Safe Option Strategies, LLC. is a subsidiary of Dunyon Online Services, LLC. Safe Option Strategies, LLC. provides education through a weekly newsletter, online seminars, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other means. The use of all information distributed by any means from Safe Option Strategies, LLC. is intended to be strictly informational and is for educational purposes only. All information purchased through Safe Option Strategies, LLC is the intellectual property of Safe Option Strategies, LLC and anyone caught sharing said intellectual property will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 5 REASONS TRADES GO WRONG …and how to fix them. Written By: Jeffry Dunyon, CEO Safe Option Strategies
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Safe Option Strategies, LLC. is a subsidiary of Dunyon Online Services, LLC. Safe Option Strategies, LLC. provides education through a weekly newsletter, online seminars, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other means. The use of all information distributed by any means from Safe Option Strategies, LLC. is intended to be strictly informational and is for educational purposes only. All information purchased through Safe Option Strategies, LLC is the intellectual property of Safe Option Strategies, LLC and anyone caught sharing said intellectual property will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
5 REASONS TRADES GO
WRONG …and how to fix them.
Written By: Jeffry Dunyon, CEO Safe Option Strategies
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Forward: “Why are my trades going wrong?” Have you ever asked yourself this question? Maybe you have
asked it to your broker or money manager. Maybe you have asked it to your spouse who handles all
the investing. I have traded stocks and options for over two decades. I also have taught complex
option strategies to hundreds of investors in the United States and around the world. This question,
“why are my trades going wrong”, may be the one I have heard more than any other from my students
and potential students. It is often accompanied by, “and how do I fix it?” In fact, the “how do I fix it”
part of the question is what ultimately led you to this publication. The same question has probably led
you to look at online education in some form or other, and has maybe even led to you purchasing
someone’s education program.
In an attempt to help identify what might be causing the struggles with the individual I am talking to at
the time, I found that I was always starting the conversation with the same five questions. In most of
these conversations, we would never make it past the first question. If we did, it would often be the
second or third question that would end the conversation. In the rare case that we got to the last
question, the result was often the same answer…. It was just not a good trade to be in.
Based on these many conversations, and with a sound understanding of what makes up a good trade, I
decided to define the answers to these five questions by tying them into the 5 Reasons Trades Go
Wrong. I did it this way because not every person will ask the questions in exactly the same way, but
however they word the questions, they ultimately lead to the 5 reasons.
It is also important as you read this to know that I completely understand that no two investors are
alike; that trading styles and methodologies vary greatly; that risk tolerance is high for some people
and extremely low for others; that short term and long term financial goals are rarely alike for any two
people. If your trading style is significantly different from mine, and therefor different from what I
teach students at Safe Option Strategies, you can still take valuable information from this. You may be
persuaded to try a different method of trading, or you may simply apply these principles to your
current style. Regardless of style or methodology, I believe that these reasons trades go wrong must
be addressed for any investor/trader, before they can begin to fix what is plaguing them, and become
as profitable as the markets will allow.
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It is also important to note that there are no perfect answers to all of the questions that plague us
when it comes to trading the US markets. No technical indicators or chart patterns are perfect in
predicting the direction a stock may move. No amount of fundamental soundness guarantees the
price of a company’s stock will rise. Bad news is not always perceived as a reason to sell, and good
news is not always seen as a reason to buy. Stocks go up and stocks go down. It is a fact of life as sure
as knowing that being born will lead to your eventual death. In the market, we act on the very best
information we have, and do so knowing that whatever we do is based on an educated guess.
Any time you put together a trade you have to ask yourself five hard questions, because how you
answer these questions will lead directly to whether or not you fall victim to one of the 5 reasons the
trades go wrong. The questions are:
1) Did I do my homework on this trade? 2) Did I define an exit strategy?
3) Can I adjust the trade if I’m wrong? 4) Can I live with the worst case scenario?
5) Is it a good trade?
This may seem an oversimplification, but these questions you must ask lead directly to the reasons the
trade goes wrong and loses money for you:
1) You did not do your homework. 2) You did not define, and stick to, an exit
strategy.
