Trading Options: Using Technical Analysis to Design Winning Trades, + Website

INTRODUCTION

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

—Seneca

How did Seneca, nearly 2,000 years ago, have the key to success in nearly every endeavor in the world? We have heard it a thousand times: be prepared and work hard. This is how you give yourself the opportunity to succeed. So often we seek to shortcut this process and get to the prize more quickly. Why do we think this approach can be successful? Malcolm Gladwell has the rule of 10,000 hours. He states that it takes 10,000 hours of preparation to be great at something. So why do you hear people so often attribute their success to luck when it is preparation that is the key? And why do they not spend more time talking about how they went about preparing, so that when luck presented itself they could seize the opportunity? Whether you are preparing for an Olympic competition, to lead a country, to start a new business, or even to do something as mundane as trading stocks and options, these concepts apply.

This book is about process, my process. The process that I repeat every week. The process that I have laid bare on social media over the past four years. The process of trading stocks and options, using technical analysis. It is not glamorous, but a cold, defined process built up over time to be prepared to succeed in trading when the opportunity presents itself. I am a self-proclaimed top-down technician. That means that I start with the macro picture and work my way down to specific ideas. Each week ...