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I thought I would add my 2 cents regarding TastyTrade, so here goes...
I first came across TastyTrade while randomly surfing futures.io for information on options trading. Unfortunately I cant find the post so am unable to thank that poster (it was a trader from the UK I think..)
So, I had been spending months and months trying to develop trading bots for CL and NG, with a small account, and not really making any progress. I decided to take the plunge and learn about options trading, and I really wish I had done it earlier, as it really opens up your trading horizons to many different worlds. If you have even a slight analytical bent, then options trading is for you.
Anyway, I came across TastyTrade (TT) and initially my reaction was like many here: "WTF is this??" but I stuck with it and now I have it on as my default background noise. There is something for everyone, from futures trading to TA. They are not trying to sell you an indicator or anything, but you can pay for a subscription to follow Toms trades if you want.
Tom is a very nice and genuine guy. He is out to help the little guys, and everything he does is to try to help people take control of their investments. I have emailed him a number of times and he always replies, sometimes within minutes! He has nothing left to prove, and does not need to do this to survive. He is a trader through and through and loves what he does, and his passion is infectious! Tom is a contrarian and does not deny it. It is only one style of trading, and is not for everybody. Because of this, hes nearly always early and has to take some heat before the market goes his way, but his mantra is Trade Small, Trade Often, so he is able to use probability and time to his advantage, and just waits until he is right. No Stop Orders required.
If I was not stuck with IB TWS for various reasons, I would switch to the TOS platform tomorrow - easliy the best platform for options trading. I have been trading options in a small way since Nov 2015, and with TTs help I have been able to keep my head above water so far (touch wood).
So, if anyone want to learn options, TT is easily the best FREE resource available right now. There is a lot of gold hidden in the segments, and if you actually take the time to mine through them, it will make you a better trader Im sure.
And finally, in response to the poster who was bitching about the "knuckleheads", we all know that trading is a stressful, nerve-wracking game, so any channel that can lighten the mood in the slightest (especially now, during the worst start of the year ever!), is most welcome to me!
Thought I'd add my opinion since I've been watching a lot of their content.
Tom is definitely a good guy and an experienced trader. It's pretty awesome (authentic) that they actually trade their own dough on the show and don't just parade recommendations and analysis around. I think people underestimate the value of being around experienced traders just discussing the market/ideas. That privilege used to be only reserved for those of us that work for a prop firm of some kind, now anyone can get a taste (heh) for free!
That being said I'm not a huge fan of the live show, as others have said too much cringe worthy banner to fill out the segments. BUT the shows where the review actual trades, and the ones with a hypothesis backed by a full research report are really amazing content. I watch them after they've been recorded so i can skip right to the good stuff and that's what i'd recommend.
Overall in the landscape of trading advice/education, TT seems about the most authentic I've come across. And all the content is free for the taking as of this writing. If anyone from TT reads this thanks very much for your content! It's helped me tremendously as I've started to transition from an academic options trader (learning) to one that operates daily in the markets.
I started my learning of options with Dough.com. This gave me a basic understanding of options and Tastytrade philosophy of Trade Small / Trade Often. Also that most of the time it is better to sell options and collect premium($) rather than buy options.
After getting the Certificate of completing these FREE classes on Dough.com, You were able to get a discount at TDameritrade for trading options (I think it was $2/trade. at the time TD would charge over $5/trade for low volume traders).
Tom also developed an options platform at dough.com that could link to your TD account. This platform was easy to use and showed a more visual representation of where price had to be at time of expire to show a profit/loss.
Now Tom has opened a brokerage called Tastyworks.com. Option trades are $1 to open a trade, no fee to close trade just a 0.10 clearing fee. Which is good for me since I mainly only trade 1 contract per trade.
I have watched tastytrade just to get the basics of what types of options works with different trading environments (i.e. Hi Volatility vs Low Volatility).
You can see a bunch of trades being done by various traders on the platform, I haven't taken the time to see if any are profitable. Tom is way to contrarian for me. And with a small account ($5000) I could not take all these trades. I would much rather find my own way of trading.
