Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Steps to Successful Option Trading

By Johnny M Junior


Before we go through our discussions today, I am hoping that you are starting to see your stocks moving up. This document is the second of a six-part article with video tutorial complementing each part. If you wish to learn the promising business of trade options, then I suggest you watch all of the videos.

A very important step in learning to trade options is to spend a lot of time back testing your trades. There are just a few option software programs on the market at this time that can help you with this task, but learning to trade without costing you a dime is worth your time. I learned a lot by using Optionvue and/or Think or Swim to back test my option trades. These two software bundles have been very good, but now San Jose Options has just released a new type of back testing tool called the "Options Toolkit." With this back tester you will save a lot of time in comparison to any other options testing software.



To back test a year-long of trading a Condor will take an hour using Optionvue. With Think or Swim, the test will somehow finish just a little faster. But with the Options Toolkit, getting the job of back testing one year of trading done will only take an amazing period of 2 seconds! Not only will the Options Toolkit give you 2 seconds of back testing, it can provide you with more and better organized data than any other software programs can.

Now, another important factor to attain trading success is learning by experience. After trading for a number of years, an options trader will develop precious experience in the business. The market has a lot of personalities, and it takes but experience to fully understand the movements of an ever incessantly changing market.

Paper trading is an excellent way to learn how to trade options. It is easy to get access to a Paper account. You can open up a free trading account with Think or Swim and/or almost any other options broker. This will give you the practice you will need. It may be difficult, but it is very important to paper trade for at least six months to a year. Remember, it is very important to gain experience over time, and paper trading is one way to gain this experience without risking any money.

Finally, you must not lay everything you have in your trading account on the table. You should leave at least 25 percent of your capital in cash. The best option strategies require some necessary adjustments, and you must have the extra pocket to accomplish them. One of the secret behind successful options trading is to leave plenty of money in cash for you to be able to keep your portfolio afloat, to lock in profits, and to carry out trading adjustments.




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