3) You do not know how to adjust trades. 4) You set up a trade with too much risk.
5) You placed a bad trade.
As we explore each of these reasons in detail, and come up with the all-important “fix” to them,
consider the trades you have on now, or have placed in the past, and how these things would have, or
could now change them. Consider that using a trading methodology different from what you are
currently doing now could show you different, and perhaps, better results than what you have been
getting in the past. Consider that if you can successfully address these five things, you could sleep
better at night, knowing that you are not subjecting yourself to as much risk in the markets.
5 Reasons Trades Go Wrong…And How to Fix Them .................................................................................................5
Reason 1: You did not do your homework. ................................................................................................................6
Know the companies you trade: .........................................................................................................................6
Know their competitors: .....................................................................................................................................8
Know their history: .............................................................................................................................................9
Know what is happening right now: ................................................................................................................ 12
Reason 2: You did not define an exit strategy. ........................................................................................................ 14
Setting up your exit strategy. .......................................................................................................................... 15
Reason 3: You do not know how to adjust trades................................................................................................... 22
Why Adjustments are So Important. ............................................................................................................... 24
What Exactly is an Adjustment? ...................................................................................................................... 26
Reason 4: You set up a trade with too much risk. ................................................................................................... 31
What can you afford to lose? .......................................................................................................................... 31
The most common mistake on calculating losses. .......................................................................................... 32
Risk vs Reward ................................................................................................................................................. 33
Trade with Little or No Risk. ............................................................................................................................ 35
Reason 5: You were not willing to walk away from a bad trade. ............................................................................ 38
A Little Bit About Safe Option Strategies ................................................................................................................ 42
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5 Reasons Trades Go Wrong…And How to Fix Them
Fortunes are won and lost every day and every year in the US Equities Markets. Brokers make money
for their clients and they lose money for their clients. Individuals, often disgruntled with their broker
or money advisor, take over their own portfolios and manage thousands to millions of dollars within
cash accounts or self-directed IRA’s. Online trading has made buying and selling stocks and options as
easy as checking the balance of your bank or credit card balances.
Online education and live seminars abound with techniques and methodologies for trading stocks,
options, futures, foreign currencies, and commodities. The notion that it takes years of college,
specializing in economics or finance, to manage large sums of money has mostly faded. Brokers and
registered investment advisors are fighting to keep clients, not from one another, but from branching
out on their own.
There is a great feeling of satisfaction and joy when a well-placed trade makes a profit. There can be
feelings ranging from anger, to depression, to outright despair when a trade causes a loss of significant
amounts of money.
No one has been in the markets for long without experiencing the losses. The difference between the
winners and losers in the market can be as simple as one in ten trades that wipe out the profits of the
other nine. In order to be on the side of the winners, it is important to know why the losing trades go
wrong and what can be done to prevent, or at least lessen, the impact of the bad trades. The reality of
trading stocks and options is that some trades are going to lose money. Losing money on an occasional
trade does not however, have to ruin your overall results. If losing trades can be managed, and in
some cases reversed, the profits that can be enjoyed are vast.
With this premise, we dive in to the 5 reasons trades go wrong, and more importantly, how to fix, or
keep these things from happening.
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Reason 1: You did not do your homework.
This question speaks specifically to fundamental, technical, and sentiment analysis. Too many
people trade without being as thorough as they need to be in their analysis of the company
they are trading. They take a cursory glance at a chart, remember that they are trading a
company that makes a lot of money or is a common household name and WHAM….they’re in
the trade. What could they possibly have missed?
a. Often times they forget to look up when the next earnings report is.
b. They forget or simply do not care to read current news and events surrounding that
company. They see a bullish or bearish trend forming but do not look farther back on a
chart to see what past trends could teach about how the stock price moves around
certain seasons or events.
c. They do not know how or they do not bother to look at put/call ratios – short, medium,
and long term – as a means of gauging investor sentiment.
