Podcasts about tj well

We sit down with TJ and talk about his path to joining the tech industry and what people of color can do to engage it further.Learn more about tech: ROOTsTechnology.infoConnect with us: https://linktr.ee/livingcorporateTRANSCRIPTAde: I'm sure many of our listeners can relate to the concept of familial pressure, and as many immigrant or first-generation young adults may know, the career path for us is often limited to that of a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. I chose the path of a lawyer when I was younger. However, as I've evolved as a person so have my interests, and I'm not alone in this. Many of us have seen leaps in technology that have piqued interest in previously unexplored fields. So with that in mind, it should be of no surprise that it is one of the fastest growing industries in the world with revenue within the industry projected to reach $351 billion. It also makes it an inviting field for groups that have been underrepresented in this industry until now. The question is what does it look like to make the pivot? My name is Ade, and you're listening to Living Corporate. [intro]Ade: So today we're talking about non-conventional entries into tech. As many of you may know, this would resonate with me. I've shared at least two or three times this season, but for those of you who are new, I'm actively making the career pivot into software engineering, which was not my focus in college. The journey so far has included some extremely long hours, some late nights, a ton of mistakes, a couple of wins--a couple of little wins--and many, many failures. Zach: Yeah. You know, we could've done a better job promoting your journey through Living Corporate's Instagram because your IG stories are great. Like, I'll see you posting pictures of your laptop screen with a bunch of code on it, you being in all these all-day workshops, books you're digging in to help build your technical chops. It's been inspiring to see.Ade: Thanks. Thank you. Part of what I am interested in is making tech more accessible. It's all around us, and engaging in tech means often--more than just being a coder. Being a coder is awesome, but there is so much more to tech than that.Zach: Right. I mean, to your point, because there's technology in everything that we do, there's a myriad of ways to work in tech. As an example, I'm a change management consultant in technology. I don't know how to code a thing, yet, but I'm still actively engaged in the industry because I bring other skills to the table to help implementations and things of that nature to be more successful.Ade: Right, and along that train of thought, there's space for all of us at the table--word to Solange--but it comes down to exposure and engagement. For me, I had two primary barriers. One, I didn't know what tech meant. It seemed like this vague, really nebulous space, and that was scary. I like when words mean things, and I like when I understand what those words mean. And the second big barrier for me was that I did not know how to get there. I had no road map. I had graduated from college, and there was no counselor, adviser who was like, "Take these classes and you'll get there," and "These are the steps." I had to figure it out for myself, but in figuring it out for myself I came to understand that the tech space is made up of people, some really amazing people, and therefore completely accessible. Just like you are a person, they are people, and so this is a space that you can absolutely find your way in. Zach: Right, and as you alluded to in the intro, professionals of color as well-served to seek entry into industries that are growing and positioned to be on or around the top, but it would be great if we could speak to someone more about this topic, right? Someone who--maybe they're, like, a first-generation American who changed their career, made a career pivot after college and got into tech, but not only that, they leveraged their passion and network to teach other ethnic minorities skills to get them into the tech space as well.Ade: Wait, you mean like our guest TJ Oyeniyi?Zach and Ade: Whaaaaaaat?Zach: Sound Man! [makes air horn noises] Come on, drop 'em in. You know it. Just put 'em right in there. Let's go. Ade: [laughs] All right. So next up we're gonna get into our interview with our guest, TJ. Hope y'all enjoy.Zach: And we're back. TJ, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for joining us.TJ: Thank you. Thank you so much, Zach. Appreciate you.Zach: Hey, no problem, man. So look, for those of us who don't know you, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?TJ: Yeah. So my name is Tolu Oyeniyi, and most people know me as TJ, which I completely made up while watching Smart Guy one day. I was born in Nigeria, [inaudible], and I grew up in Dallas, Texas. I did my undergrad at UT Austin and grad school at Arizona State, and I am currently in the second year of my career switch as a software engineer. Zach: Man, that's amazing. So look, today we're talking about non-conventional entries into tech. Before you got into technology or the tech space explicitly, what were you doing? And what spurred your interest in the tech space?TJ: Ah, what was I doing? So I was working as a business analyst at a small health tech company in Austin at the time, and I was also a really big volunteer in Austin. Like, when I moved back to Austin from Dallas for work, I told myself, like, "Anything black," like, just anything dealing with underrepresented groups, I wanted to volunteer time to just help and, you know, just try to, like, give back any way possible. And I ended up, like, volunteering for a host of different events 'til I stumbled upon this one event called hackathon at Huston-Tillotson University, which is an HBCU and actually the first higher education institute in Austin during South By, and the purpose of the hackathon was to basically introduce black and brown students to tech, and I volunteered as a mentor to basically help students flesh out their ideas and, you know, ultimately try to build, like, a working product at the end of those two days for the hackathon. And what, like, really triggered the idea of, like, learning to code or just teaching people how to code was when I parked in front of this, like, brand new house across from, like, HT in east Austin, which, you know, used to be, like, an old black neighborhood in Austin. And, you know, this house was a reminder that this area was being gentrified, largely by a lot of people that are--that come into Austin because of tech, and just kind of, like, thinking, "Man," like, "All these black and brown kids," and just, like, families in these areas are being priced out of here because they don't really have access into this industry and don't really know, like, the basics, you know, to even be able to try to, like, you know, have a chance to, like, try in this industry. And that kind of frustrated me a bit, and I thought one day, "You know what? It would be real impactful if somebody was teaching these kids to code," and I just, like, jokingly mentioned to a friend--you know, to my friend at the event, like, "Bruh, you know, I think I'm gonna mess around and learn how to code so I can teach these kids to code."Zach: Wow. [laughs]TJ: The guy I was talking to was a software engineer for IBM. He was like, "Oh, really? Can you code?" I was like, "I do," but I didn't know anything about coding, bruh. I worked as a business analyst. I did, like, design software, but I don't actually build it. But yeah, I had the crazy idea of learning to code so that I could learn to teach black and brown kids to code. And I didn't really learn to, like, make a career switch. I just wanted to basically help other people, like, break into the industry. And I did that for about a year until I basically got this useless promotion at work. [laughs]Zach: Why was it useless? [laughs]TJ: It was useless, man. I was--I was working as a business analyst, making--you know, for a health tech company, making 37,500 in Austin--Zach: Wow. Wow, that's really low.TJ: Ooh. Man, you said wow and it just--it brought back all the pain from those days. [laughs] Oh, God. But yeah, and I had gotten a promotion to senior business analyst, right? You know, big time. I'm thinking big time. Everything got a promotion [inaudible]. My [inaudible] got a promotion, my responsibilities. Everything but my salary.Zach: Oh, no. But that's really what happens though.TJ: Yeah. I'm like, "Hold on, bruh." [laughs] "Hold on, bruh. Wait, what's going on?" 'Cause my, you know, coworkers got a raise. Why in the world did I not get one? So I started having this, like, back-and-forth with my manager like, "Hey, man. You know, I've been doing all this," you know? "My output is looking really good," et cetera, et cetera. Like, I've been here for over a year, you know? What's up? And I just got promoted. So he eventually went to bat for me with the CEO, and they got me a promotion. Like, I--man, I remember that day well. He came into the office and we had a meeting, and he was so happy to, like, announce to me that I had gotten a raise. I was like, "Okay. What's that money looking like, bruh?" He's like, "Yeah. So TJ, we're gonna take you from $37,500 to $39,998."Zach: Oh, no.TJ: I was like, "Hey, bruh. You guys really couldn't have added a couple dollars more?" [laughs] You know, to at least make it 40K, bruh. Really? I was--I was like, "Okay, wow. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it." I mean, I went back to my desk with this look like, "I'm leaving." I was, like, mid-twenties, just thinking, "Man, I'm not gonna be fighting for 40K." Like, "I'm not trying to build my life and career off of that," 'cause--you know, 'cause the question then was how long 'til I reach, like, 60K?Zach: Right. No, it's a real question. Right.TJ: Yeah. I'm like, "Bruh." Man...Zach: God forbid six figures, right? Like, come on. Right, yeah.TJ: Yeah, exactly. I'm like, "Jeez, I'ma be, like, 40 to 50 years old before I see any kind of money where, you know, I can just kind of be at peace?" Basically, right? 'Cause I had, like, a lot of loans coming from grad school 'cause I also did grad school out of state. But yeah, so I was very, like, frustrated by that, and by this time I had been learning to code for about a year and, like, you know, teaching it as well, but at that time I basically just knew the basics of building, like, web pages and websites. You know, just simple HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap. You know, that type of stuff. But I went home and I was just like, "You know what, man? I'm not gonna be here fighting to try to make 40-something K." Like, my financial goals were way bigger than that, and I was like, "I have to make a change," and all of my software engineer friends are banking, and, you know, so far this stuff seems pretty straightforward. So I basically went to this event or something at IBM I think, and I saw this printout of a job posting for an engineer role at IBM, and it had all these skills and requirements. You know, just basically all this stuff on there, and I basically used that posting to update the curriculum that I was using to teach.Zach: Oh, wow. Yeah.TJ: This happened, like--man, I think this happened around June or July 2016, and I basically took that job posting and I put it, like, right next to my desk in my room, and I put a date on there. Like, December 2016 was how long I gave myself. I was like, "By December 2016 latest, I should be working as a software engineer. Period." Zach: Let's go. Wow. Yeah, that's amazing.TJ: So yeah, basically that is what kind of spurred me making that career change, and it's just crazy how it all started, how I actually only started learning to code so that I could teach other people so they could break into the industry and make more money when I was over here broke. [laughs] Maybe I should make the switch.Zach: Right. You know, I'll say this. It's funny. I truly believe any time you attach your purpose with people you're going to see rewards on the other side, right? TJ: Oh, yeah.Zach: Right? So your whole angle, your whole mission was "How can I serve someone else?" And then as you were