yes and the other thing is that, the way Karen trades SPX is actually very conservative. If you watch her interviews and read about how she does it, you’ll see it’s not as risky as you think.

 

I've never messed with options before. I've strictly been a long-term investor focused on good ETFs and a few individual stocks (~40 years until retirement).

How did you guys learn about options? Any recommended reading/videos? I'm planning on continuing my long-term plan but would like to throw some "fun money" into something else.

 

Really? Thanks for the info. I’ll call fidelity Monday.

 

Perhaps consider a tastyworks account; initially fund it with a little bit that you can spare to lose. Then follow tastytrade (the media arm of tastyworks). Lots of live on air programming and educational material. By far the best education out there. Their platform is nice as everybody that works there and is “on air” posts their trades to the platform. You can see what they’re doing and follow if you do choose. Having tried all the platforms I give Tastyworks my vote!

 

I started reading books about options back in the 90’s. I’ve read a lot of books on the subject...a LOT. What I’ve found is that 90% of the books out there contain the same basic information with examples made to look favorable to their system, if they have one. They almost always are hoping after reading their book that you want more, and guess what, they have a service that you can subscribe to. Every author is trying to sell more than their book, so you won’t learn everything you need in one single book. But you can learn all the basics and quite a bit about the 4-5 core options trading strategies, buying calls and puts, buying debit spreads, buying credit spreads, and selling naked options for premium. I’ve actually watched some pretty good YouTube videos about the subject too. Search SMB Capital on Youtube. They have pretty good content about the subject and you can learn a lot in a 10-15 minute video, vs spending a week reading a book. If you don’t understand what they’re talking about, search for basic option information on YouTube. You can learn a lot right there on your phone or iPad.

And as misspoken mentioned, a site like tasty trade, if you want to immerse yourself in it. I had heard of tastytrade but never used them. After misspoken mentioned them, I went to their site and it looks like a great place to learn and trade at the same time.

Good luck.

 

Last year Tom Sosnoff (founder of TW) did a series with one of his employees who had zero knowledge of options, just a desire. It’s interesting because you can see how the way he explains something makes no sense, they bicker about it, and eventually she figures out how to understand it. Short segments, but this girl posts some great trades on the TW platform now. She trades a very small account (I think started at $5k) and she’s made some good pocket change.

https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/...7918701&page=5

 

+1 to Tastytrade for the educational pieces to help get ya started.

 

Thanks guys, will look into those suggestions.

 

You can't be serious. She was charged with fraud and kicked out of the business for losing her client's money and hiding the losses. She lost millions.

 

not exactly true. What Karen did was legitimate. What her accounts did was not exactly transparent. She created fortunes with her trading and ultimately the SEC never convicted her of anything. She paid a $1 mil and change fine. She’s still in good standing with the tastyworks and I’ve seen her speak as recently as last summer at one of their events.

all that aside; her method of trading SPX spreads conservatively works. She may have lost millions but she made hundreds of millions.