Do You Have a Trading Strategy?

Allen: Welcome passive traders. Welcome to another edition of the podcast today I have with me my good friend Alex. Alex is one of our graduates of our credit spread Mastery program and I brought him on to talk about what it was like in the program, what his results have been, and what he sees for the future. Alex, how're you doing today?

Alex: I'm doing great.

Allen: Awesome. Awesome, cool. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, how you got into options, what you do full time, all that kind of good stuff?

Alex: Sure, I worked in the corporate world for about 15 years and always invest in real estate. And in 2015, I left the corporate world to focus 100% on real estate. But as far as option trading, you know, in real estate, there are lulls in activity, you know, whether you're caught up in in building and planning, or, as we were discussing earlier, there's a global pandemic. So the Option Trading provided the prospect of additional streams of income. So I had a good friend that actually a family member has been trading options for decades. And he kind of figured out all the stuff you figured out, and they told me about it. And they basically said, Hey, there's this guy, the Option Genius. Of all the crazy programs and snake oil salesmen out there, you know, they said, This guy's he knows what he's doing. His strategies are legitimate. So that's how I kind of got turned on to your stuff.

Allen: Awesome. Sounds good. So basically, it was I mean, you're in California, you know, I know you're doing well for yourself. It was basically I need, I'm gonna diversify income, and I'm gonna just try to learn this new skill, or was it more to it?

Alex: No, that's exactly it. I mean, we have multiple streams of income. And we're always looking for additional streams. And this, again, based on the family friend that introduced us to you and your program, and this style of trading, we just seem like a very viable additional stream of income.

Allen: So you're not looking to quit what you're doing and just go full time trading. This is something in addition to what you're already doing?

Alex: Yes. Yeah. But not not yet. You know, I started out I did your program. I started out slowly, I started with the paper trades. And then..

Allen: Well, that's because you had never traded options before. That was your first time doing anything. Right?

Alex: Exactly, exactly. I never traded options. I mocked around in the past with securities, but you know, probably lost a bunch of money doing it. So you know, this is really my first introduction to Option Trading.

Allen: And how did it go?

Alex: I think it's gone great. I've learned a ton. So like I said, I started out with paper trading. And then probably the end of March, I started with my real trades, I can tell you I did since the end of March, I've placed 46 trades, I currently have three active trades for those three trades. So far, so good. They're set to expire at the end of next week, of the trades I've placed, I had 37 out of 43 were successful. So that's like an 86% success rate, the longest run I had was about 14 successful trades. And you know, so interestingly enough, I started out at the end of March, and then by the beginning of June, I was up by 1100 bucks. So again, these are small trades, like 50 bucks or so and potential earnings and, and so on for potential profit. And then all of a sudden, by the end of June, I was actually at $35. So, so what happened was I placed a few trades, and you know, a bunch of them were the potential profit was somewhere around $50. And then there are other trades that maybe are based on the spread or the actual stock or the option. You know, they were worth 100 bucks, potential profit, or max profit. And some of those just didn't go my way. So that I don't know, if the term the trades weren't exactly balanced. So those six trades took me you know, that didn't go well took me from 1100 bucks down to $35. A couple I made mistakes that, you know, like, one was Amazon, I lost about 250 bucks on that. And that was because I placed a trade too soon after earnings, which and I can hear you in my heads. Oh, the credit spread mastery sessions and we're, you know, we're too close to earnings or not before earnings, but after earnings, you know, and the stock got a little bit of a bump, yeah, after earnings and started heading south. But you know, and then a few others like United rentals or Norfolk Southern, they're just larger trades, and they just didn't go well, or they didn't go my way. So..

Allen: So that was basically you were trying to scale it up a little bit or it was just it just happened that they were..

