FAQ Section
Trade Alerts & Portolio
How do I get access to Kirk’s trades and portfolio?
When are trading alerts sent out during the day?
Do all trading alerts work for both IRA and non-IRA accounts?
What is the “Nightly Video Review” and when does it come out?
How often is the live portfolio page updated on the website?
Can I still place trades that you made more than 2 weeks ago?
Can I have alerts sent to my email and phone via text message?
How many trades are made each day, week, month on average?
I have a small account and can’t place all the trades that come out - how do I know which ones to pick?
How much money do I need in my trading account to get started?
I missed a trade because of work - can I still get in now?
How time sensitive are the trading alerts?
Where can I ask questions about a recent trade or position?
How do I get access to Kirk’s trades and portfolio?
You can access all of our live daily trades via email alert and text update by subscribing or upgrading your account level to either the PRO or ELITE level. Both the PRO and ELITE membership levels have 100% open access to our trades and portfolio as well as our nightly video update which chronicles all of our trades made that day and answers questions like ‘Why we entered the trade?’ ‘Why we chose the strategy we did?’ ‘Why we chose the strike prices for that particular position?’ and many other insights that only come from walking through the trades daily.
When are trading alerts sent out during the day?
Trading alerts are sent out whenever we make a trade - it’s that simple. This can mean that some trading alerts will come out early during the day, some during the middle of the day or some during the later afternoon. We do not dictate when we get filled on a particular position, so please be advised that all trading alerts are live and real-time fills. There are no paper trades or modeled trades as part of our system. Whenever we do get filled, we send out alerts immediately to our PRO and ELITE members. This also means that some days during the week we may not make a trade and you may not see alerts come out. This doesn't mean that you were not included on the list. It means that we just have not made a trade that day and are preferring not to enter new positions or close out existing positions.
Do all trading alerts work for both IRA and non-IRA accounts?
Yes. Although we do mainly trade our positions in a non-IRA margin account, we will always offer up an IRA alternative suggestions for each trade that might need a different approach. For example, if we trade a short strangle where we are selling a call and selling a put, we will also tell you which strike prices you can buy if you are trading in an IRA account and need to convert that strangle into an iron condor. We recognize that we have hundreds of members with different account structures and for this reason all of the trading alerts that we send out via Option Alpha work both in an IRA and non-IRA account basis. If you ever have questions we’re always here to help with suggestions to make a trade work for your particular account.
What is the “Nightly Video Review” and when does it come out?
In our opinion, the nightly video review is our major point of differentiation between all the other traders and services out there. Every single night after the market closes on a day when we made a trade, our head trader Kirk will do a live recording of his trading account and cover all of the position and trades that were made that day. This is your opportunity to dive deep inside his head and listen to the thought process for any trades that were made and/or suggestions on next steps or new trades we’ll be looking at the next day. In our opinion, it's the most transparent and honest way that we can continue to show you that we are trading options with real money every single day. We’ve recorded these daily videos for many years now and there is still nobody else out there in the industry that does what we do on a daily basis - period. Please also realize that if we do not make a trade during the day, we will not send out a video review as there is nothing to cover. In most cases, the video review will come out later in the evening on east coast time and as a member you will always be alerted via email when it's ready for viewing. You can also go back and view any of the previous nightly video reviews that we've done right on the video review page inside of the Option Alpha website. This gives you a great archive of massive trading knowledge and tutorials that you can watch anytime you have a free moment.
How often is the live portfolio page updated on the website?
We developed our in-house portfolio tracking software to be updated on the fly throughout the day whenever we enter or exit a position. This means that it's always active in real-time, giving you an exclusive look into our positions whenever you want to see them. Please note that access to the live portfolio is reserved for members at either the PRO or ELITE level only. FREE members do not have access to our live trades and positions.
Can I still place trades that you made more than 2 weeks ago?