In short, they just do not do enough homework before they enter the trade and then scratch
their heads and wonder why, when things do not work out. Our suggestion is to:
Know the companies you trade
Know their competitors
Know their history and
Know what’s happening right now- today- that could affect the companies
Let us look at these items one at a time and make sure we are understanding what needs
to be considered:
Know the companies you trade:
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There is a lot more to knowing a company than just know the product or service they
provide. A great example of this is The Boeing Company (BA). Most people think Boeing,
and they automatically think Jet Airplanes. While that is certainly true, it barely scratches
the surface of what The Boeing Company does. From the website finance.yahoo.com, this
is what The Boeing Company describes itself as doing:
The Boeing Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, develops,
manufactures, sells, services, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft,
satellites, missile defense, human space flight, and launch systems and services
worldwide. The company operates in five segments: Commercial Airplanes, Boeing
Military Aircraft, Network & Space Systems, Global Services & Support, and Boeing
Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment develops, produces, and markets
commercial jet aircraft for various passenger and cargo requirements, as well as
provides related support services to the commercial airline industry. This segment
also provides aviation services support, aircraft modifications, spares, training,
maintenance documents, and technical advice to commercial and government
customers. The Boeing Military Aircraft segment is involved in the research,
development, production, and modification of manned and unmanned military
aircraft and weapons systems for the global strike and vertical lift, mobility,
surveillance, and engagement. The Network & Space Systems segment is engaged
in the research, development, production, and modification of electronics and
information solutions; strategic missile and defense systems; space and intelligence
systems; and space exploration products. The Global Services and Support
segment offers a range of products and services comprising integrated logistics,
including supply chain management and engineering support; maintenance,
modification, and upgrades for aircraft; and training systems and government
services, such as pilot and maintenance training. The Boeing Capital segment
facilitates, arranges, structures, and provides financing solutions, such as equipment
under operating leases, finance leases, notes and other receivables, assets held for
sale or re-lease, and investments for its commercial airplanes customers. The
Boeing Company was founded in 1916 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.
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That is impressive to say the least. It also demonstrates that The Boeing Company does a
lot more than commercial jet airplanes. It also tells us that there is much more that could
affect the price of the company’s stock than just what a competitor like Airbus does with
their next announcement. What if BA loses a big government contract for military aircraft
or missile defense to Airbus or Northrup Grumman? What happens if NASA loses
government funding and has to cut back on the number of private contract employees it
uses? If you thought all Boeing did was produce commercial aircraft, the dismal release of
the 787 Dreamliner would have put the company under instead of just causing the stock
price to mildly suffer for a short period of time. There is often more to a company, and I
would suggest much more, than what the average investor takes time to know about.
Know their competitors:
Now that you know more about what The Boeing Company does, who would their
competitors be? And, why would that be important? What market share are they fighting
for, and with whom? Do you know what happens to the price of their stock when one of
their competitors does something good, or what happens to their stock price when their
competitor does something bad? You should.
Let’s answer the second question first. In a highly competitive global economy, good or bad
news from a competitor could spell good or bad news for the company you are trading. If
Airbus announces it has perfected a lithium ion battery that doesn’t overheat, and can
operate for longer periods of time, while at the same time BA is having test flights of its 787
catch fire due to overheating lithium ion batteries, wouldn’t it be logical that BA could see a
deeper hit to their stock price.
Maybe a better, or at least more widely known, example would be Apple, Inc. (AAPL) and
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (SSNFL). Apple news affects Samsung and Samsung news
affects Apple. Due to the rivalry of their respective leading cell phone handsets, the two
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companies are inseparable, like it or not. In a recent search of news headlines, the
following information came up:
Want to take a guess as to which of the two companies the search was done on? Does it
matter? It illustrates our point. The news of one company can affect the stock price of the
other and vice versa.
Know their history:
What does a company’s history really tell us about the company? After all, don’t we
overuse the cliché “past performance is never a guarantee of future performance.”? We
are going to dispel a myth in the markets right here and right now. History is a very good
indicator of how a stock could perform in the future; it is just not a guarantee.