Alex: It's just at that time. I wasn't aware of it. You know, it's interesting, looking back how much I've learned and how much more aware I am of what's happening in the trades, and I have a better sense of what's a good trade, I have a better sense of what's actually trending well. And since I started I got back on the horse in early July. Since then I'm nine for nine In all my all my trades are somewhere around 100 bucks max profit I made sure that I had, they're all balanced. So if I take a hit, you know, for all the wins that one hit won't wipe me out.

Allen: So is that 10%? The 100 bucks?

Alex: Yes, yes. Yeah, right. I get out of 10% on every trade. So..

Allen: Okay, so basically, you learned your lesson, you figured out like, okay, hey, this needs to be balanced, they'll need to be the same amount. It'll make it easier for me. And then, since then you've recovered. And now..

Alex: Yeah, at this point, I'm at year to date, I'm at 1040.

Allen: Good.

Alex: I'm up 1040 so..

Allen: How much are you playing with?

Alex: I have 15 grand in the account. Okay. Just, you know, again, just, they're not huge transactions. But again, they're all about max profit, or somewhere around $100. And I'd like to start scaling up.

Allen: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's a wonderful place to start, you need to go from zero to not knowing anything about options to where you are now, where you're like, Hey, I'm consistently being profitable on these traits. And I think now from (inaudible), I believe you do have that confidence that, hey, you know, what this stuff works? If I follow it, if I do it, and I just, you know, put in put in the effort, it's gonna like you, you it's like an ATM machine that or like a slot machine, you know, putting the money you get the money back, you get more back, right?

Alex: No, for sure. For sure. And I you know, it's during the the class, I used to ask a lot of questions. And you would say, just you got to go for it. You got to you got to place the trades. And it's, you know, volume. And I can see that it's the more you do it, the more you develop that sixth sense that you always talk about and you put yourself in a better position to see success.

Allen: Yeah, I mean, what I remember is that you were you were trying to overthink it, you know? Yeah, it's like, okay, I'm looking at this trade. And there's just one little thing that is like, not perfect. Do I do it? I'm like yes.

Allen: Yeah, like six months from now, they're saying that they're not going to have you know, they're gonna have this problem. Like, no, yeah. Let's put it on and see how it goes. Because, and I love the fact that you are starting out small. I mean, obviously, you can go much bigger if you wanted to. But you're like, hey, you know what I'm going to, you know, play with this, I'm going to learn it. I'm not going to risk a lot. Because a lot of people they come in and they, you know, they start off with big numbers right away. Some people come to us like I had one guy. Just yesterday, before he emailed me, he goes, "You know, I have $9,000 but I can't do this. It's like, why? Because I only have $9,000?" You can't, but you could learn it. Right? I mean You could learn you don't have to use the 9000 to you don't even need 9000 to learn. You can do paper trade, like you did. And you start off and you do it, do it, do it. You gain confidence. And then you put a little bit in each one. And then it just grows and grows and grows. Are you at the point now where you feel that you're going to start putting a little bit more money into each one?

Alex: Yeah, like I said, I coming into June, I was doing really well. And then I though there are several trades that that almost basically wiped me out and wiped me out. We're talking less than 1000 bucks. But it didn't

Allen: It didn't hurt you. Because I mean, that was your profits that you gave back. You didn't go actually go negative. So..

Alex: No so yeah, so now I'm a little more focused. And I upped each trade, like I said, max profit of somewhere around 100 bucks. And so far, so good nine for nine and, you know, slowly ramp it up. So my, you know, my goal for the year is to end up profitable so that, you know, I see some of your, many of your students have seen incredible success. And some of the some of the people in the very class that I was in and make 1000s of dollars or exponentially grow their, their accounts. I'm happy just to be profitable this year. I'm okay to you know, being slow and steady, you know, are taking that approach.

Allen: Looking at the long run, the long term picture.

Alex: Yeah, I'm a real estate investor. So, you know, we we, um, you can make a killing in real estate, but we were we're primarily buy and hold. You know, we've, I mentioned we started building houses a couple years ago, but by and large, our strategy has been buy and hold. So..

