The Option Alpha Podcast

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show203Futures trading is on the rise and continues to grow in popularity. The trouble has been however that for most traders getting started in futures they find it overly complex and hard to manage. Though more capital-efficient than stocks, futures contracts come with a slew of complex sizes and specifications that turn many traders away from them. Thankfully this week's guest is on a mission to help make futures markets more accessible with small, standard, and simple futures contracts.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show202Decision recipes use easy to read natural language to help you setup detailed instructions for your automations to follow inside a bot. These decision recipes can also be grouped and linked together into infinite combinations so you have as much flexibility and control as possible. The last few months we've seen thousands of automations created inside the new Option Alpha platform and today I wanted to highlight eight of the more popular decision recipes being used right now.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show201This week on the podcast we finally release our much anticipated interview with Jason Goepfert of SentimenTrader.com. Inside Jason and I dive deep on investor psychology, market sentiment analysis, and discuss the concept of adjusting and managing risk exposure using sentiment as opposed to market timing. You don't want to miss this very timely and important conversation.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show200Well today we celebrate the 200th episode of the Option Alpha Podcast. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has made the show possible, and most importantly, you the listener who has supported us in this journey to get to 200 episodes. It's pretty incredible that we got to this stage with this podcast. I hope that you really enjoy all of the upcoming shows that we have scheduled. Here's to another 200 more episodes on this podcast in the coming years.Today, we're going to do a deep dive and case study on the volatility of bid-ask spreads. To help with this conversation. We invited back on for an encore, our Chief Market Strategist Ryan Hysmith, who's going to be diving deep into some research that we did recently on bid-ask spreads. You're not going to want to miss this, because if you think you understand bid-ask spreads and the volatility around them, you might have a different perspective after listening to today's episode.Again, thank you so much for supporting the podcast and doing everything you can to get us where we are here. We couldn't be here without you. As always, we really appreciate it. We're working hard to make this the best podcast for you all, our traders in the community moving forward.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show199As automated trading starts going mainstream for retail traders, we wanted to ensure that expectations are set properly. Particularly, this includes discussing why we believe that automated trading does not mean unattended trading. To help guide and frame this conversation I invited our Chief Market Strategist, Ryan Hysmith, back on the show with me. Inside we'll talk about the future of automated trading, if automated trading provides an edge, and what some of the possible downsides to automated trading might be that you'll have to consider carefully.

Show notes: https://optionalpha.com/show198After a couple of months on pause for the podcast, while we focused on the beta launch of our automated trading platform, we're thrilled to be back and ready to rock and roll again. On this week's show, we'll do a mini "State of the Union" on what we've been up to, what's new, and what you can expect moving forward. We think this is a great way to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time and make sure we're all aligned together moving forward.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show197There's a lot of research to support the usage of trend indicators as simple risk reduction elements that can be layered onto an existing strategy. The trouble, however, was that in the past investors had to monitor the trend and execute the appropriate trade reversals when the trend changed. With automation, we can now offload this simple portfolio strategy to bots - and cleverly defined multiple possible trend exits all from one simple automation. This week's podcast walks through the two Macro Trend bots we built to show you how you can start leveraging the new automation tools at Option Alpha to trade either stocks or options in a trend.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show196Trading short naked puts (i.e. put selling or put writing) can be an effective and profitable options trading strategy. Often the attraction to naked put selling is the ability to collect premium with a margin for error if the stock drops, and have the ability to purchase stock at a discount to the current market price. The trouble comes however when the stock moves lower and challenges the naked put position and today's show is dedicated to helping you understand all the ways you can hedge short naked puts.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show195It's well documented that not only do investors classically chase performance, ultimately yielding sub-par performance in pursuit but that they also do not have enough patience to stick with strategies long enough. My hope is that it ends today and you can elevate yourself above all this and objectively look at strategies for what their expected outcome range is, not what it's done in the last couple of months or a handful of trades.

Show notes: http://optionalpha.com/show194This week I'm thrilled to welcome back on a very popular guest, Cameron Skinner, to the Option Alpha podcast. Way back on Show 61, Cameron and I talked at length about his consistent and religious process for trading options even though his "day job" as a real estate investor takes the majority of this focus and attention. Well, Cameron is back for another interview, and this time we dove even deeper into his strategies and how he thinks about risk and the markets. Please enjoy our follow up conversation with Cameron Skinner.