Yes. In most cases since we are not day trading options but rather entering and exiting monthly position trades, you can still get into some of our trades even if we placed them two weeks ago. You'll want to always double check the premium or credit that we received for a trade and make sure that you can get very similar pricing. Again, the methodology that we always teach here is that you should mimic our technique and option strategy versus the individual strike prices that we selected. For example, if a stock was trading at $50 and we sold a credit spread $2 below the market two weeks ago, you would want to sell a credit spread $2 below wherever the stock is trading now to mimic this type of technique and strategy we used at the time. Ideally you would also be able to collect similar pricing as we did assume that market hasn’t dramatically changed.
Can I have alerts sent to my email and phone via text message?
Yes. We automatically send out all alerts via email and if you have a US-based phone number or Google Voice number, we can send trading alerts via text message as well. Please understand that we do not control the delivery of text messages and do generally see a lag in text message delivery compared to email delivery. For this reason, we always prefer to send trade alerts via email because that is the fastest response deliverability that we have seen. Text message delivery will vary by cell carrier and country.
How many trades are made each day, week, month on average?
On our portfolio performance and tracking page, you can see live information on the number of trades we've made over the last 7 and 30 days as well as the number of trades we’ve made all time. We do generally see that there are varying degrees of activity in our portfolio throughout the year. As a general reference point, we are more active during “earnings season” because we are getting into and out of shorter duration trades throughout the week. Alternatively, when implied volatility is low we are generally less active and you'll see less activity in our portfolio because our edge in selling options is not as great as when implied volatility is high. Overall, we do maintain a fairly active and consistent approach with our trading and generally shoot to enter at least 3-4 new trades per week.
I have a small account and can’t place all the trades that come out - how do I know which ones to pick?
This is actually a very simple solution for small account traders who subscribe to either our PRO or ELITE membership level. If you cannot enter all of the trades that get sent out, select the trades that give you the best risk-defined features like credit spreads, iron condors, and iron butterflies. We tend to favor the more neutral strategies overall anyways, so for our smaller account members as this gives you all of the features of a more diversified portfolio without the directional risk that comes from single leg options. Again, we suggest that small accounts usually focus on the credit spreads, iron condors, and iron butterflies. Remember, that if you are seeing some of our alerts come out as strangles and straddles, we will always include an IRA or risk-defined alternative in the trade comments which gives you all the details you’ll need to turn strangles into iron condors and straddles into iron butterflies.
How much money do I need in my trading account to get started?
While this is not a business that you can start without money, we do suggest that you start with anywhere between $3,000 and $5,000 as a minimum requirement. Of course, the more money that you start with the wider the range of option strategies you can use throughout the year and the higher your probability of success. This doesn't mean that you can't make money trading in small account, you can, it just means that you have to have reasonable expectations of how much you’ll earn (i.e. you are not likely to replace your current income trading a $5,000 options account).
I missed a trade because of work - can I still get in now?
Yes. You can still get into trades even if you have missed them. We are not day traders but rather position option traders, so most of our trades can still be entered one or two days later from when we send out the alerts. This means also that you can enter trades that we have previously traded as long as you realize that you should be mimicking the strategy and pricing of that trade. For example, if we entered a straddle when the underlying stock was trading at $50 and now the stock is trading at $52, you should enter your straddle at $52 because that is the same type of technique that we were using before when we entered the trade with the stock at $50. This is a good example of how you can consistently use our trading alerts even if you work a day job or have a non-flexible schedule.
How time sensitive are the trading alerts?
Most of our trading alerts are not time sensitive at all and can be entered many hours or even some days after the alerts are sent out. Since we are generally monthly position option traders (rather than day traders) this means that the premium received for entering a trade is not going to be moving extremely fast. This gives you an opportunity to analyze the trade yourself and get into it if you feel it's appropriate for your portfolio. That said, if we are making any “earnings season” trades the tend to be a little more time sensitive in nature because we will be getting into and out of those trades generally in a 48-hour window. If you would like to learn more about upcoming earnings alerts that we are looking at check out our live watch list page here.
Where can I ask questions about a recent trade or position?
If you are a PRO or ELITE member, we always request that you ask questions about recent positions inside of the trading alerts page right below the trades themselves. This way other members who might have similar questions are able to see your question and we can answer the same question at one time which helps streamline our support process.
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