I started live in march 2017, I mainly trade credit spreads, once in awhile debit spread. Options on equities(stocks) was kicking my butt for a little while. I started trading options on ETF's and have been doing a lot better.
I only have about 3-4 trades per month, closing position if 70% of target is met, with a profit of $30-$100 per trade while risking about $50-200 per trade. I check my positions daily. I have been assigned once so far.
I have made about 10% profit so far (balance of $5531 at end of july).
Dough and tastytrade taught me a lot about options. They show a lot of stats of how/when certain strategies work in certain environments. I don't really watch tasty trade anymore, but if I wanted to start trading strangles/straddles/calendars, I would definitely watch the training videos for these strategies.
Since I only check these options daily, this leaves me plenty of time to trade futures too!!!
I was looking for a less hectic and time consuming means of generating income than my prior day trading of momentum stocks. So I explored selling option premium based on some reading, prior experience, and Tastytrade shows and studies. My initial results based on doing small trades were good, so I increased the sizes of my trades.
When my results fell back, I tried to determine
* whether I just experienced beginner's luck with my early success,
* if I had just hit an typical bad streak, or
* whether there was a fundamental or temporary market issue in trading options.
I contacted a key person at Tastytrade (TT) to discuss the situation. I pointed out it was not obvious that defined risk (DR) trading could be profitable based on the apparent P/L math for DR trades,
(Typical Probability of Profit <55-60%> * Usual Max Profit <$300>) - (Typical Probability of Loss <40-45%> * Usual Max Loss <$600>) - Estimated Commissions & Fees.
The calculated results over 1,000 trades was a big negative result. Could one overcome that P/L math with 1) the overstatement of volatility in option pricing and 2) taking partial profits early?
The TT person admitted that it was very hard to make money consistently with DR trades and that he personally discovered that including undefined risk (UR) trades was the key to profitability.
So I learned from TT how to do Iron Condors, Iron Butterflys, etc., but if it is very hard to make money consistently with DR trades, why do they teach those?
My UR trades, mostly OTM naked outs, have all been profitable, but I do fewer of those trades due to margin/buying power impact plus the risk of assignment from a big market correction.
I am becoming more apprehensive about the objectivity of Tastytrade due to the prior broker affiliation with TOS and now the affiliation with Tastyworks. Who does "Trade small, trade often" really help, the trader or the broker?
To me, learning all the details about trading Iron Condors, Iron Butterflys, etc., is simply data if it is hard to make consistent profits with DR trades. However, learning that UR trades are the key for profitability is valuable and useful information for me as a trader.
I started getting into options trading a few years ago and my experience was similar to yours. I tried all sorts of defined risk strategies but couldn't make them profitable consistently. It's easy to get a few winners, but that's irrelevant if you can't be consistently profitable in aggregate.
In my opinion based on a few years worth of options experience, I do not think defined risk option strategies in the stock market can be profitable consistently. With that said, defined risk is not completely useless. I believe that it should be used as a learning tool to understand the mechanics of how options work. This allows you to tread water and either make zero profit or make small losses over time,...all the while learning how options work in practice.
Over time I have moved more to undefined risk as well as very wide spreads (eg: 10+ points wide). I combine that with technical / chart and implied volatility analysis.
I think it's a mistake to just blindly sell premium all the time, especially in a market that consistently goes up which makes people complacent and take on too much risk. Then when a correction comes, you blow out your whole account and years worth of profit. That's why I combine undefined risk, chart analysis, diversification, correlation and implied volatility into a more holistic method of selling premium.
Use defined risk as training wheels to learn the mechanics but don't expect it to pay the bills, then move on to undefined risk (carefully and by incorporating a well diversified portfolio).
This is a shorter segment of a three part research series they did addressing the common expectancy formula almost all new options traders discover. https://ontt.tv:443/2xJA5T4
IDK if I agree with them, but I've been making steady profits using their methodology for about 6 months. They do show from research that increasing spread size is more profitable than increasing contract, when you get to the point that you can take on more risk.
Overall, each individual has to practice in a field of study in order to improve skills... Tastytrade as a network is excellent free education. Blindly following ANY method without study and practice... it's a recipe for disaster.