building to serve others, the fates came together to make sure that you were taken care of. So that's really exciting, and I think something else that I hope our listeners are picking up on is that you were tenacious about it, right? So the information was out there, you did your own research, you put yourself out there, you were willing to be uncomfortable, and you drove to get there. Let me ask you something about this program that you started to teach other folks, specifically youth, how to code. What is the program, and why do you believe coding is so important? Why do you do it today? Like, why do you continue to do it today?TJ: Well, so the program was called ROOTs Technology, and I was basically teaching classes on Saturdays at the time in, like, a lower income part of Austin. Yeah, and for me, at the time I thought it was, like, a really good chance to provide an opportunity for kids that were already interested in tech somehow to just learn more of the hard skills to try to, like, pick up the chance to try to break into the industry or to ultimately start, like, their own stuff on the side in terms of, like, building websites for people or just, like, building--or just building their own app ideas [inaudible] actually. So yeah, I mean, that--man, teaching is hard, bruh. Teaching is very hard. I always knew that our teachers were undervalued, underpaid and underappreciated, but that, like, knowledge took a different form when I actually, like, experienced being in the shoes of a teacher for just, like, a couple hours once a week, because there were some students in my class that they didn't know where they were going to eat unless they came to my class because Subway, like, sponsored lunches. You know? So it was like--there were so many, like, hurdles outside of the actual class that basically made it hard for students to retain information and to basically achieve the goal that they set out to achieve. So yeah, that was tough, and I ultimately had to, like, pull back on the program. So now I have the curriculum online, and it is open to any and everybody to use, and I just make myself available as a mentor to help people to get unstuck as they are working through the curriculum, you know? Because everything is online and self-paced, so.Zach: So let's make sure that we'll--we'll make sure to put those resources in the show notes because I think that's amazing. I think--you know, certain people--for me as an example, right, I'm a good Googler. Like, I don't have an issue looking something up and figuring out or, you know, reaching out and talking to people, but that isn't always--that's not everyone's strong suit. Having a place where all of that information is consolidated and available I think is a big deal, and there's plenty of people out there that really see tech as, like, this big, just amorphous thing that you can't really wrap your arms around or that it's only for super, super quantitative math geniuses and things of that nature. So let me ask you this. If you could give people, especially minorities, who don't have a tech background but want to get into the space three tips, what would they be?TJ: One, decide what you want to do, and if you don't already know what you want to do in this industry or you just don't know anything about tech, just start looking for local tech meet-ups in your area and start attending and just--just ask questions. Like, you will always find people that are willing to just, like, answer questions and at least help you and point you in the right direction. And two, like, find people that want--once you figure out what you want to do, find people in this industry that are where you want to be and approach them to basically help you come up with a plan to get there. And then three, you have to really, like, sacrifice and grind. Like, set a timeline and let other people know to basically help to keep you accountable to your goals and get to work, you know? Like, this--this, like, took me over a year and a half of just, like, teaching myself and just grinding, and my last, like, five months, I actually--like, once I decided that I wanted to make the switch into being an engineer, I think I spent about, like, seven months of just, like, really sacrificing and grinding. No more happy hours. No more brunch. Dollar mimosas, and God knows I love, like, dollar mimosas. Like, I--Zach: Dollar mimosas, yeah. [laughs]TJ: You know? I basically I had to give, like, so much up. Like, I was working full-time and coming home, and basically from 6:00 P.M. to, like, 1:00 or 2:00 A.M. I was just studying. Seven days a week. Just grinding and sacrificing. The only people that saw me on a regular basis were my coworkers and my sister 'cause she lives with me, but that was it, you know? I basically went into a hole to, you know, try to put in the work to achieve my goals, and I basically showed up with a brand new software engineering job a few months later.Zach: Well, see--that's just so inspirational, right? Because, again, I think we talk a lot about things we say that we want to do, but the reality is it takes work. It takes sacrifice. Anything that you want to really build that's gonna be sustainable, not a fad or not something passing in any way, it takes time, and it takes actual work. And it's funny because, you know, you didn't pull those hours out of nowhere. You had to give up some comfort so that you could eventually get where you wanted to go. So that's--that's just amazing. I'm really encouraged by this story. This has been a great conversation. Before we wrap up, TJ, do you have any shout outs?TJ: Man, I have a lot of shout outs.Zach: Go ahead. Get it going.TJ: [laughs] So yeah, first shout outs will be to Dara Oke and Sammy [inaudible]. They were my engineering friends at the time that basically helped point me in the right direction when I was coming up with this self-paced curriculum to, you know, teach people, and then after that, shout out to Yusuf [inaudible] and the African-American Youth Harvest Foundation, which is where the classes for ROOTs Technology were at, and Yusuf was another engineer at the time that basically started learning to code back then like I did and wanted to make the switch over, and he would actually volunteer with me to help teach the class as well. And yeah, again, he achieved it as well. He has been working as a software engineer for the past two years. And also shout out to [inaudible] for just being, like, a really big support--just a really good friend and mentor in this, like, tech journey. Like, E is an engineer. He's worked at IBM on the Watson project, DO doing, like, [inaudible] stuff, and now he's over at GitHub, and he always does a very good job of just, you know, trying to help lift as he's climbing, and I was, you know, one of those people that he, like, really helped along the way in my own journey. And also a big shout out to my fiance Queen and my sister [inaudible], who gave me a place to live while I was--while I didn't have my own place for a few months. And just a really big shout out to all of my family and friends that were there to support me and to, like, push me on throughout this whole journey.Zach: Man, that's beautiful, man, and again, we thank you for your time. We love your story. We definitely consider you a friend of the show. We hope to have you back, man.TJ: Awesome. Awesome, sir. Thank you so much, Zach. Appreciate you.Zach: All right, man. Peace.Ade: And we're back. I can tell that you and TJ had a lot of fun on that one, and to be frank, I was incredibly energized by his story. It was really motivating to hear because he's out of the old, so to speak. I'm definitely still in "stay low and build" mode, but hearing his story is encouraging, and it's motivating, and it lets me know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Zach: Yeah. I think his story comes down to the power of execution. He made up his mind to do something, and he didn't use any excuse. He researched, he studied, he prepared, and then he went for it, and he didn't take years and years. It's really--frankly, it's been a super short journey for him, and I'm happy for him because I know he's just getting started.Ade: For sure. We'll definitely need to make sure to list all of those resources and contacts in the show notes because, like you said, there are so many of us out here who are interested in a genuine approach to the industry but aren't necessarily sure where to start. We'll have a starting line for you.Zach: Absolutely. Well, with that being said, we're gonna be right back with our Favorite Things. Can't wait to share.Ade: Awesome.Zach: And we're back with our Favorite Things. So folk who know me know that I am a blerd, or a black nerd. Two amazing games dropped this month. One was 2K19. Yes, like many younger black men, I loves my 2K, my NBA 2K. For those who are not in the know, NBA 2K is a basketball simulation game. This isn't even an ad. I really enjoy 2K, especially My Career, where you take a player--you make one, you create one, you take him through the journey of being a rookie to a Hall of Famer. And Spider-Man dropped. Both for PS4, so I'm really--I'm enjoying myself.Ade: 2K, huh? Okay. So what's your style? Are you a shot-creating slasher? A playmaker? What's up?Zach: I'm actually a slashing, shot-creating small forward. I'm 6'10" on there, and so if you want to catch a body, you want to be put on a poster, you find me at the park. My gamertag is RevNunn, R-E-V-N-U-N-N. I'll see you out there.Ade: RevNunn gonna put you on a poster. All right. This week my favorite thing is a book called Weapons of Math Destruction. Yes, I did say math. It's a book that came out in, I believe, 2016, and it just examines the societal impact of algorithms and big data. We tend to think of--kind of following in the conversation we were having about tech spaces, but we tend to think of data and tech and science, the STEM space, as a relatively bias-free zone because it's presented to us that way. However, this book just talks about those spaces can actually--and that work, the creation of algorithms, actually can be used to reinforce pre-existing inequality and systemic inequality. I love it. It's by a mathematician known as Cathy O'Neil, and she talks about, you know, the reinforcement of discrimination using systems that we would otherwise consider or would otherwise hope are unbiased. So it's been a fun read. Okay, maybe not fun. Fun is definitely not the term I'm looking for, but it's been a very illuminating, insightful read, and I encourage everyone to take a look at it. Oh, that reminds me. Before we go, we are actually going to be opening up our Favorite Things to you, our listeners. So if you have a favorite thing, please get at us. DM us through IG or hit us up at our email address, which we'll list later on at the end of this show. You can also contact us through the website or Twitter, and we'll make sure to shout you out.Zach: Dope. Well, that does it for us. Thank you for joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at LivingCorporate, Twitter at LivingCorp_Pod, and subscribe to our newsletter through living-corporate.com. You know what? Also, we actually bought a bunch of other domains. That's right. Sound Man, go ahead and drop some air horns right here.[Sound Man complies]Zach: That's right. We bought livingcorporate.co., livingcorporate.tv, livingcorporate.org. We are everywhere except livingcorporate.com. So if you type in Living Corporate you will find us, okay? If you have a question you'd like for us to answer on the show, make sure you email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. And that does it for us on the show. This has been Zach.Ade: And I'm Ade.Ade and Zach: Peace.Kiara: Living Corporate is a podcast by Living Corporate, LLC. Our logo was designed by David Dawkins. Our theme music was produced by Ken Brown. Additional music production by Antoine Franklin from Musical Elevation. Post-production is handled by Jeremy Jackson. Got a topic suggestion? Email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. You can find us online on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and living-corporate.com. Thanks for listening. Stay tuned.