Allen: And it's worked well for you.

Alex: Yeah and we're talking about option trading. We're not talking about buying and holding but my point is, it's about you know, the, the broader horizon or the, you know, thinking about the long haul.

Allen: Yeah. And I love it that you understand your temperament. You understand your personality, you know, because sometimes somebody in your shoes where they're like, You know what I want, I want to take it long term, or I feel more comfortable when it moves slowly. And then they start doing something that goes against that and they started like day trading or buying options and trying to make 1,000% overnight, and internally, they can't handle it, you know, emotionally, it's like they don't understand why they're not doing well is because, you know, their temperament or their personality doesn't jive with that way of doing it. So I love that you found a balance, and you're not worried about everybody else, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, hey, you know, this guy made 50% this year. Okay, great. I made 100 bucks, I'm okay, I, you know, I got my confidence, I got my practice, I did it over and over again. And I proved it that, hey, this can this can work for me. And so you have from now until the end of your days to keep doing it, and compounding it and compounding and you know, the effort, you know, like, when you start compounding the money, it just gets larger and larger and larger. So what, you know, $100 right now might not sound like a lot to some people, but that $100 is going to grow and grow. And five years from now, it's going to be 1000 to trade and then 10,000 to trades and 20,000. So, cool. Awesome. So I mean, was there anything that anything that was holding you back? Was there anything that didn't click for you right away,or?

Alex: I used to sell software, and I was working in Silicon Valley during the internet boom, you know, the whole dotcom thing. So I dabbled in, in a number of tech stocks and so on. Beyond that, I had zero experience. And as far as options, forget it, I dated a girl that went on to trade options commercially. That's about that was the that's about the extent of my experience with options. So I knew absolutely nothing. And just like the logistics of placing trades, and so on. And so many of the things, we talked about your strategies until you actually do it. For me, personally, I had to do it a bunch of times to really internalize it. You know, like I said, simply, you know, what does it mean, for a stock to be trending nicely, you know, or positively, I have a better sense of what that is, at this point. So yeah, it's interesting, I think this is so much like real estate. In real estate, you always say, trade with the odds in your favor. And, you know, that's what the Option Genius is all about. That's what we do in real estate. I mean, you, you do due diligence, you know, and there's there's definitely luck involved. But if you do due diligence, you're investing with the odds in your favor. You know it's, you know, that's how you ensure success, and slowly, slowly build it up. So but anyway, to answer to go back to your question, I, you know, this is you have to figure out how to actually place the trades which can be a challenge in itself, and really internalizing what all these strategies are and how to actually implement them successfully. It just took a little time, but I don't really feel like there were any major barriers are, or challenges, you know.

Allen: So it was just because it was all brand new, just..

Alex: Yeah, yeah. And then mentally, you know, I, I'm doing what works for me, you know, mentally building up the size of my trades, or scaling up, I'm scaling up at my pace based on what works for me, like we were just saying,

Allen: Yeah, and I mean, the scaling part of it, it's all, it's gonna be all emotional. Because once you have the skill of finding the trade, putting it on monitoring and and managing it, then it's just a matter of zeros, whether you do one contract or 10 contract or 100 contracts, right? Almost all of it is identical. So the hardest part is being profitable, like you said, and then after that, you can just add to it, and then you just managing your emotions and be like, Okay, I'm taking too much risk. I know, I'm feeling stressed out, I'm going to cut it down, or, you know, or, Hey, I feel good about this. Alright, let's, let's, let's go a little bit, let's put the pedal down a little bit. But I also like the other thing, that in options, there are like 1001 different strategies that people could do, you know, everything from under the sun. But you came in and you join the credit card mastery course where we only do one strategy. And that's the one you learned. That's the one you're still trading you haven't, you know, been like, Okay, I like this. This is good. Now, let me go learn something else. Now, let me go learn another one. Let me go let it go. I know you just stuck to that one. And you're at that point where like, Okay, I'm gonna get good at this one. And then we'll see what happens later on.

