thanks

I find lately my best trades are Ideas I started thinking about the night before. Options gods are real. I like verticals. I have a note that says I'm never allowed to sell naked puts ever again. I have a generator in case I lose power. I am working on being a consistent green trader. I keep a journal most day, but sometimes 3 days feels like one. In all honesty I need to improve in every way. I am also a DNA student. I am 5 times the trader I was 3 months ago. I feel like Im very close to breaking through. Last week was green. seems like many weeks I would have 4 solid days and one bad one that wiped out the week. Usually form my own bias towards a stock or a random tweet from trump or Whitehouse. I don't know that Id ever be good enough to trade for SMB but it would be awesome. I was a biomed for 20 yrs then lost a contract and trying to make this my career. I wish I would have tried sooner. But I am more mentally prepared than ever before I believe. Anyways, thanks for your Videos I watch Michael , Steven and you often. Thanks for the videos.

I started to learn about swing trading this April and have been live trading about 3 months now. Needless to say I've lost more than I've succeeded . I can only trade calls and puts per T.D. Ameritrade so far due to my inexperience which is probably a good choice. I'm serious about making trading my new profession ( I've been an electrical contractor for over 30 years now) and want to learn as much as possible about swing trading and possibly day trading as well. I've been learning with a company out of Utah yet I feel that they can only take me so far. I would love to find a true mentor and fellow traders. What would you suggest? Thank you in advance for your reply. Greg

Seth, That was an outstanding video. I'm humbled by the standards your firm sets for its traders, and I failed the test! One of my biggest challenges is knowing when to let a trade "breathe", and when to exit. Especially in my directional trades, I'm very conservative when putting up debit spreads (never more than four), and the trade has exposure for sometimes three weeks. Thanks in advance. -- Rob

I have no idea about back testing few of the strategies i employ. I have no single strategy bread and butter strategy either either. Although I generally try to sell options and covered calls.

Seth, I recently purchased the SMB Options Trading course. I am just getting started but wondering how to find a mentor? Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I've been trading the wheel of fortune with success. I'm trading small, only selling one put and one call on covered call.

Not sure if you guys read this, but currently a retail trader mainly trading the ES, have had constant success so far, (have only been trading for two year), but am becoming more interested in options trading more specifically on the SPX. Are there any strategy(s), that do not require as much time for managing the options throughout the trading day as I plan to continue to day trade at the same time. Or would this be too many things at once. The information in all of your videos is invaluable.

what is a back test?

managing ones losses is, perhaps, the most important factor.

Thank you for this video. I am very new at options. One of my target is to test some strategies to figure out my bread and butter one. One basic and maybe silly question : if any strategy may fail in certain market environments and it is all about probabilities, does it make sense to apply a basket approach. I mean for example if you are good at 5 different weekly options strategy of which success rate is 70% and you have a capital of 100.000 USD , is it rational to allocate 20.000 capital for each strategy in each week so it is more likely that 3 of your 5 strategy work on a a single week and you are consistent at having profits? Of course this is a very simple example where i ignored the variables effecting the price of options in each strategy.

I have watched tons of trading videos and still lost on how earn,i ineed to establish a far more solid education foundation other than KZfaq

Note bull put spreads inherently have built in stop losses.

Psychology. That's true.

Another awesome video. I have been trading options every day for the last 13 months but haven't been having much success. I am trying really hard to get good enough and build a track record to apply to SMB. Would love to work at your firm one day

Seth out of the points you described, I need in-depth education and then a mentorship. How do I find quality education and mentors that just don’t sell you a bill of goods? Thanks

Maturity as a trader and having a Mentor are the two biggest "No" answers. I've been doing the "wheel" strategy for about a year and would consider it my bread and butter strategy so far. Had a great run in 2021 with a 38% return. 2022, not so much. I'm down 94%. A classic case of upsetting the Options Gods as Seth mentioned in the video. Having a good Mentor would have prevented that from happening.

