Credit Spread – Oh Man, I Want My Mommy…
by Guest Author on August 8, 2010
in Forex Trading
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Of all the many option trading strategies available, the credit spread is quite possibly the most popular, most discussed, most utilized – and most DANGEROUS strategy of them all.
The thing is, when rookie option traders first hear of the credit spread – very few seem to able to resist the temptation to jump right into trading them – with too much real hard earned money on the line – and not nearly enough education.
And usually what winds up happening is that the market promptly snaps off their arms and legs, then smacks them across the face with them, then starts to jab them repeatedly in the eyes. In other words – they wind up getting really hurt.
Now stop.
Let me explain something here before you start to get the wrong impression.
I actually LIKE credit spreads. I like them ALOT.
I think that the credit spread really IS a great trade.
And yes, I absolutely believe all those stories and claims you hear swirling around about credit spreads generating ten percent plus monthly returns and providing trades that have the probability of winning somewhere in the range of eighty to ninety percent. In fact, I KNOW those stories are true because I see it happen all the time in my very own trading account.
Here is the problem: All those fresh, green and excited new option traders have no idea what they don’t know. This trading options for income thing is like an alien planet – with a whole new set of rules inside a brand new reality. And when the person who has introduced them to this new way of trading just tells them about the good but forgets to tell them about the bad – they wind up jumping in with way too much confidence, misunderstanding, and expectations that are completely wrong.
See what isn’t being talked about with this trading strategy is that while yes, they can provide great monthly returns and high probabilities of winning- they also come attached with a horrendous risk to reward ratio – sometimes as poor as 10 to 1!
This means that in order to achieve those 80 to 90 percent probability trades – you need to risk ten dollars to make just one – or to be more realistic – you need to put at risk $10,000.00 for the chance to make just $1,000.00.
And as my mammy used to say – that risk to reward ratio is ‘an awful bad egg’. In fact, it’s an honest to goodness stinking rotten deal.
Just do the math. With a risk to reward like that, even with the great probabilities and wonderful monthly returns – before long a problem month could come along and completely wipe out your entire account!
Nevertheless…
All is not lost…
Like I said before, I LOVE the credit spread trade.
And – I consistently make money from it.
So obviously there’s a way around that horrible risk to reward issue and the inevitable problematic losing months.
And there is.
It’s all in how you manage the trade.
That risk to reward problem quickly becomes a complete non issue as soon as you educate yourself on the proper way to initially set these trades up and how to correctly manage and adjust them.
You just need to take the time BEFORE jumping into the credit spread trading pool to equip yourself with the proper knowledge. A few simple ‘tricks of the trade’ – so when those problem months DO come along (and they WILL believe me) – you will know exactly what you need to do to immediately squash that threat, easily adjust yourself out of the problem, and experience the credit spread option trading strategy for all it’s ‘really’ cracked up to be.
To learn these ‘tricks’ to trading the Credit Spread , go to this Credit Spread site and watch our free video. It will show you an extremely simple method for properly placing, managing, and ADJUTING credit spread option trades.
Credit Spread – How To Make Consistent Monthly Option Income
by Guest Author on June 22, 2010
in Forex
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The Credit Spreadis one of the more popular strategies among option traders. Along with being one of the easier option trading strategies to understand, another reason newer option traders in particular gravitate to this strategy is that it can require very little time to manage it while it is on. Another way to put it, is that credit spread sellers don’t need to be glued to their computer screens all day watching every tick of the market in order to generate consistent income with this trade.
The credit spread trade is a basic building block of many if not most other more complex option trading strategies such as the iron condor spread, the butterfly, and the double diagonal trade. For example, the butterfly is created using one credit spread and one debit spread, while the iron condor is made up from two credit spreads, one on either side of where the underlying is currently trading at.
Traders like to sell these vertical spreads because when invested correctly the trades have a good probability of success and can allow the investor to still profit and ‘win’ without having to be exactly right with priced direction and movement. When sold correctly, credit spreads can bring the trader a good monthly return while the individual actually placing the trade could be incorrect with their belief and ‘prediction’ of where the stock market would be heading next.
To demonstrate let’s invent a trade where the option trader feels as if the stock being traded is about to tank. Because he believes that this specific stock will not advance any higher from it’s current position a bear call vertical spread is sold, bringing in a nice credit.
The only way this spread trade can lose money is if the stock winds up doing 1 out of 4 possible scenarios – giving our trader a three out of four likelihood of winning. If the stock moves down as our trader predicts he wins. If the stock stays stagnant and goes nowhere, he wins. In fact, even if the stock moves against our trader and heads upward he wins just so long as the underlying doesn’t move so far as to breach the spread sold. The only our trader loses is if the underlying moves far enough upwards passing the option strike price that was sold – which if it does, our trader could still salvage the position through appropriate management and adjustment methods
While credit spread trading can be a great way to generate passive income, of course like any investment method there are potential pitfalls one should be aware of before jumping in. To learn more about how to properly trade this option strategy, including how to correctly place, manage, and most importantly how to ADJUST them, visit our free video training website at Credit Spreads