Alex: No, exactly. I mean, by staying focused, I have a better chance of success. And by staying focus, I am learning so much that I know when I start to expand my strategies, or incorporate other strategies, everything I'm learning now by focusing on this one strategy will benefit me. I know towards the end of the course, we got into some of them some other strategies and some more complex strategies. And I just I said, That's not for me. I can't I don't want to hear it right now. You know, I mean, ideally, I'd like to start acquiring using your strategies and acquiring stocks holding on benefiting from the dividends and so on. I just right now, I'm still focused on the credit spreads.

Allen: Great. That's awesome. I mean, you know what you want you going after that.Nobody can fault you for that. So give me a couple of takeaways from your trading journey so far, what have you learned?

Alex: Yeah, I think it's, you can trade with the odds in your favor, you can put yourself in a position to realize consistent returns, I think you know, that the credit spreads are one thing, but you know, like, you're saying, that should be a small percentage of your portfolio, I see, I just see a lot of potential, you know, again, I mentioned I sold software for a number of years, I was I was a lot of these tech stocks that were blowing up, I was, you know, interacting with these companies directly. And I never really paid much attention to stocks, I just, I was always a did my job. And then I was, I was investing in real estate on the side. So it's just really opened my eyes to the potential of the stock market and investing and, you know, I, I really look forward to building up a portfolio where I have a stream of dividends coming in, and you know, leveraging your strategies to secure those stocks.

Allen: Yep. Yeah. And it's gonna be kind of like, buy and hold, you know, it's gonna be like, Yeah, we're gonna own it, and we're gonna collect income every month. We're just gonna rent those suckers out to like income every month. So what was it that surprised you the most about options?

Alex: I don't say how easy it is. But that that, that you can actually implement a specific strategy and get consistent results. And I hope I don't sound like a commercial for Option Genius. But that's yeah, that's like I've always thought, you know, even with all the financial regulations in place, you still don't know what's happening within a company, what decisions they're making, what shenanigans are going on. And it's just, it's not so much about the company, it's about what the stock is doing. I mean, outside factors can impact the performance of the stock, but it's what the actual stock is doing in the market versus the performance of the company is that Is that fair to say?

Allen: Yeah, I mean, like when we're talking about when we're looking at our layup spreads, you know, it's a one month trade. So, if something is there, that's going to impact the company a year from now, two years from now, it doesn't make any difference to us. We're only worried about, you know, from the start of the trade to the end of the trade. And then we're not worried about the fundamentals or all that other stuff that that happens. If the trade looks good, we'll get in. If not, we don't we skip, and we don't have to do the same trade on the same stock every month. Right? We can we can vary it and move it around. But that said, we do like, there are certain times where we want to go into the same stock over and over again, because they do have a good fundamental picture. They are growing, they're, they're hiring more people, they're getting more customers, or building revenue or more stores or whatever, you know, and the stock will then continue to trend in our in one direction, which makes it easier for us to figure out okay, how do we want to play this?

Alex: So actually, I got into Costco three times since June. They've been going up and up and up, you know? So, yeah.

Allen: And the end, the cool thing is that, you know, you take a look at Costco, it's like, oh, this chart is doing really well, the stock is going up. Okay, well, if you had bought the stock at the bottom, or whatever it was, and you had hold it to the top, how much would you have made, compared to if you had done spreads on it, you know, from that same time period over and over and over again, wish would have been better? Well, the spread would have, you know, totally kicked it that the stock might have gone up like 20, 30%, and we've been up like 40, 50%. So you're looking at the same thing, and you're looking okay, do I want to buy it? Or do I want to just sell spreads on it? And the spreads if it's continuing to trend in one direction, the spread will always do better than that. So but is that one of your, you have any other favorites besides Costco that you've been playing?