In this episode of the SCT Podcast Sarah Potter and TJ discuss the differences between fundamental analysis and technical analysis. Fundamental analysis is typically discussed in the media about trading options and stocks. Fundamental analysis attempts to assess the financial health of a company and determine if the current market price of the stock is under or over valued. Technical analysis on the other hand looks at charts and chart patterns and looks at the supply and demand for the stocks and whether current price trends will continue or reverse. Both technical and fundamental analysis have their place in investing, for the short term weekly options trades that we place in the shecantrade trading room, a combination of technical analysis and probability trading from the options chain are what we use to select our trades. Fundamental analysis is best used for longer term trading when the financial growth prospects of the company can be fully realized over a few years.   Podcast Transcript Sarah: Hi everybody, it's Sarah Potter from shecantrade.com and this is the SCT podcast. We are on episode 38. I have TJ here. TJ: Good afternoon. Sarah: And today's discussion we're going to talk a little bit about technical analysis versus fundamental analysis and basically why we choose to look at what we do to gather evidence to place the best trades. What we're really proud of in the live trading room she can trade is that we are very consistent in our approach to trading and as a result that really comes from finding good evidence from the beginning, we really focus on getting it right from the beginning as opposed to just placing trades and then adjusting or rolling trades as we proceed in them. So kind of front-running the evidence I suppose and trying to gather pieces from all sorts of different areas to make sure we have a good perspective when we're placing trades. Now the basis of what we both trade both TJ and I is technical analysis, but you know I think even within the umbrella of technical analysis there's a lot of different areas, a lot of different systems that people use to place trades and I'm not really sure we do everything in technical analysis. So I don't know, what do you think you would you call yourself a technical trader or a Chartist like, how would you define yourself? TJ: Well definitely for the weekly trades, the day trades, the swing it's definitely not fundamentals, so yeah, I consider myself a technical analyst. Sarah: But I think when someone thinks about technical analyst I think sometimes you're thinking about somebody who spends a lot of time, very detailed amount of patterns in charts and when I've seen you trade, you do use how price moves but you're not getting that detail in terms of the patterns you're look for. TJ: Yeah, that's true. I don't think what we do is we would I do anyways I think kind of the broad concept from technical analysis, you know in terms of support resistance, trend, reversals and really applied at a pretty high level kind of the 10,000 foot level instead of getting into it right you know right down to the nitty-gritty and counting the number of bars in a triangle and you know the exact shape of the triangle and you know going back and looking at every time it happened for the last ten years and will it happen again, I think definitely, I don't delve into it that deeply and there are a lot of people that that really do it and use it to quite a bit of success. I think anything that you use, you need to, whether it's technical or fundamental you can't use it in isolation on its own, you need to combine it with what you're seeing and the options chain, what you're seeing on the charts, what you're seeing on short-term, what you're seeing on some long-term charts, what you've seen that stock do in the past and put that all together and take a little bit from every piece of that and then and then evaluate your trade. So yeah, definitely I use definitely use all the principles and it's a mosaic you know you grab a little bit of a little nugget from here, a little something from there you know something that you've learned here over there that works and you kind of put it all together and wrap it all up and apply it and I think that's why every trader has a slightly different style and I think that's the same thing with the trading room as well is that you know none of our members, are going to trade exactly like us or are going to look at the market exactly like us, but as long as we can give them some nuggets and some good trades and you know discuss the pros and cons good and bad of each trade before we place it then everyone is educated and everyone can make that decision to trade on their own and I think that's the important thing is building the story yourself and just being confident in the trades. Sarah: Yeah, I mean so I think when you're talking about it, it really does ring true to what I'm saying is that yes we're technical traders. I am as well, I do want to pay attention to how price is moving but I want to look at things like how it’s moved in the past as opposed to, oh today we've seen this many Bars in a consolidation so it must mean it's going to break out. I actually think that a lot of times we spend a lot of time there too much time in charts it's very good at looking back in history and identifying areas to enter our exit rates but because we're trading live and we're actually looking to get filled on our trades to make money on our trades then we need to be able to see things in the moment, recognize patterns certainly that have happened in the past, we can rely on those pieces of evidence but if you're only doing the charts I think you're missing another part of the picture and in options trading because we do have an options chain there's a lot of information there and that tells a story too. So what we both do in the trading room very successfully is take pieces of technical analysis and layer it in with the options chain but what I find interesting is that I've tried just looking for trades only through the auctions chain and I can't really find trades that way. So I definitely rely on technical analysis to find my trades, to choose the stocks that I'm going to spend more time and to decide whether or not a trade is actually setting up. So for me when I'm starting to look for trades I'm going to focus on the daily chart that's really where I'm filtering through all the different stocks, it comes from the daily and if something from the daily piques my interest then I'm going to go out to different timeframes and look to see how it's moving. So I want to look historically, looking on a weekly chart to see what is it done in the past are there any key areas of support and resistance, what does the trend look like, is it consolidating, those kinds of things and then from the weekly chart if things still look good and I'm still excited in the trade then that's where I'm going to move to the shorter term pieces like the 60 minute and the 5 minute to then get more precise about my entries. And then from there we're going to take all the evidence we've already gathered and then layer that into the options chain. Actually today in the trading room, I was looking at one stock at Walmart and the Walmart chart, so from a technical analysis point of view looked fantastic, it pretty well had everything, steep trend, no resistance, multiple timeframes everything looked like it was going to pop up it looked like an idea a great trade to place led to buy a call but when we moved into the options chain and started looking out to next week in terms of expiry which is where I was going to purchase the option, it didn't look as good anymore. The probability of success to me didn't look as as great as I would like it to and so I didn't place the trade so there's times where I'm going to gather all sorts of different evidence from the charts but if I can't get it to line up with what it looks like in the options chain, it's not worth placing the trade, it's probably worth putting it on a short list perhaps trading it next week once that expiry is moved on but it actually stopped me from getting into a trade. So layering what you see in charts with what you see in the options chain and what we know what's happening in the media too can also be helpful when we're actually putting together that trade. Now you use probability as well when you're placing trades especially sometimes with some day trading, how do you layer in different pieces of evidence? You're really well known TJ for your day trades, what kind of evidence to use there is it any different than when your swing trading? TJ: I think so. I think if it's if we're day trading I'm looking for something is going to happen either the next day or later that day. So I think the evidence that we that shows up on the options chain is more timely because it's you know there's less time before that option expires so what I'm seeing is you know is probably going to be the most accurate information that I'm seeing. For example, you know let's talk about Delta. Delta changes very rapidly it can and it can go from you know you can go from a delta 20 to a Delta 80 on an option on a strike pretty quickly if the stock really gets you know really gets moving, you know if we you know let's take an example again with a delta and we go to expiry and we look at expiry that delta number is going to be the most accurate right before 4 o'clock on that Friday and that's just the nature of the market so if I'm taking a day trade you know I'm relying more on what I'm seeing on the options chain I'm trusting it a little bit more because there's less time between now and expiry for the market to move, for traders to change their mind, for new big positions to be initiated. So definitely for the day trading I'm looking at the options chain, I'm looking at the details from the options chain and I'm taking that at a more of face value, I'm looking for things like you know where's the volume today, you know where is volume coming in, is it close to the strikes I'm trading, is it far away, is there a skew to the put side or the call side, is there a lot more credit on the put side than on the call side? You know there's the market and we look at the credit is the market pricing and a bigger move to the put side or the call side and these are all things that I look at in that that I use from the options chain to form my day trading decision and then I'll go to the chart and I'll look at those support and resistance levels from the options chain, you know based on like I said on credit, on volume, on open interest and I'll compare those to the moving averages, you know more traditional support and resistance on the chart and I'll see if any of those levels line up. And again you know the more the more things that line up at a certain point you know typically this areas as more traders will be looking at that point as well. So it will you know if you know if there's a lot of traders looking at say 2400 to hold on the S&P, there's a good chance that it probably will. So yes I use a lot of evidence and I think a lot of it is just looking at subtleties and seeing if there's you know a little bit something different than last week or you know something's changed between the morning in the afternoon, you know nothing will really kind of showed out at you but by the time you put it put together 3, 4, 6, 8 pieces of information and you build your case you know at least you've got at least the evidence that you know is supporting the trade. Sarah: Okay, so what we haven't talked about is fundamental analysis. And that is also very traditional, there's a lot of people in that group in camp that would say that that is an important piece to trading, but it's something that you and I both don't use and that might just be because of our outlook and how we setup our trades, because we