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It is crucial to differentiate between indicator, and guarantee. History is always one of the
best indicators we have on what could happen in the future. It is never a guarantee. It is an
indicator, because, (are you ready for this?), there is ample history to show that history
repeats itself.
Let’s look at a different stock to illustrate this. The following is a three-year stock chart of
Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT). As you look at this chart, notice that at the bottom we have circled
the largest volume spikes in the day to day trading of the stock. Notice also that the volume
spikes we are circling are very evenly spaced apart. That is because each of those volume
spikes takes place on the day following an earnings report for Caterpillar, Inc.
If you look closer at this chart, something else might manifest itself to you as well: More often
than not the directions changes in the stock price come after those same earnings reports that
cause the volume spikes.
Consider another chart that shows us how history has the tendency to repeat. Below is a stock
chart of Apple, Inc. from December 2004 to July 2007. Circled on the chart are the respective
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runs up in the price of the stock in January of each of the years represented. In each case, AAPL
saw a big move up just before their Mac World conference they held each year (they have since
stopped holding this conference). As you can see, history repeated itself as the investment
community drove the price of the stock up in anticipation of a new product or service. In early
2007, if an investor had used history as part of their equation in determining a good play on
AAPL, they would have done great in early January 2007 with any strong bullish play on the
stock.
There are literally thousands of examples that could be added to drive this point home. And it
must be emphasized yet again that history does not guarantee anything. But, since we have
already established that any trade we place is based on an educated guess, wouldn’t it only
make sense to use history as part of that educated guess?
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Know what is happening right now:
What is the current political climate like right now? Is there a heated presidential election
going on? How about other world events? Is Russia invading Crimea? Is Italy or Greece
filing bankruptcy? More important than any of these questions would be this one: “Is there
anything going on right now in the world that could have a significant impact on the
markets, and more specifically, on the stocks I am trading?”
Take a glance at some recent news headlines: If you were trading Toyota (TM) or Amazon
(AMZN) would it not make sense to at least be aware of what is going on in the news and
how it could affect the price of your stock? On the day of these headlines, Toyota Motors
was trading down, and Amazon was trading up. Did the news of the day affect the price of
the stock? Could the most recent news possibly affect the long-term price of the stock?
Why would you trade any kind of position on these companies without paying attention to
the news surrounding them? Since we have already established that any trade is based on
an educated guess of what we hope the stock price will do, than it would be logical to have
as much education as what is readily available. In this modern, instant information age, all
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we need to know is right at our fingertips. Trading with less emotion and with more logic is
simply a better, smarter, and more effective way. It begins with doing your
homework….before you open a trade!
DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
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Reason 2: You did not define an exit strategy.
This has to be said in very simple English here, so there is no possibility of
misunderstanding: If you are not defining and following a very specific exit
strategy you are being greedy and will lose money in the markets.
Have you ever watched a trade you are in make money and then wish you had gotten out? Do
you wish you had booked the profit before the stock price turns and the potential profit is
gone? If you are reading this, the odds are that you have experienced this, and probably more
than once.
Early in my trading, I was up 90% on a bull call spread on AAPL. Every time the stock price went
up another day, I got greedy and stayed in. When the stock price started to drop, I was sure it
would be a short-lived pull back and would eventually rise. I watched and watched as the stock
price dropped day after day. By the time I actually got out of the trade I had made a scant 10%
over 2 months. I had a loosely defined exit strategy (I wanted to get 100% net return), but did
not have a time frame on it, and was not really willing to stick with it. I had several thousand
dollars in this trade, and at this time, doubling that would have been fantastic for my portfolio.
A 50%, or a 30% gain have would have done that for me as well, but I was not satisfied with
that. I wanted more. I was greedy, and it cost me!
While a lot of potential profit was lost due to my greed and lack of discipline, I did learn some
things that have made me a lot of money since:
1. Greedy traders seldom do well in the end.
2. Defined exits - that are strictly adhered to - will serve you well repeatedly.
3. Well-defined exits are realistic exits.
Setting up realistic exit strategies is the easier part of the process. Disciplining yourself to
follow your exit strategies can be somewhat more difficult. Let’s deal with setting them up
first.