Alex: Not really. I mean, I don't think I've been doing it long enough. I guess SPX is another one I invested in several times since I started trading at the end of March. And I've been I have yet to, that is yet to fail me, so..

Allen: Right. So class started in January, you started with real money in March. Right now it's what is it? Start of September. So March, April, May, June, July, August, September. So seven months? You've been doing it for seven months? Cool. So do you feel that you're confident right now that you understand it? You got to you've if you needed to if you had to you could scale it up right now?

Alex: Yeah, I think I think I could. I'm infinitely more confident than I was in January. The revelation that all the trades have to be balanced and so on. June was a turning point. I would say, okay, like I said, I started out up 1100 bucks and then all of a sudden at the end of the month I was at 35 bucks. I'm I'm trying to think what the word is..

Allen: It's like a wake up call?

Alex: It's like a milestone or..

Allen: A turning point.

Alex: Yeah, a turning point. I am at another level at this point.

Allen: Okay. All right. So how long do you think it would take somebody else to to go from zero to okay, now I can actually do this, on average, like, how long do you think it should take somebody?

Alex: I would say reasonably, two to three months, being part of your class was super helpful when you have the opportunity to work with someone that, you know, with your level of expertise and knowledge. That was huge. That was tremendous. I mean, every week jumping on the call, and going through watching everything you're doing, and hearing your thoughts about specific trades, and so on. That was that was tremendous. So that helps a lot. So I, you know, for me, it was two to three months where I was, you know, able to figure it out and start trading.

Allen: And how much time did you put into the learning aspect and the doing it and focusing and watching the calls and all that stuff?

Alex: Yeah. So I made an investment in your programs I wanted to get, I wanted to make the most of it. So we had the class every week, and then I, several times a week, I'd go back and listen to the, you know what, listen to the videos, I say, listen to the videos, I'd pull them up as I was, you know, exercising or whatever. And then I'd stop and make notes either on my phone or in my notebook, you know, but I had, I have notes of every class and, you know, go back and make sure I really understood everything go through with a fine toothcomb and truthfully, I haven't looked at the videos in a few months. But every time I'd go back and review the videos, it was like, oh, you know, it always find half a dozen new gems, you know? So, but so yeah, I would, I would spend several hours a week, in addition to the actual official session we had every afternoon, you know, every year.

Allen: So but between between the the class time and the study time and the trading that you did, so, you know, like somebody listening to this, they're like, Yeah, you know what, I want to start this, but how much time should I put into it? How much time should it take me every week that they would devote to this?

Alex: Yeah, I mean it's if starting off 5 to 10 hours a week,

Allen: 5 to 10 a week, okay.

Alex: I would say, you know, just thinking, you know, including the class and going back and transcribing the videos. And then doing my own trades, you know, I did 40. I've done 46 real trades today, but I did 37 paper trades. Some of them were purely recommendations from that you provided with us. So you provide it to the class and others were ones that I found on my own. In several instances, I identified a trade and then a few days later that you selected the same stock for the class. So that was, that was encouraging. But uhm.

Allen: Okay. I mean, yeah, cuz sometimes people are like, you know, I work a job. I don't know if I could do this, but five to 10 hours a week, I think anybody, if they're serious about learning a new skill, learning about changing, you know, something that could change their life, potentially, I don't think five to 10 hours a week, is that big of a commitment or sacrifice to do something like this..

Alex: Yeah, no. And, you know, the things don't happen by magic. You know, I always like the the saying, the harder you work, the luckier you get. We create our luck, you know, and now I am nowhere near the expert that you and many people like you are, but you know, probably a couple days a week, I sit down and go through my list looking for trades. And then you know, maybe I have to sit if something's not going right, I have to make an adjustment. But now it's probably an hour, two hours, max per week. And that's, you know, that's being in not even two hours a week. You know, my trades. So..