are generally trading and looking to get out of the trade within a week or two. So do you think there's a role to play with fundamental analysis in the approach or the system of which we trade the market? TJ: I honestly don't think so for short-term trades. I don't think the fundamental analysis, I don't think any of that has enough time to play out during the week. I think fundamental analysis takes a longer time to work its way into the system, to work its way you know we see that you know companies release they've got good, good fundamentals you look ok it's a growing company you know price should go up over the next six months to a year that's great but we're typically in well I'm typically in a trade two or three days. So the market knows that yes, fundamentals might be good or fundamentals might be changing but you know there's no real time for that to take hold in the market. No obviously, earnings which is a fundamental event obviously if you want to consider that do have a big impact and we obviously you know we've talked about that in previous podcast with earnings, but generally yeah you know it doesn't I don't really pay attention to it at all. Sarah: Do you think what we have both been paying attention to though and what is relevant from very much for our style of trading though is what's happening in terms of in media and whatever you want to call that in terms of its analysis being very aware of what's happening on a global stage will impact the broad market especially which then will roll into the trades that we're in? So it is important to be paying attention to what's going on in the world because that will influence how price will move and so whether you're a technical or fundamental trader I do think that that's very important. We have geopolitical news that is influencing the market these days and I think as we move forward that will definitely be something we'll need to be very considerate of. The beautiful thing which is we're talking about the trading room today actually, the wonderful thing about the style of which we do trade is that it doesn't really matter what happens in the market two or three weeks down the road because we're probably out of those trades and we can easily-easily readjust to how the markets moving at the time. So whereas somebody who's maybe more long term is thinking, oh is this a dip this is my opportunity to buy and then we're going to see things move up and they're thinking about longer-term stances in the market, we don't have to be as concerned about that, we can be fluid and flexible with the market depending on how things are portraying themselves and we can take advantage of the trades that we're seeing and I think marrying the combination between some technical analysis linked with what we're seeing in the options chain and keeping in mind what's going on in the world is kind of the three core pieces to have really great trades. All right let's leave it there, that was a great discussion, certainly there's a lot of camps and a lot of points of view on technical and fundamental trading. As always we really do appreciate your review so anytime you can review she can trade or our podcast I would really appreciate it, those are very important and honest review is very helpful and come and check us out the live trading room at Shecantrade.com Happy trading everybody.  

In this episode of the SCT Podcast, listen to Shecantrade review your options for selecting the best expiry date for your options trades. Options traders have lots of choices when it comes to picking an expiration date for their trades. Many traders simply pick the date that looks best to them, but there are better ways. Listen to find out how to pick the optimal expiration for your long and short options trades. Podcast Transcript Sarah: Hi, everybody, this is Sarah Potter. This is the SCT podcast. Happy to have you all here today. I have TJ with me. TJ: Good afternoon. Sarah: And this is episode 37. And today we’re going to talk about how you pick expiries. I mean, in options, we have the lovely ability to pick how long we want to be involved in a trade. And so often, this is a question that we get asked a lot is how you make a decision about what week to trade when you can basically trade any week in a stock or any other trading instrument in options. So, how do you make that choice. I think this is a good discussion because TJ and I sometimes have a different points of view on this is to how many weeks to really hold trades. So, I think the first thing you want to think about is how much money are you actually interested in risking because the further you go out, the longer the time you’re giving the trade, the more expensive generally it’s going to be to be involved in that trade. And so, there has to be a balance with how much money you’re willing to put up versus actually figuring out, you know, I think this time frame is actually going to be quite soon so I think the stock is going to move, let’s say in a couple of weeks, so I only want to have a couple of week expiry versus you know, I think it’s going to go up and I don’t really know when so I’m going to go out a month or two and hope that it goes up in that time. So, TJ, what do you think, when are sometimes, or how do you make choices about expiry? TJ: Well, I guess first I have to, I want to look at the type of trade that I’m trading, whether it’s a spread or if it’s a directional buying long puts or long calls. I typically look for, I look first, I guess, let’s kind of talk about this maybe as a checklist. So, first, I look at the market. Is the market really trending? Is it moving sideways? Are we getting lots of different news? Political, economic. It’s just a lot coming out all the time. It’s maybe that causing the market to move back and forth. And then, I’ll look and I’ll say, okay, “These are the market conditions.” Is this a time that I want to spend a lot of time in the market with my trades? Or is it a time where things are happening so quickly that maybe I only want to be in the trade two or three days. And I don’t want to sit for weeks on ending a trade because we don’t know what’s going to happen if there’s going to be another government announcement or economic announcement. So that’s kind of the next step. And then I’ll tell her to, “Am I buying a put or call or am I selling a credit spread?” Generally, credit, I will only do week of so it’s a decision, “Do I get it on Monday, Tuesday? Or do I get it on Wednesday, Thursday for the Friday expiry?” But then for long puts and calls, I like to give the trade enough time to work but I also don’t want to get into a situation where the expiry is so far out on the put or call. That price is moving, may move over the next two or three days but the option doesn’t really respond because there’s so much time to expiry. So, I like to weigh those. So, I think for me, usually two or three days for credits, for spreads and I’m probably three weeks out for long puts and calls? Sarah: Okay, but that three weeks out on a market that’s moving, would you suggest that once a market is sideways, are you still picking that same three-week window or are you adjusting if the market is consolidating? TJ: I think the market is really slowly consolidating. I’m probably not trading the long puts and calls anyway, so it wouldn’t really be, it wouldn’t be something that I’d really look at. Sarah: So, I will basically make my choice about what week to trade especially for directional trades for buying calls and puts. Also, based on volume and where there are other people. So, sometimes, I might want to give it three weeks or four weeks to place the trade, to have the time. And I generally like to have a few extra week, so if I think that a stock is going to move let’s say this week, I will not trade with this week’s expiry. And that’s just because your faded decay is going to be too influential in the same week of expiry. So, if the option is going to expire in the same week, even if I think the move is going to happen, because you’ve got so much time decay value coming out of that option because it’s an option that’s going to expire that week, generally, those trades won’t be as favorable as if you went out at least one more week. So, I kind of think about it like, “Okay, do I think the move is happening this week?” Then I want to give myself an extra week just in case I’m wrong. And then I want to give a week for time value so that generally, I’m not in trades in the last week of expiry. So, that’s kind of my rule of thumb, so, I would suggest that I would meet a three-week window is the first place I’m going to look. So, if I want to buy a call, I’m always going to start at three weeks out. But there are also times when three weeks out, there’s no volume so it doesn’t make sense with the trade that week either. And that’s what I’m going to go out further or go in a week and start to consider whether or not it’s worth taking those trades instead. So, I’ll stick with the same strike but I’m going to start looking at various weeks just to see if there’s a nice place where there’s other people that are already trading so, looking at open interest in volume and looking for other positions to already be there. I don’t want to be the only person trading at a strike. I find that that’s just, those trades don’t work out as well versus when I’m in trades where there’s other people as well. I mean, that’s a whole other podcast too we could do down the road. So, there will be times that I will go out. But yeah, I mean, we’re both very similar in terms of our style for calls and puts, but there are times do you ever take trades that are out further? Like going out more than three or four weeks? TJ: Not typically an option, no. If I’m going to trade a moderately expensive stock and I’m buying an option that say three or four, six months out in the future and I want to buy that in the money with a high delta. I mean, at some point, the benefits of buying the option are kind of reduced ‘coz I might as well go buy the stock ‘coz that option is going to be a big chunk of the cost of the stock price if I’m going that far. And it expires so I’d rather spend, instead of spending 30 or 40 dollars on an option that expires, I’d rather spend maybe a hundred dollars share on a stock. At least I know that stock will still be around typically. I may be able to hold it out a little bit longer if something happens whereas the option it’s, you’re committing a lot of capital and it could just expire worthless. Sarah: Yeah, and you know, from coaching a lot of people to, when we talk about trading options, sometimes, people get really focused on the expiry like what week should I pick for their trade to end. And I also suggest, a really good tip, is to think about the trade from the beginning. So, if you identify that you think a stock is going to move, let’s say this week, but you look at it, and let’s say in a shorter term time frame like a 60-minute chart, there’s a bit of resistance. So, what sometimes traders will say is, “Well, there’s resistance here so, I have to go out a week.” Where I would say, “There’s resistance here so, I’m not going to trade it this week.” And so, you and I, that person and myself, we might end up with the same expiry but I’m going to get into the trade a week later. So, I’m not going to pay for that risk to be in that first week while there still is resistance where somebody else would. Perhaps, their perspective, what I can hear sometimes is, well, it’s cheaper then so I’d rather get into that option where it’s cheaper when there’s still resistance. And I guess, from my point of view, yeah, it could be less but if there’s resistance there, the market hasn’t proven that it’s actually going to move in a direction you want yet, so it would be better to sit and wait to see how that moves first rather than going out and spending