To each their own, if it's not your cup of tea fine nothing is IT for everyone but I don't relate to the negative generalizations... Over 6+mo. since with tastyworks I'm profitable overall and positive most every month trading practically all defined risk trades. Nothing special about me, past history trading generally has been more negative than positive. Personally I don't see ''tasty trade" as a single modus operandi, I have friends who follow one trader only amongst the dozen or so, and don't watch or care for the other traders. Same for me, I like Sosnoff and a few others, but there are traders and shows I wish would exit. More a supermarket of choices within a broad framework for myself anyway.
For those with a negative slant, pls. tell us where else will one find real identifiable people that one can see/hear/ and can even communicate with being that transparent, not to mention numerous hours of free content... Like any other craft, what one_does_with the tools is more a statement of the one who puts the tools into practice.
ps, apology if this came across sounding a bit edgy, unusual for me, quiet accepting soul I usually am...-) but I have a high regard for Sosnoff and the enormity of what he's created and shares for so little in return. To my mind he has a heart akin to BigMike, in the sense that not one in a million would do/offer what they do for others. Peace.
I took great pleasure in his recent reviews of 2018/2017 trades/predictions from investment house. "have you considered a short put-spread in..." LOL. they're a very approachable group with competitive fees.
The trade small trade often, and the stay engaged mantras are key to my recent success... Nothing compared to my $1200 a day -$2400 the next over leveraged custom indicator futures trading stint... but 10%-12% annualized delta neutral portfolio is working for the moment.
I appreciate the link to TT's "Profits with Iron Condors" segment including their "common expectancy formula". It is valuable information if managing early improves the expected results to such an extent, from 65% PoP up to a 88% PoP. The person I contacted by e-mail at Tastytrade, a key program host, should have been able to indicate that managing early significantly improves the results. Instead, he said he could not refute my formula and suggested more undefined risk (UR) trades for better profitability. That was fortunate for me since my UR trades, mostly naked puts, have worked very well and helped offset my net losing defined risk (DR) trades, mostly Iron Condors (IC).
Very importantly and to his credit, Tom points out at the end of the "Profits with Iron Condors" segment, that during strong trending markets like we are in, that Iron Condor trades have not worked. I have the net negative track record on numerous Iron Condor trades for the past 6 months to confirm that most of my ICs were losers with little or no potential for early management. I thought my losses might be a typical losing streak or something else, but apparently it was the wrong kind of trade during a strong market trend period. A better late, than never, cavaet for IC traders.
A "free" education, if incomplete - e.g., ... BUT don't try Iron Condor trades in strong trending markets like we are currently in - can be expensive in net trading losses.
I completely agree that "Blindly following ANY method without study and practice is a recipe for disaster", which is why I don't. I take full responsibility for my trading results. My early IC trades generally worked, but the latter ones, even with wide strikes, did not, so I tried to objectively evaluate the situation.
Finally, while Tastytrade does not charge you to access their shows, one cannot pretend that it operates purely on a benevolent basis. It was a marketing tool for TOS and now is for Tastyworks. It encourages you to try option trading by attempting to demystify it. They have a wide range of hosts, which are targeted at a wide ranging audience. That is not negative criticism, it is an objective observation.
According to the wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sosnoff, "In 2014, a Silicon Valley venture fund, Technology Crossover Ventures, invested $25 million into Dough Inc.,[12] also founded by Sosnoff, which includes tastytrade." If that is correct, the venture capital fund is looking for a return on its $25 million investment along with Tom and probably other investors. Until they start charging for the programming or adding third party advertising, the only apparent source of earnings will be from commissions on trades in Tastyworks accounts.
So my recommendation is to take the "free education" with a few grains of salt and remember that Tastytrade/Tastyworks will profit from your trading volume, not from your individual success, and evaluate how they manage that conflict of interest.
This is true of any broker that also offers research and education content. For my money, the Tasty brand definitely goes above and beyond what other brokers i've used offer. They're pretty honest on the shows when it comes to acknowledging that the only way they make money is the commission on the brokerage. IDK what to say man, if you don't like it, don't watch them/trade with them. To each their own.