Allen: Sweet. Yeah, I mean, so took a little bit in the beginning. But then once you got the hang of it, then obviously, it's gonna continue down. And now it's just, hey, it's already ingrained. I know what to do. I don't have to go watch the video and say, oh, what would Allen do in this situation? What am I supposed to do here? What does this mean? Now that you've done it so many times? It's just like second nature, where you're like, Okay, boom, boom, boom, steps up steps already in your head.

Alex: Right, exactly.

Allen: That was the reason that we did the class and the way we did it, where it's like, every week, we get on the call, and we just go through it step by step by step over and over and over again. So you guys can see it and ask questions along the way. And then you guys go, and you do it on your own. And then when you're like, oh, wait a minute, I got stuck. And then you come back and you say, Hey, I got stuck here. And I know you were the I mean, to be honest, you asked more questions than anybody else. And I loved it. And I was like, Man, this guy is into it. This guy's exciting guy. Yeah, he's doing great, you know, because you kept asking and asking and asking. And it really, really helped. Not only you, but also it helped me because I'm like, Okay, this is where they didn't understand. You know, like, if you came, you ask a question. I'm like, Man, I covered that. Okay, but he didn't get it. So let me go and go more detail. You know, let me make another video to address that specific. So he made the class better. So I wanted to thank you for that as well.

Alex: I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm not afraid to ask dumb questions, that's for sure. But no, I mean, we'd kind of kind of compiled a list of all the things that we need to look for in a trade and what makes a good trade. And initially, I would go through my list line item by line item. And at this point, I just didn't, you know, I just, it's, I get it in my head, and I just go through, like you said, boom, boom, boom, and then I'm off to the next thing. So, in full disclosure, I probably spend more time than I need to watching like, a couple times a day, I'll pull up my phone and look at Thinkorswim to see how things are doing. And maybe down the road, I won't do that so much, but I still am curious and think about it during the day.

Allen: So well, as you scale, it'll be more and more important to do that, you know, and like, I know, you have the funds that you could put into it. So when you do when you're not so busy and doing the other stuff. And you're like, Okay, let me let me make this a bigger part of the portfolio. At that point. You're gonna Yeah, I mean, but it doesn't even take that long. You know, it's like, Oh, hey, I'm going to the bathroom. Let me check my trades. Oh, okay, cool. Done, you know, but it's, to me, at least it's fun. You know, it's like, it's like, points, like, you're playing a video game. And it's just joins, and they're going up and down. And like, oh, no, I got it. So, to me, it's an interesting part of..

Alex: Yeah, no I really enjoy the process sitting down, I pull up my list, and I just, I go through it, I look at the charts. And, you know, I document, you know, something looks interesting, I write it down, I might do some analysis on it. And then once I go through the list, I come back and, and place my trade. So I really enjoy the process. Awesome. And then like I said, this is just like real estate, we, in real estate, you invest with the odds in your favor. And with the credit spreads and all the other options, strategies, you're investing with the odds, and you're trading with the options in your favor, you know, so just it just makes sense to me.

Allen: Cool. So what do you what do you think the future is gonna hold for you now?

Alex: I'm, like I said, I'm very interested in the passive trading formula program you have, I just, I want to be I want to, if I do it, I want to be present and focused on it. We're just like I said, we got a lot, we have a lot going on at the moment. But I want to expand my portfolio, I want to expand beyond credit spreads, I want to start using these strategies to buy and hold hold stocks for a longer period of time. And, you know, who knows, like when I'm not when I'm out, you know, as a landlord, fixing a, you know, I'm sitting under a sink, fixing a leaky pipe or chasing a tradesman to do something, you know, to fix something that they messed up on a build. I think about how nice would be to just sit behind my computer and have 100% of my income come from options. Yeah.

Allen: You think that's ever gonna happen? Maybe we're gonna make that switch?