more on an extra week. Just because we have the flexibility of trading options with more weeks, it doesn’t always necessarily mean that that’s something you should do. And I think, when we’re trading, I mean that’s the downfall of options because you have so many choices. Sometimes, instead of making a good trading decision from the beginning people say, “Well, I have a choice so I’m just going to mitigate some of these by these other choices that I have and that’s why I’m going to place a trade.” I don’t know, have you ever encountered something like that? TJ: Yeah, I think that’s I would agree, I think that’s pretty common. I’d also suggest to that if we think that the market is pretty accurate and fairly priced on the options chain, the market has a pretty good idea where price will go, and the options, if you look where the market thinks it’s going, those options will end up expiring worthless. It’s just the reason why a lot of times, straddles don’t work because the market is priced in that move and the market is generally right which is why we like to do spreads, credit spreads. We want to take the other side of that market. So, if we think that we want to trade high probability trades, we want to look at the options chain for evidence, I would tend to suggest that the market is more accurate the closer you are to now. The market expiry this week is probably pretty well-priced if I go out a year or eight months or nine months, that accuracy I think diminishes so there’s a lesser probability. So, I think if you go out and you want to rely on the probabilities from the options chain from the market, and you want to go out eight or nine months and you want to buy these long date options, I think the market isn’t as accurate out there. So, you’re relying on information, you’re paying for example, a premium maybe, for an option that the market isn’t really accurately priced. There may be a lot of discrepancy where prices are at that point which is where a lot of these longer term trades, they’re pretty binary. I mean, they either work or they don’t. And I think we also have to think too that if you do believe that in the distance that the options chain that it is fairly priced, then you have think about how is that options chain becoming fairly priced? Well, the market makers, the market in general, not just the market makers, each trader, the supply and demand is out there is there is going to be a lot of will room priced into those options, they are going to be expensive to cover that unpredictability. And, you can look at it and direct something that’s very easily noticeable implied volatility, that’s one input of market volatility. And if we look at that and we put all that together, then we really have to say why are we trying to outguess the market, if we think we can, that’s great, so say we do outguess the market, but we’ve potentially paid so much for that put or call, that by the time we get to where we need to go, we really haven’t made all that much profit because we’ve spent so much on it from the get go. And I hope that makes sense but what I’m trying to say is that it goes back to the whole no free launch. We think that’s there’s potential for a lot of profit eight or nine months and we see it but how many times does that really come, does that really play out? And I think we have to remember that that we need to look at that in the future as well. Sarah: Yeah, I think that’s actually really good advice. Don’t get caught up in thinking that we can outsmart the market. You might as well work with the market because there’s a lot of trades to be had that are there right in front of you. So, I just want to thank everybody, we’ve had a lot of really great feedback lately on the podcast, everyone’s really liking this new format, and I do, too. I think somebody kind of summed it up as it sounds like the two of us are just kind of having a coffee and a chat about options and I don’t know, I think that’s a really nice way to think about it. We do appreciate your reviews, though. The reviews are very important especially in iTunes, so if you could take a couple of minutes and post an honest review of the podcast up there in iTunes, we’d really appreciate it. And of course, we’d always love to see you guys at shecantrade.com. Happy trading, everybody. Thanks for listening to a Shecantrade Review of the Markets  

Sarah: Hi Everybody, Welcome to the SCT podcast, this is episode 29 and in today’s show what we are going to talk about is “Selling Puts”, it’s kind of a strategy that everybody seems to know about or have an understanding of how to do it but it is interesting that when you actually get into trading it, is to especially why you want to trade it, everybody has all sorts of different reasons. So, we are going to explore this strategy in today’s podcast and I have TJ here with me TJ: Hello Sarah: we are each going to talk a little bit about how and why did you, you will get both of our perspectives on it, so I think that should be quite helpful for everybody. So TJ can you start us off by just explaining a little bit about what is “selling a put”? TJ: Selling a put is, your assumption is that the market is going where the stock is currently trading and hope that the stock stays at the same price or moves up by the expiration date of the option, what happens is when you sell the put, you collect the premium and if the stock price expires above the strike price of the Put, you get to keep the entire amount of the premium. Obviously if the stock price pushes down below the strike price of the put then the position begins to lose and you actually have to close out the position by buying back the Put for more than you sold it for, which creates a loss. You can also take assignment of the shares as well, if you take assignment on the short Put, you are actually long shares in your account, so there’s a few strategies there that we can use. Sarah, what market conditions do you like to sell Puts in. Sarah: Okay, Yeah, you have actually got into strategy and just for people to summarize about what it actually is, is essentially what you are doing is trying to collect some premiums or trying to make some money by trading at a level where you don’t think that underlying is actually going to go and that’s essentially what a strategy is. Now, people use it for all sorts of different reasons and there is some, certain times that I think is a good time to trade it and other times that I actually think is a really bad time to trade it. But I think it is really important to mention that sometimes if a strategy sounds too good to be true then you can get load into expecting a strategy like this to work a 100% of the time and it is really important that we get into this discussion about selling puts is that you, I think everyone needs to understand that this should be part of a diversified strategy in the market and if all you are ever doing is looking to just sell puts, I think that you are going to run into trades that aren’t going to work and a problem with the strategy is when it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work and if you don’t really know how to deal with it at that point, that can really end up hurting an account. So the first thing I guess, I want to mention is, it’s a great strategy, but it can’t be the only strategy because if all you have to do is go out and sell out puts on everything, everything will be fine until it doesn’t work out and I just want to make sure we are making that pretty clear. I think it is a nice way to collect a little bit of premium, I think what’s important though to mention because you're selling puts is it’s a small amount of money that you are taking in and you are basically taking in that amount and you really won’t make it anymore if you are just talking about purely selling a naked put. So that strategy alone when you go and look at the stock, let’s use stocks as an example, you can do it on a bunch of stuff but if you go and think ok, that underlying is going to move higher, so I just want to be able to take advantage of some premium that is sitting below the strike where it is trading and I don't really think it is going to go down there again so I am just going to trade there, then fine and certainly a stock that is trending would be a better stock to trade than naked put on rather than something that is consolidating and moving all over the place, so that will be a good time to trade it, I am assuming you follow the same kind of rule that you are going to be trading in a naked put in a trending stock. TJ: Typically yes, yeah absolutely trading it. I also trade them in a sideways stock too, I think if you can sell naked pots outside of a consolidation range, a lot of the stocks will consolidate for a week or two or even longer and you are able to rip weekly’s, the advantage of Weekly options go in and sell that put a few times, while the stocks consolidating Sarah: Ok yeah, that's true but why would you do a naked put on something that is consolidating instead of doing something that is a little more like an  where at least at that point you are margin requirement is quite less and your risk is less. What would be the advantage of doing a naked put on something that’s moving sideways? TJ: Well typically if a stock is moving sideways, the volatility at that point has decreased, you are not getting as much credit, so the naked put allows you to move a little bit further away from the prices currently trading, giving you and little bit of an extra buffer on one side of the trade so you can go out and you can go, maybe two or three strikes further away than if you were to do iron Condor at that then you need to get closer. Sarah: Yeah that is true and I guess it also has to do with the account size you are trading with too because the reality is some of these naked puts are going to have pretty high margin requirement, Are they not? TJ: That is true, but there is also, if you sort stocks by price as well, for example your radar screen and you watch list, you notice that there is an awful lot of stocks that trade below $100 and if you are trading a stock that’s $18 or $20 or $30, to sell naked puts on it the margin requirement is not that high. Absolutely, I don't sell naked puts on PCL on a $2,000 stock or on Google or on Amazon having to trading up around $1,000 right no. So yeah absolutely the margin requirement is higher. It also has to do with the volatility, so a lot of times we have to keep in perspective to that a lot of these strategies that involve selling put you sell them so and you are literally collecting pennies and for a lot of traders they are barely covering their commissions every time they sell these puts. In short enough 98% of the time, they work out what is that 2 times out of 10 or 2 times out of 20 even were it doesn't work, that ends up eating up all of your profits on those trade, so on the service I think there is a lure of easy money. But we have to look at the price of the stock and the credit you are collecting and lot of the times it’s pennies, it's pennies that you are collecting during that but trade for 3, 4 weeks maybe 5 or 6 weeks with a lot of these strategies. Sarah: Yeah and that is exactly why I don't love selling puts and I would sometimes pick different strategies, you have actually identified it right there, is because once you get in that trade there is no possibility of making more and to me why would you sit in a trade when you are open to risk and you can’t make any more money and all you really have to do is sit there and it is almost like a pile on in the market and say "here I am I really hope you don't notice me, I can't really do anything about it but I am just going to sit here", so to me that kind of bothers me about the strategy, so certainly that’s why, I guess I will stick to trading it when there is something that has a trend