Haven't been active in posting as I was in a sort of discovery journey on options trading, mainly selling putting options, experimenting various options strategies such as the wheel & going through hours of Adam Khoo's videos on Options Ironshell & Ironstriker...
I will talk abit on my personal review of the 2 options courses in general as well as my 1H2021 results thus far.
Review on Adam Khoo (or rather Bang's) Options Ironshell & Ironstriker courses
Firstly, the videos I watched was shared by someone & wasn't the latest (I think its 2019 version) so there's probably some changes / updates since. However, based on Adam Khoo's free & open sharing on his youtube , the changes are minor (eg. Bull Bang / Protective Bullish Synthetic to Collar Synthetic Strategy, the only one I noticed) but the rest are largely the same. Well strategies are like principles, such as Value investing, Swing trading etc. these strategies remains the same past decades, abit of tweaks here & there, depending on individuals' style. With that set, here's my review.
The courses comprised of useful tools (excels - linking TD Think or Swim platform to color code options with rich / poor premiums, portfolio plan, tracking table etc.), power slides (for those who prefer hardcopy to read) and hundreds of hours of step by step videos with examples of trades. I personally learnt alot and find it absolutely enriching.
In terms of takeaway, which you I will attribute a good part of credits to AK, my return had breakthrough to a whole new level I never thought I can achieve. However, those strategies that I like & use to achieve these returns, are actually the most simplistic & basics which almost every options trader are well aware but different level of appreciation & mastery. My strategies thus far are mostly selling put options with occasional bull put spread or hedging on VIX, I experimented abit on diagonal (lease to rent - buy long dated call (lease), sell short dated call (rent); but my most preferred are still selling puts - simple but abit of arts (like what to sell). On this, I combined by usual trading methodologies of catching bottoms or pullbacks with a search on high Implied Volatility (IV) stocks to sell put options on. In addition, the "ah ha" moment was when I struggled to cut loss on stocks that went against me (eg. TSLA which fell from peak of $850 to low of $550 & SI which fell from $170 to $80), both caused me quite abit of drawdowns which I managed to recover from. As I read from various groups' comments, I learned more from others such as diversification over various counters, rather than selling 6-10puts with weekly expiry consecutively in upcoming 45days and so on.
In conclusion, the cost of the courses are definitely worthwhile to invest in, but it takes alot of dedication to research, learn, test & also adapt (carefully) to suit one's style. However, the materials are already out there, at least those that led me to my profits; much of the other strategies are not so comfortable to me at this stage, maybe because I still haven't master them or I dont like the number of legs needed to execute. You can actually learn almost 70% of the materials just from his videos on youtube (yes all his videos added up already cover more than 70% of his strategies taught), but the most valuable part which cannot be bought is the community (AK or Bang's Telegram group - like minded peers' money making ideas & sharing). So, even though I already have the videos, I will be keeping a lookout for AK / Bang next Black Friday sale, will take some profits & invest to learn continuously to practice & trade skillfully over time.
1H 2021 Investment Returns
My return for 1H2021 is 18.9% or USD 34k out of invested capital of USD 181k (rounded to nearest k). Adding back the 100 VRTX share assigned, the return is about USD57k or 30%.