Alex: Maybe I mentioned that family friend that has that was his has been doing this for decades. I mean, this, this is what he does, you know, he's got a significant stream of income from trading options. I think I told you about him. And I think his he loves Tesla. I guess that's what he focuses on a lot right now or the past so many years. So yeah. But he you know, he has a more than healthy stream of income, some purely from doing that.

Allen: Right. Now, do you guys sit down and compare notes or get together?

Alex: So I keep saying it's a family friend, this is a really good a couple of you know, it's one of my wife's childhood friends. It's her grandfather. So I talked like, he's the guy I don't, I've met him several times. But a lot of my what I'm sharing comes through the his granddaughter. So I'm actually trying to set up some time to sit down and talk to him specifically about this.

Allen: She's the oil program yeah?

Alex: He's in the oil program, and then she does she trades options on her or she sells options on her own based on what her grandfather taught her.

Allen: That's awesome. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you can see it right. It goes from generation to generation. And if you can pass that trade along, it's like, Man, my kids, my grandkids, they're not gonna have to work. They'll know what to do. And it's like using your mind instead of your skills and your body to actually go out and manual labor to do something. So it's really exciting. And I think you got lucky in that sense, where, you know, she, she introduced you to this world, but then you took it to the next level, and you're like, Hey, I'm going to learn this and you put in the time, the effort, and now you're seeing that it works. I still want to see you scale it a lot more.

Alex: I'm sorry, I can't report huge earnings. But that's..

Allen: No no no, that's fine. It's not it's not about that. It's it's you know, the fact that you're doing it that's that's a that's a good thing, you know, and you're getting there you're doing it but I want to see you get a better for the time that you put in I want to see you get a better income back. You know what I mean? Because I know you could do it. I have I have 100% faith in you. I know you're doing it. I know you know how to do it. But instead of making just 100 bucks I want you to make like 1000 bucks per trade. So it's like, hey, yeah, you know, a little bit more skin in the game. I feel a lot more fun too.

Alex: Yeah, you know, I'll tell you so I said in June I that's when I realized like, hey, all these trades have to be the same amount and I need to I need to scale up from 50 bucks a trade and Honestly, going from 50 to 100, was it took a little bit of a leap of faith. But already, you know, just several weeks later, I'm like, what was the big deal? You know? So..

Allen: It's all mental. It's all emotional, you know? And eventually, you know, you'll do it from 100, you go to 200 to 250. How many trades at one time do you put on?

Alex: I was doing as many as 10.

Allen: Okay

Alex: Like the most was was 12. I know you in the class, we talked about just keeping it a manageable level. Now, since since June, it's been Max four trades.

Allen: Okay. Okay. So I mean, if you're doing for them, maybe we could do a little bit more on each one. And see how that goes.

Alex: Yeah, I mean, we, you know, what, I'm part of the appeal of the passive trading program is to be able to, you know, pick people's brains and get feedback from the group and ask you some of those specific questions. Hmm, maybe I should get on it not. Yeah, that now's the time. Maybe now's the time to just do it, you know?

Allen: Yeah. I mean, if you I mean, but you you said, you know, you don't have all that time right now, because you got all the other projects going on. But like you said that it only takes maybe five hours a week to study. So if you got five hours a week, then yeah, you know, go get that one, it's gonna be now that you've understood, probably 80% of it, the rest of it is going to be pretty simple. You know, because now you know, what an option is, you know, what a call is, you know, what a putt is, you know, what a moving average is, you know, all the indicators and, and all the other stuff that we talked about almost 80% of it, you know, now it's like, okay, which stocks do I buy? And how do I do a covered call? How do I do a naked put rows, things you'll be able to pick up very quickly, because you've already got the foundation for it. So it's not going to take a lot of time. Most of the time, we tell people, Hey, do passive first so you understand the basics, like the covered call is the easiest trade, you know, puts are really easy. And then we get into spreads, you went to spreads first, which is fine. Most a lot of people do that. Because the stocks and the covered calls and naked puts they require a little bit more capital. So if you're going into spreads first, that's fine. The other ones will be a little bit simpler to actually understand and implement once you do

Alex: Right. And I realize I'm leaving money on the table by not well beyond not doing bigger trades, you know, not doing the naked puts in the covered calls and so on. There's a lot of there's a lot more money out there.