because at least then I have that direction to hopefully keep price away from me because I am worried about being that pile on that's huge and everybody is going to see it and I don't really want anyone to see the trade I am in. TJ: Absolutely, everybody thinks that, oh, the put that I have sold is far enough away, price might go through 50 Cent or $1, I will be OK but a lot of times people are trading the strategy around the wrong times. For example, earnings, so they will trade thinking that the stock might move $8, it moves 16,  $8 against you and now you are way outside on this put and I think the other thing as well is that the people that sell it successfully or selling way out of the money and are adjusting there, they are adjusting a 15 Cent credit where it goes down the 12 cents they were adjusting, a very finite adjustments and I think that a lot of traders don't see that there is like the grey area that makes them work and the other thing towards the lure of profits and I think that what happens is that a lot of traders start selling them and the first bunch work out great, and then you say, well, you know what, if I am getting 15 sent successfully well here is 30 or 40 cents and now we are trying to collect 30 or 40 cents or 50 or 60 Cents on trades and it just drops the probability of success and that is going to be on one those trades where you end up getting hurt on the trade and at that point you are kind of bruised and you don't want to trade them again where it is not necessarily the strategy that didn't work but just kind of the greediness or the application of it. Sarah: Yeah and so true to mention that when you are trading, learning textbook of what a strategy is and then actually going out and putting it on in the market can be two very different things because the theory of the strategies sounds fantastic and I think that's why a lot of people say they trade it because it’s kind of easy to get and in terms of options with all of these multi like strategies, it is pretty simple you go and look for an area where you don't think it is going and you just sell the put and hope it doesn't go down there. I mean it is a pretty simple concept in a book, but applying this and making it actually work over a long term in the market isn't as easy and I can't tell you how many times we both have had them. We had emails and discussions with people say that this is the strategy they use, this is the only one they use, this is all they do it and then you just say OK great and then what happens a couple of weeks a couple of months later is we get a horrible email from them later on, it says, Oh Man, probably I should've listened to you because the strategy isn't working for me anymore and I have taken the strategy that worked really well say 10 times, but these last couple of really wiped out all those profits in all those other ones because I was taking such small profit, I don’t know, just a word of caution. I do want to come back to something you said earlier as well which was about trading cheaper stocks, so was curious about what your opinion was. So with cheaper stock, is really selling a naked put kind of the only thing you can really do in cheaper stocks if you want to sell something. TJ: I think it is a good strategy if you want credit. I think it is one of the few credit strategies that you could use on an inexpensive stock and I guess when I am speaking about in expensive stocks, really anything kind of under $50 I think is pretty inexpensive. Obviously other strategies that work are the tried and true but long  puts, long calls debit spreads as well where you are buying but on the credit side I agree with you that it is the selling of the puts that really allows you to a little bit more flexibility. Sarah: Yeah, as I said like it is a good strategy and there's lots of reasons and ways to place it, but it doesn't have to be the only one, so let's talk about getting out of them. So another popular way, obviously everybody just wants to sell the naked put and the trade works that you don’t have to do anything, that’s fantastic. So let's talk a little bit about when you are in the trade and you either made some profit what you do, or you are losing because it has come down to the strike you sold, what do you do, do you want to talk about some of the things you do first or do you want me to go first? TJ: Yeah if I am trading naked puts, really the expiration is either same week, so 2 or 3 days later, trading on a Tuesday or Wednesday for Friday expiration or maybe a Thursday or Friday for the following week, I am typically not adjusting or rolling the trades there is typically not a lot a time to do that, they either work or they don't. I will just end up exiting the trade if it comes down into or close to the strike, obviously depending on, each trade is different when it comes back down into the support, support levels that I previously identified, I am most likely looking to potentially exit trade at that time and just taking a loss and moving on. I think a lot of time if you start adding and changing things, it really changes the dynamic and doesn't necessarily always work out better at the end. And like you said in the previous podcast, most people wish they had the stock option adjustment, the redo button for adjustments that gone down this path. By the time they get to the end of this windy road, half of the time forgotten why they trade in the first place and are losing more money than they realize that they are losing. The other thing that I do frequently do, I mostly trade in selling puts because I want to own the stock, so for me if it pushes through this strike and it still again hasn’t gone through major levels of support, it still looks like a great trade something that I want to own, I will just take an assignment on this stock because it is intended into a covered call strategy or just own the stock if I want to, so for me it is really why do I get into it, most of the time I am showing that because I want to own a stock, I want to take assignment, so I am either getting it for a loss that really breaks below but if it breaks below a little bit I just pick up the stock. Sarah: Yeah, I think that’s a good way to do it and it is a nice backup. It is always nice to have a plan B without having to adjust our role and that’s really what it is, so the same thing, when I am looking to do that, I want to take the trade and a stock that I don't mind owning the stock, sorry, does that make sense, I want to trade the option by selling and then if it doesn't work for me so if we end up having an option that has some value at that point then, I just take the stock instead and then of course you can roll out into all sorts of different trades there and you can keep making money on that. So I think that's something that’s really important and that’s absolutely kind of a great way especially when you are talking about the stock there are 50 dollars and under with that plan in mind to be able to pick up the stock, there is more room for you to deal with in terms of what account size you are trading with. So that is also something really good. So I also just wanted to talk about, I just got out of HD today and I know that by the time you guys hear this, it will have moved on from that trade but I did just sell naked put in HD and I originally have sold it for 60 Cents and then today I got out of it and I made about half, so I think it was about $30 profit that I got out of the trade and that was only really after a couple of days and I want to mention that as well in terms of the positive side of that, so by taking it in something like 60 Cents and I can sell that back at 30 cents that is a really great return and I think it is important that we look at the percentage of return on a trade in order to decide when to get out, when it is working for me. So just because I took 60 cents, it doesn't mean I am going to hold this trade to the very end to make 60 cents. If there is a nice golden opportunity for me to get out of the trade and make $30 in a couple of days to me that makes way more sense to take the trade off and cash out and put the money in my pocket than it is to sit in it for another 2 weeks until the trade expires even if the stock are fine and I didn't really need to get out of it but to me that was just easy money to take off. So do you always hold your naked puts way till the end or do you get out of them quickly for profit I mean? TJ: Typically I am selling them in stocks that I want to own, so the premium I am collecting, it may not at the time be enough to really make sense of selling it so I will hold them till the end. I am collecting 30 cents of premium or 40 cents right after that and I am making 7 or 8 or 12 cents on it that’s probably not enough, that is not going to be enough for me, so I will wait into expiration but absolutely if you are selling if you are able to sell that put for a 80 cents or a dollar and you can make 30 or 40 cents on it in a week or 10 days, yeah I absolutely agree and that is the thing we were talking, we did a course on Cover calls and actually a lot of it is the misconception of  and I think it is the same thing with selling options is that paper profit, so for example your HD, you had 30 cents or 40 cents of potential profit in it, that's what you have today as you mentioned in 10 days who knows, that paper profit may have turned into a loss, so the only way to profit is to absolutely realize the cash out of the trade to turn that paper into paper money, like you said, I completely agree the only real profit is when you sell, so taking that 30 or 40 cents absolutely, like you said 50% profit on the trade is absolutely fantastic and it is much better to take 30 cents on the trade then in 8 days oh well you know at one time I had this paper profit, it is nice to talk about but until it's in your account it is not real. Sarah: Absolutely, unrealized PNL is not the real thing, you want the hard cash you want that profit in your account that's really what we are all after here and that's really what we do I think really well and I think we both can give ourselves a nod here in the trading, I think we do a really great job of cashing it on the trades and profiting really nicely on the trades that we have got. So, I don't know I do think in summary that it is a good strategy I think anyone that's doing it kind of has to have the reason why and again you want to be able to build that case about why that strategy is good to trade v/s another one I think we have outlined a few of them specially in terms of determining the price of the underlying whether or not that's a strategy for you, picking whether or not you like to do it when it is trending market or consolidating. Everyone is going to have a different flavor and a different spin on it but it is the strategy that you and I both use and it can be really great. Of course I do just wanted to throw out that the margin requirement on those are going to be different and some people depending on what kind of accounts they are trading, you might not be able to sell to do that strategy too. So, just to make sure for everybody who is listening today that you go and do that research on it as well. I don't want people getting into something without them really understanding the whole bit. So I hope you guys found this really helpful, I think it was a good discussion, it is actually quite interesting to hear us each explain. I found it very helpful to hear TJ's perspective and how to trade the strategy. And hey, if you want to actually see us trade live in the training room, because we go through everything all the time and was another good week of trades, so I look forward to see you guys next week, please review the podcast and email podcast at shecantrade.com if you have any future ideas that you want to hear us to discuss. Happy trading, everybody.