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Setting up your exit strategy.
To successfully set up the right kind of exit strategies there are several things you need to
understand: 1) the rule of 72; 2) the concept of reverse engineering; 3) realistic expectations.
The Rule of 72
The rule of 72 is a way to figure out how long it will take to double your money, if compounding it
monthly. Investopedia.com describes it this way:
Definition of 'Rule of 72'
A rule stating that in order to find the number of years required to double your money at a given
interest rate, you divide the compound return into 72. The result is the approximate number of
years that it will take for your investment to double. (Investopedia, n.d.)
Another way to understand it is by stating that an annual return of 72% (if compounded
monthly) would double your money in one year. A return of 36% annually would double your
money in two years; 18% would double your money in 3 years and so on. To further illustrate
it, we put together a simple Excel spreadsheet:
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In this illustration, we put in an annual interest rate of 72% (row 3, column D) and divided it by
12 months giving us 6% monthly return (row 4, column D). Row 8 shows our starting balance in
January of $10,000 (column D) and the growth of $10,000 at 6% for $600 return (column E).
Our starting balance for February (row 9) shows the $600 return, added to the $10,000 starting
balance for a February starting balance of $10,600. We then repeated this process through
each month of the year. As you can see, we had a starting balance one year later in January of
just over double what we started with the January before (row 20, column D). There you have
it. Doubling our starting balance in one year with 72% annual return. To further illustrate (but
without all the explanation) here is what 36% annual return looks like:
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In this case, we grew the portfolio by almost 50% in 12 months with only a 36% annual return
(because of compounding the interest). Look at one more example of the same return rate
over the two full years, which the rule says will double our money:
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In January of the second year, while we were a little short of 50%, because of the continued
compounding, we were just over 100% return by the start of January of the third year. You will
apply this concept as you set up your goal for your portfolio, but through reverse engineering,
you will also use it to define your exit strategies.
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Reverse Engineering
Have you ever heard of reverse engineering? For our purposes, it means working backward
from your end goal, to set up each individual trade, or more specifically, your exit strategy for
each trade.
Suppose you have a portfolio which you would like to grow 36% annually (if you want to start
one step farther back, you would ask yourself how much money you need to retire on, and at
what age you want to retire, and then determine how much you need to grow your portfolio
annually in order to reach that goal). According to the rule of 72 this would double your
portfolio in two years. If you reverse engineer this, you could say that you want to get 3% each
month (36% divided by 12 months). You would then calculate how long each trade is open and
how much of your portfolio the trade is going to represent. This would give you an idea, if not
an exact dollar amount the trade needs to make. Then you would be able to determine how
realistic it is for the trade to make that amount of money, and in what time, and thereby set up
an exit strategy.
Here is a step by step way to reverse engineer the target return you need for your average
trade, and therefore a great way to establish your exit strategy (for easy math, we will use a
$25,000 portfolio):
1. Determine the timeframe in which you want to double your portfolio (2 years)
2. Apply the rule of 72 – 72% divided by 2 years = 36% divided by 12 months = 3%
per month return.
3. Multiply your starting balance by your desired monthly return ($25,000 X 3% =
$750) and this is the sum total you need your trading to produce each month.
4. Now divide your needed monthly return ($750) by the number of open trade
you are comfortable managing in a month (this could be a number of trades
running simultaneously, or one trade a week for 4 weeks in a row, or some
combination). If you chose 5 trades, for example, each one of your trades only
needs to make $150 profit. Now you can structure a trade that has as realistic
chance of gaining $150 in profit.
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5. Knowing you need only gain $150 in profit for each trade you manage,
calculate a risk to reward ratio you are comfortable with (we strongly
recommend a risk it reward number of at least 2:1) and make certain that the
$150, or whatever the number you came up with, is no more than half the max
profit in the trade.
This perfectly segues into our last part of setting up exit strategies: being realistic.