I am looking for an options trader for my account?

....................brilliant....insightful....i want to work for you....

You said the traders need to have 5 years of experience before getting hired. How come you hire college graduates? How much experience do they have?

I am with IB canada.Unfortunetly , i can only benefit from cross margin when strategy has equal spread on each side. i can only trade balanced iron condor, balanced butterfly and credit/debit spread. when i change strike, for instance, to trade a broken butterfly , IB consider each leg separatly and margin for that kind of strategy does not worth the investment. how will you trade with this kind of restrictions? Do you teach that at smb?

On a loss of 10 percent, one should go to bull put spreads until the confidence returns. That will always be my “bread and butter,” as well as my roast beef!

Ive traded for 3 years and barely just now found a bread and butter strategy which I have only used for the past 2 months well. My deficiency is not making 30% returns from it yet.

This is interesting to know. The question I would have to ask is, hypothetically, why would you want to hire me? IOW, if my strategy is well defined enough to be coded into a _”trading bot”,_ why not just let a bot do it and not have to split the gains with a human?

hardest part for me is.. having to predict if my sell target is during pre-market or after-hours. for example. if you buy calls, and it hits your target in premarket you can't even sell. then it drops before market open and you're screwed

If I have a bread and butter strategy which is working in even extreme conditions can I think of scaling it up with big capital ? So that I generates big money

Thank you! 30% annual return benchmark is helpful. I have a position trading strategy in stocks and most of the money is there, and I'm just starting to dabble in options so even though I have a not so small account, I have a small amount allocated to options and I focus on percentages not absolute dollar amounts which are more or less irrelevant to me except from a practical asset allocation perspective. Made my first ever options trade earlier after I signed up for your weekly options income machine course. This was an awesome way to start doing options because all I have to do is follow your instructions LOL and I'd be a total effing idiot to bet against a 1 million dollar plus proven for decades AI system omfg. I used to be in IT so maybe that's why I think that. The one loss was very instructive because I could see it unfold and it taught me a lot more about how options work and I didn't even know how my broker would settle it hahaha.

I find that lately i have been struggling to keep up my morning schedule routine for the markets. I need to wire my brain better and discipline myself when i mess up.

anyone know of a good trading community that i can join?

I have been trading options now for 9 month and my result as such is ok for me so far. I know I could do better. What I am lacking is point 2, the mentor.

I need the mentor or chat groups ... How do I go about finding good ones?

After reading the first 15 comments, you guys/gals have TONS of material on KZfaq to catch you up to the SMB tutorials. They never said it was easy. As a matter of fact, I do believe this video was about people that have the " qualities " to be consistent... try not to make it too obvious that you don't have those qualities.

On the account size, you mean buying power or capital?

conclusion: you'll never be hired by SMB unless you are already experienced & profitable in which case you don't need to trade for someone else anyway.

how can i join the skype group?

I got 9 out of 10.

I think maybe I just study way too much I tested in strategies and use different strategies I have bread and butter strategies I’m very passionate about trading I tried as much as I can because I frankly I have nothing else to do I am fully disabled in this selfie with my mind and body to stay sharp but I also have noticed that I am getting very good at it trading because I seem to have a photographic memory and that really helps with my training but I do need a mentor I’ve been teaching myself for the last five years and there’s always something to learn every day 🆘

How about March 2020 June 2020 and 2 days ago when tech stocks crashed down ... my first year of option trading. November 2020 is going to be wild. Well... here it goes 🤞🏽

I have been investing for a number of years now and only started trading options over the last 2. I was very successful in my beginning years of option trading but eventually took some serious loses more recently. There is no denying that I need help and believe my initial focus would involve mentoring, a bread and butter strategy ( I don't have one), proper use of stops, and getting more involved in the Option trading community.

I am not educated and not sure how I can get the education, I also have minimal experience and wish to get the experience