Sarah: Hi, everybody this is Sarah Potter from the SCT podcast. We are at episode #28 and I have TJ here with me.   TJ: Hi, everyone.   Sarah: So in today’s podcast, we are going to talk specifically about adjusting, and rolling trades. Doing something with trades, if they haven’t really worked out the way you wanted them to. We’re going to talk about how and why you want to that. So first off TJ, I hope you can explain a little bit about what is the difference between using the term adjusting or rolling when it comes to trading?   TJ: Well, I think they’re pretty generic terms and different traders will use them differently. Usually for me, rolling is taking the same trade and moving it out to a different expiry date or a different strike price. Whereas, adjusting is changing the trade a little bit. So adding a leg, adding some stock to the trade, for example, to turn a short call into a covered call. Something like that where you’re changing what you’re doing, changing the intent of the trade.   Sarah: Yeah, you’re so right. I find that in trading, it’s kind of hilarious how everybody takes a different spin and take on different terms, I do find that a little interesting. I agree, so when you’re doing an adjusting and rolling, they are a different way to look at a trade but ultimately, what you’re doing is looking at an existing position that you have open, and trying to make a decision about whether or not you need to add some more risk to it to have a more favorable outcome than you have now. So TJ do you roll trades and when do you decide to do that?   TJ: Typically, I won’t generally roll a trade because most of the trades I’m doing are in weekly options and I’m only in a trade for maybe three days, four days. So we can adjust the trade or roll the trade but there’s not a lot of time to do it. So generally those weekly trades, we’ll just exit for the loss and regroup either back into an option in a few weeks once the chart pattern gets back to where we like it, for a new entry or we just get out for a loss and move on. And I think what we have to remember too and a really good point for any trader, is that no matter what you call it, adjusting or rolling. It’s placing a new trade, it’s adding risk to the trade, you’re adding an additional, potential of loss in hopes of making back what you lost on the first leg of the trade. But it is a new trade and it is adding risk so you really have to ask yourself, is that something you want to do? Is it better to take a small loss and walk away or is it better to potentially take a medium or large size loss with the hopes of winning back that initial loss. So for the short trades, no I don’t. I usually get out and move on. For some of the longer term long puts and calls, covered call position, protect puts, yes. And even if it expires three or four weeks out or longer is much easier and a much better candidate for adjusting or rolling and yes, on a case by case basis I will. I don’t think there’s any point of extending a trade for months or weeks or even a year or so just to break even at the end. I think it’s stressful mentally and stressful on your wallet a lot of times. What do you think about adjusting versus rolling do you do it? What’s your opinion Sarah?   Sarah: Well my opinion at the very beginning is I don’t ever really want to be doing that. That is never my goal in the trades and I think that is something that’s important to point out. There are strategies out there in the market that basically somebody is setting up the trade and their plan is to adjust as they move through that strategy and that’s really not something that we do in our room and I’d say that we’re both the same way that way. When we’re originally setting up our trade and deciding where we think something is going to go, choosing a strategy, the strike and the timeline accordingly, we’re looking to hit the home run. We’re looking to actually hit those targets from the beginning without having to adjust versus there are some strategies out there where when you place the trade your plan within the timeframe that you’re still in the trade is adjust the legs on either side. So we should mention that that is one strategy altogether. I don’t do that. For me if I’m going to adjust or roll a trade, I will do it occasionally. The only real times that I’m really even going to consider it is when I can still look at the underlying. I’m still going to look at a stock for example, and say yes, I still think things are moving in the same direction than I originally thought when I placed the trade. But along the way something has happened but now when I’m towards the end of the trade my assumption of where I think something is moving is still the same from the beginning I’ve just let’s say, ran out of time. So sometimes, if I still think the stock is going to be moving higher but my option is about to expire or time is influencing too much the price of the strike that I’ve purchased, I might have to roll that trade out or adjust it a little bit so that I have more time. So I will do that. I also will keep in mind how the market’s moving. So in fact if I look at my trades over the last couple of weeks, I actually have adjusted and rolled a couple. I think there’s specific links to why I’ve done each of those trades. I mean in the trading room we’ve talked specifically, because I always do that whenever we’re in trades, I always go through each one of the trades in the room and we talk about why we’re managing some, why am I exiting some, why am I taking profits here, and all that kind of things. But if I look at some of those the reason is one through earnings, so sometimes if I want to take advantage of an earnings announcement and let’s say I’m in a long position and the stock hasn’t popped out yet but I think that earnings is going to make that go a bit higher so I roll because I want to be involved a little bit longer. I will shift the trade. Again, making sure though that my assumption continues to be that I think things are going higher and so I’ll take the time and buy a little bit further out in terms of expiry to now take advantage of something like earnings. I will throw those on sometimes. And then also, if you’re in a trade, and let’s say it’s a couple of weeks out and we’re sitting in that trade and we’re waiting, and waiting and it hasn’t popped up yet but think it’s going to and all of a sudden one day there’s something that has happened that moved the market that wasn’t anticipated. So sometimes like some news events or something that has really changed the tone of the market, then I look at that stock I think okay that day alone really changed the move so let’s say it sold off quite a bit but I think it’s coming back quite strong very quickly. And so as long as the underlying assumption is still true, I still think it’s long, I will roll the trade out again. That’s an example of when I would also roll because I think again, it’s just time that I need on the trade as opposed to strategy. Now, if we talk specifically about adjusting TJ would you say you do more adjusting or rolling more often?   TJ: I do more rolling. And I agree with the premises. Usually, when I’m rolling it’s for extra time. So the stock is behaving the way that we wanted it to however the option, the expiry date that we chose is coming up really quickly. Trend is still there we just need to buy ourselves, literally, buy ourselves a little bit more time in the trade and just extend that allowing us to be in a winning trade. We’re not going to extend for time as if the chart pattern looks completely different than when we entered the trade and then a lot of people use rolling just to extend, extend, extend and kind of deny the fact that the trade’s not working but I think a lot of times it’s just like a bandaid you just have to rip it off the faster, the better and move on. Time that's a really good candidate that we've used with success. A number of times in the ETF, USO, it's a really inexpensive ETF trading anywhere right now kind of between a $9.50 and $11. You can pick up options pretty inexpensively on USO and you can look to, if USO makes a move, percentage wise you're looking to probably make 50-100% on that option's trade. So you're looking to turn that 15 cent option into a 30-40 cent option. And so in that case because you're looking for that to double or a little bit more price of the option you can afford to take that a couple of times. You can afford to adjust that trade a couple of times and still know that okay USO is in a really good trend. We just need some more time. So for example in a USO's bottoming out and I'm buying the call it slows down for a little bit and you know they say the $9 or $10 call that we have in the markets move sideway since we got into it. You know if I paid 20 cents for it, and I'm looking to get 40 or 50 cents out of it when I sell it then I can take that 20 cent trade I can take it twice and break even or more or do better on that trade. So I think there's some stocks in ETF's that really lend themselves to it and for me it is inexpensive ETF's or stocks that can move a large percentage in that USO is that one that we've adjusted with quite a bit of success.   Sarah: Yeah, you have done well with that one. So how many times would you roll something. Like at what point is it just too many times?   TJ:  I think for USO I'd probably take two tries at it. Especially now, how the charts are pretty well kind of locked between that 9.50 and 11 dollar range is if you're buying a call at the bottom at 9.50 or you're buying a put up at 11, you're usually still in the same trend. So I'd be buying my call and usually what happens is it's not moving fast as we thought was going to so I'll extend it. If it reverses for example, if I've bought the call at 9.50 and then all of a sudden USO's trading at 8.75 or 8.50 I might take one more shot at it because it's just broken through support and we might get a bounce but that's about it. If the trend is changed, I'm not going to keep reversing my position on it just to kind of hold on the trade.   Sarah: Okay, I agree I usually find two rolls is really the most for me where, okay I just have got it wrong at that point. So after two times it's just I need to move on from the trade or take a sign with the stock maybe. But I have got something wrong here and it's like you said, time to pull off the bandaid. So that kind of brings me to a good question that I think people want to hear about is, when you start rolling or adjusting, whatever you're doing, are you at that point changing the goal of your trade to just break even or are you rolling and adjusting and you're still looking for a reward or profit on the trade?   