Allen: It's all up to you know, when you feel comfortable, and the time is right. You know, you'll you'll feel it inside you. But hey, you know what, now it's time for me to do this. So it's something that people regret. And they kicked themselves. Oh, man, I should have started 20 years ago. Yeah, but you didn't. So don't worry about it. Don't beat yourself up, forgive yourself, you know, let's just move on. Let's just do whatever works for us right now. Let's just be happy with it and move forward. So..

Alex: I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So..

Allen: Oh you're doing great. You're doing wonderful. And so is there anything else that you wanted to share with our audience? Any final tidbits or advice?

Alex: Nothing really, I think we've talked about a lot I will tell you one funny story. I've heard you. You've talked about Disneyland a bunch. So we actually we picked up some passes in in May, or June, we went to we went to we went to Disney they had reduced capacity. So they you know, allegedly it was only 25% of their their allowable or max capacity. So we we had the run of the place, It was still pretty crowded. But man, we we got to go on every ride and never waited more than 15 minutes for anything that's outside. It was amazing. But here I am at the happiest place in the world. And my stocks are going sideways, you know, so I'm on the rides and my kids and we'll walk around the park and I keep looking at my phone and I'm watching Amazon go down. And you know, it's funny, you get emotionally involved in the trades. And in reality, it's 200 bucks, it's no big deal. But finally, by the end of day two, you know, I was out of Amazon and a couple other stocks and just I was able to relax. But it was I thought of you because I know you've been to Disney. You've talked about Disney World a bunch and..

Allen: yeah, I mean, if you're going on vacation, or you know, I've had some people they're like, Hey, I'm going into surgery or I'm doing this or do that. It's like hey, if you're gonna be out of it for a while, take the trade off. It's not worth ruining your vacation.

Alex: It didn't ruin it, but it just funny that you know that. Like I said, I was at the happiest place in the world. And I had this I was battling with my with my trades, you know?

Allen: Well, that's because you're still learning and so it's still a new thing for you. So I get it. It's exciting, you know.

Alex: But you know, as far as parting thoughts, it was a tremendous program. I'm so glad I did it. You know when my family friend introduced us to the whole thing. I was just absolutely intrigued. I read your book, I read That book by the Wharton professor of being that the way to really beat the market is by acquiring stocks with dividends. And I wish I did know about this sooner. It's a very viable means of addition, it's proven to be a very viable means of additional income. And I'm really excited to expand what I'm doing and increase the results.

Allen: I mean, you know, because of COVID, we did have a market shock, right, we had a bear market because of COVID. And then the government stepped in and they started printing money like crazy. And so since then stocks have been on a roll. So it's been a great time. So you did miss out on that part of it. But I do believe that, you know, once they stopped printing, and once they start raising the rates, things will stabilize a little bit. And then once the economy comes back, or you know, COVID gets a little bit more under control, and the supply chain issues get fixed and things get back to normal. I think the market and the stocks will be a great place to be as well, you know, so you're still a young guy. And so for the next 20 3040 years, there's a lot of appreciation, there's a lot of gains that you're going to have. Because you now have this skill. Right? And so it's nothing to feel bad about that. Oh, yeah, I wish I wish it started. Yeah. But now's as good a time as any to get started.

Alex: I agree.

Allen: I like I like what you said, but so thank you, Alex, thank you for everything. You know, it was a pleasure having you in the program and can't wait to see you in the passive program.

Alex: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. It was fantastic. Really appreciate all the all the knowledge that you shared.

Allen: Awesome. Thank you so much.

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