Realistic Expectations
I started this chapter with a true story about a trade I blew on greed. Remember the trade I
was up 90% on, and then watched all my profit melt away because I had such an unrealistic
expectation? I really let greed get a hold of me. However, I also blew it by not having a well-
defined and realistic exit strategy. It taught me a lesson for sure, but it still bothers me when I
think about it. It bothers me because while I have always been ambitious, and have always had
a desire to succeed, I never thought of myself as greedy. It also bothers me because, more than
the money I felt like I lost, I just felt plain foolish. And this after I had already been in the
market of over 10 years. I should have known better.
It happens to us all. We get greedy. We fly too close to the sun, and often times we get
burned. Greed is one of the biggest killers of consistent profits in the markets.
Greed is controlled by setting realistic expectations, and those expectations can vary greatly
from one type of trade to another. For example, if you had a spread trade like a bull call
spread, with a maximum possible profit of 80% return, a realistic expectation would be 30-35%
ROI. If you owned stock and knew how to collar trade it over time, 100% return in a year may
not be an unrealistic expectation.
The subject of what is realistic and what is not, in terms of setting up target exits, can be very
difficult because so many people have different risk tolerance. Having a higher risk tolerance in
your trading does not however mean you should not define and stick to exit strategies. Over
time, you may adjust your risk tolerance and find yourself setting more conservative target
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profit levels. But, whatever your personal risk tolerance is, you have to get in the habit of
setting attainable target exit points, and sticking with them.
Safe Option Strategies puts out a weekly subscription newsletter. Follow it and see us
repeatedly set conservative exits and then often exit early when we have gained half or more of
the original targeted profit. This is because more than anything, we have learned that the only
way to control greed is to define a reachable target ROI (primary exit) and then stick to it OR be
more conservative and get out early.
Never enter a trade without knowing exactly how and when you will exit.
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Reason 3: You do not know how to adjust trades.
No matter how good our due diligence (homework) may be; no matter how good we are at
reading technical indicators; and no matter how good we are at deciphering current events
locally and around the world as they may pertain to the stocks we choose to trade around; we
have already established that when we decide to place a trade, we are doing so on our best,
most educated guess, and at the end of the day - it is still a guess. This means, among other
things, that we could be wrong just as easily as we could be right. In fact, when we pick the
price direction we believe a stock might move, we actually have a much greater chance of being
wrong than right if you think in terms of everything the stock price might do. Have you ever
heard someone say that stock prices can move one of three ways, up, down, or sideways?
While this statement is certainly not untrue, it only tells part of the story. Stock prices can
move up very fast, or they can move up very slowly. They can drop like a rock, or they can
meander their way down a little at a time.
FIGURE 1 THIS C HART ON FSLR SHOWS NOT JUST A BEARISH MOVE, BUT A VERY STRONG BEARISH MOVE.
They can move in a somewhat stagnant or flat trend over a period of time, but have many ups
and downs within that range, which are not insignificant. This can be much more difficult to
trade with accuracy than a straight bearish trend.
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FIGURE 2 THIS CHART ON CAT SHOWS A VERY STAGNANT TREND FOR NEARLY 9 MONTHS.
The point here is that stock prices are at best unpredictable, and at worse downright difficult to
predict.
It would be appropriate to move forward from the premise that you do not know what a trade
adjustment is (whether you do or do not know about trade adjustments, keep reading. This
could well be what changes forever the way your trade. And do so for the better.). In order to
explain what a trade adjustment is, you must first understand a little about the way we teach
people to trade at Safe Option Strategies, because adjusting trades can be very specific to
certain methodologies. Put simply, we spread trade. We use options to create trades which
are hedged, and which can be adjusted.
If you are new to the idea of spread trading, or even new to using options in any part of your
trading, do not let that stop you from reading to the end of this report. You need the
information contained in the last two chapters no matter your style of trading. You can learn
more about options and spread trading, and more specifically about trade adjustments at
www.safeoptionstrategies.com . There is free class we teach online several times each week to