TJ: Yeah, I think that's a really good point too and that I hadn't really thought of that too. And it's a lot of how I trade and what I talk about is well is that when you are the premise for me when I adjust or roll is to make back the loss. So I'm looking at if I've lost, say 30 cents on a trade, I'm looking to exit the next trade the adjusting trade at around that 30 or just a little bit more. I'm really just trying to break even, cover commissions,  get out of the trade for 0. I'm not really looking on the second trade to go in and double up or triple up on that second trade and I think that's where a lot of people end up losing in adjustments because they see the profit, they've broken even and then they're trying to make money on that second trade and I think a lot of times, they're trying to make too much and it ends up retracing and they end up losing twice. So I don't know, why Sarah do you think that? why in trader's minds and I've asked myself this and I've asked room too, it never really got a great answer is, why don't people think adjusting or rolling is taking a new trade? Why do they talk about it like it's just extending in it has zero risk proposition with only gains to be had?   Sarah: You're so right actually. Sometimes I think probably because it's another term and I think we hear from brokers a lot like, let's just put out on the table that when you're all trading, were trading through brokers and what do brokers want from all of us? They want us to trade. And so sure they want to trade too, they want to make money, we want to protect our profits, we want to limit our risk, and of course everybody's looking for that one cash cow of a trade out there but we also do hear from brokers a lot that say, that explain rolling and adjusting as not necessarily a new trade but giving that first trade a second chance. And I think it actually relates to who we are as people and I just want to throw trading here on one side. Also look at everybody as a trader and the psychology of it all. I think every time any of us place a trade, we want to give things the benefit of the doubt. That it is going to work out. We all want something to be okay. We never want to set up something for failure. And I think sometimes when you're trading, it's important to be very conscious of that because when we start making those assumptions and thinking oh gosh I really hope it works out, this has to work, this has to work. We've really moved away from rational decision making that you need to make in the trade. And I think people just jump to this idea of it's okay, I can adjust. I can roll and it will just hide that and I don't have to deal with that right now. I can just move it out a little bit further. And I have to say that might be good in the short term but in the long term that can really bite you. I don't know if I'm allowed to say bite in the ass but it can really hurt you. And sometimes like you said, taking the band aid off quick or slow either way it's going to hurt. So what's the best way to actually get back on track? And sometimes because we hear from brokers about how it's okay we can hide this. It's okay, we can move on. I think people stop remembering that it actually isn't a new trade. But I like what you said, I think that's actually a good way to counterbalance that. So a solution into thinking that way is when you do start adjusting or rolling, rather than now looking for profit, is you're just really looking to break even to make back some of the loss and to cover commission. And that's another thing too here. We haven't really talked about that and ‘commissions’ can be another good podcast down the road. It's just talking about how conditions influence trading and that's another topic that we really don't hear about very often but it affects us every month and it affects our bottom line because we are all retail traders and we're paying commission. Let's mark that down as an actual theme to do cause I think that would be a good discussion. And I think that leads me into another idea that I wanted to make sure we're talking about, is that when we're adjusting and rolling, there is no undo button and I think that a lot of traders wish that once they start getting into adjusting and rolling that they're, secretly in their minds, they're thinking there's an undo button. And I would totally admit, I have trade right now that I wish there's an undo button on. So here's an example of a trade that's not working now, with you guys we're completely open and honest about trades, so here is one with DG I am in. I bought a call. It was long in position and then DG sold off. So I decided while I'm going to make an adjustment to that trade, I'm going to sell 72's and hold on to my 74 long position. So essentially creating a credit spread. And then lo and behold, what happened today DG shot up through 72. Like oh my god, man, where's my undo button?  I didn't have it. So speaking of adjusting and rolling,  I'm actually working on an example right now in DG and making the decision about what do I want to do moving forward. So let's take the same tips that we just discussed in the podcast and add that into this specific example. So right now when I'm in DG and the price of it is higher than the strike of which I sold. I have to make a decision about where do I think that underline is going. Where do I think that stock DG is going to move as it expires tomorrow. And so right now I'm actually holding the 72. I've been paying a lot of attention to how it's been pricing especially into this afternoon and that's really important when you're trying to decide whether to adjust or roll make sure you take good look at that options chain. Really look at and get a good feel for where is volume coming in, where are people lining up on that options chain, where do they put the stakes in the ground about where they think things are going. Use that information to help you with your trade to decide whether you want to adjust or roll. That's very helpful. And make the decision about okay I don't have an undo button here. I already adjusted the trades so I was long to 74 I added short the 72, what do I need to do now moving into tomorrow? For this specific example, in my mind tomorrow I'm going to evaluate; do I want to look to take an assignment on anything? If something has value, do I want to look for that assignment piece so I might be short in the stock if I keep this short position on or do I just want to get rid of the whole thing and say yeah, this is just a small loss and we'll just get out of it.. Do I want to get rid of just the 72's that I sold? So we're going to go through all that scenarios in the live trade room because I think that's really important. But for all of you in the podcast as well I hope you go through a same process of looking at a position you're in. Something I adjusted. I don't have an undo button. I was wrong about the direction that I thought something was moving and so as I move into tomorrow that is the end for me. I tried doing an adjustment on it. I am not going to go out any further. I confess up to it and say yup I got out of four or five winning positions this week and this one isn't working and that's okay. And I'm not going to continue the risk on this by rolling this out any further. I was wrong, I tried it once, I didn't get it so I have to make a good rational decision to say tomorrow's the end of this trade. Even though I have the ability and the broker's little light will flash and say hey you can do this. I'm not going to do that I have already made that choice one time and it's time to move on to look for other trades that can make me money. Cause I can make more money in the market being focused on the right trade rather than spending too much time on trades that are wrong. I don't know when you look at trades do you ever have a point where you're like I just have to stop here.   TJ: All the time and it's usually you try once, you try twice and then it's time to move on to something with better opportunity and not dwell or focus on the one trade or two trades of eight or two trades of ten that didn't work. Right? We're always focused on that one or two that didn't work when there's seven or eight or nine that have worked really well. But we're still well, like you said, as humans focused on that and I think, I don't know, I'd like to leave this with kind of a thought too and goes along to the last point in it. I think thought it was a really great point was if I'm taking a second. So for example, I have Apple. I take one trade, it doesn't work, I adjust it or roll it, and I'm looking at that second trade. Why does that second trade have to be an Apple? Maybe there's a better opportunity in a different stock in Google. So why do I have to stay in Apple just because I started trading in Apple? Maybe there's a better opportunity and I can make my loss back in a different stock and I think that's what we have to remember that like you said just because there is that rolling button on your brokerage that makes you that one click roll, doesn't mean you need to use it. And you need to really evaluate at the end of the day, is it better to stay in the original stock, and I think there's opportunity there. Or is there more opportunity somewhere else where I can make more money and I think that's kept me on the right side of things for many years.   Sarah: Those are wise words my friend and I'm sure all of you guys listening to this podcast can absolutely relate to this feeling because this is something that we all deal with. And I hope this has been really helpful for you to hear a little bit about how we evaluate trades and what we basically do with them when they're not working. I think it's sometimes really easy cause we are shorter term traders and we have so many profitable trades that sometimes a lot of the learning can come from trades that don’t work and so happy to talk through all of that. So great podcast today I think this was really helpful for everybody. We would love to hear from you though. So one is, send us an email podcast@shecantrade.com if there's a specific theme that you'd like us to talk about moving forward we're happy to take all of those pieces of feedback and then also please post a review. The reviews are what really helped build this podcast up and helped other people benefit from the learning that's here. So please review the podcast. Look forward to seeing you guys all guys next week and happy trading everybody.