Today, we’re doing a TastyTrade review. TastyTrade has fast become the most popular financial networks on the web. Clearly, these are very smart guys.
Contents
- Tasty Trade – What Do You Get?
- Tasty Trade Review:
- Pros and Cons of Tastytrade
- Tasty Works
- Tasty Trade – Worth The Hype?
- Final Thoughts
- FAQ
Founded in 2011, Tasty Trade bills itself as an online financial network that aims to produce eight hours of live, original programming each weekday. Programming is focused on providing viewers interested in options and futures with strategies for investing, financial information as well as entertainment.
By far, there most popular production so far has been an interview series with “Karen the Supertrader“. One video alone has over 1,200,000 views. This is a popular series with a lot of my readers and certainly gets your heart racing thinking about the possibilities. In addition to the fantastic interviews there is a huge amount of research and statistical data that is presented to viewers.
With a particular focus on options trading and the stock market, Tasty Trade provides its trading segments and products for free, backed by a conveniently established brokerage firm (more on that later!).
Tasty Trade has a variety of segments that traders can choose from, ranging from beginner content through to content for experienced traders.
For example, the ‘Tasty Trade Live’ show follows Tom Sosnoff and Tony Battista, two ex-floor traders while the ‘Anatomy of a Trade’ show breaks down their thinking and processes into a detailed look at how they build up or defend a specific position.
Tasty Trade also provides a learning centre with educational courses, such as a beginner options course which will help you understand basic concepts like what is a put and call option, through to understanding options strategies, entries and the Greeks.
Both the segments and the educational courses are delivered entirely for free and hosted on multiple platforms as well as their website. Users can jump on and start watching and learning straight away with no commitments.
With so much content from professional traders, delivered for free, it might sound like a deal that’s too good to be true – and perhaps it is. Read on as we do a deep dive exploration of all that Tasty Trade has to offer and answer whether you too should consider joining the network.
Tasty Trade – What Do You Get?
Tasty Trade has been around for a while, continually upgrading its production values to the point where it’s now running a program that could rival the quality of some major television broadcasters.
However to borrow an old expression, the proof is in the pudding. No matter how flashy the setup and how polished the presenters are, if you don’t provide quality content then it’s just not worth watching.
So what do you actually get on the Tasty Trade platform? There are four main sections. The first is the ‘shows’ section, with access to shows hosted by six different personalities.
There are many shows available to watch, ranging from their daily live show through to specialised segments such as responses to viewer’s emails, trade strategy breakdowns, viewer-submitted trading ideas and even tech and pop culture news.
Overall some are very trade focused and technical, while others lean more to the general news and entertainment side, so there’s something for everybody in this selection.
The next section on the Tasty Trade platform is the Learning Centre. Here there are a number of free courses on trading Options and Futures, as well as access to supplementary material such as specific options strategies (e.g. ratio spread, iron condor, etc.), understanding statistics (e.g. probabilities, standard deviation, etc.) and finally trade management (e.g. managing winners, dividends, etc.)
At the time of writing only the basic Options and Futures courses are available, with the aim to teach you the basics such as what are put and call options, what are some specific options strategies you could use, how to enter trades and how to manage them. More courses are in the works and coming soon.
The third section is “Luckbox” which is their digital magazine, free to subscribers of the platform. The magazine discusses various life and money topics, showing how to apply a lens of probabilities when making strategic and investment decisions.
The final section of Tasty Trade is the Events section where there are a variety of events featuring some or all of the Tasty Trades personalities presenting a variety of options and futures topics.
With so much free content, you might be asking what’s the catch? Technically there isn’t one – you can consume all the content for free if you wish. But of course as useful as the free information is, there’s another motive behind it. Enter Tasty Works.
Tasty Trade Review:
Articles And Newsletters
Along with a plethora of articles on Tastytrade.com, there are Tastytrade newsletters that you can get in your inbox daily or weekly. Sign up at https://info.Tastytrade.com/newsletters
These include premarket trade inspiration, highlights from their shows, and other picks.
Live Streams And Events
There are about 50 different shows streaming hours of live programming every weekday which can be watched within the TastyWorks platform or the Tastytrade mobile app.
See the latest episodes archived on the web at Tastytrade live: https://www.Tastytrade.com/shows/Tastytrade-live
And of course, the Tastytrade YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Tastytrade1
Their latest live tour event is called “Bad Trader Tour,” the first stop being at the Chicago’s Vic Theatre on July 16, 2022 (and it is free). The show will include short talks, storytelling, and interactive games by Tom, Liz, Jenny, and a few others.
Education Courses
Tastytrade courses are available on Thinkific: https://Tastytrade.thinkific.com/
There you will find courses on beginner options, beginner futures, implied volatility, and more (most of which are free).
Further Education
For further education, see “Trader Resources” section of Tastytrade.com, where you will learn options strategies, portfolio management, probabilities, and trade management.
Strategies
The primary strategies used by the Tastytrade team are options premium-selling strategies such as short strangles/straddles, iron condors, and credit spreads. They use time decay in their favor, aiming for a delta/theta ratio of 0.5.
They like to sell with 45 days to expiration and get out 21 days prior to expiration. They often take profit at 50% of maximum potential profit.
For credit spreads, they like to set strikes where they can collect premiums at least one-third the width of the spread. These tend to strikes that are closer to the money with a better risk-to-reward ratio but a higher chance of being breached.
Pricing
Zero commission on stock trade. $1.0 0 opening commissions on options trade, capped at $10 per leg. There are zero commissions on closing options trade.
In addition to commissions, there are fees (such as clearing fee)
There is no monthly fee and no inactivity fee.
See the full fee structure here: https://TastyWorks.com/commissions-and-fees/
Pros and Cons of Tastytrade
Pros:
- Visually appealing interactive trading platform
- Live streaming content available within the platform
- Reasonable commissions with no closing commission on options
- Futures and cryptos also available in addition to options and stocks
- Ability to follow the trades of the Tastytrade team
- Some unique statistics are available such as “probability of profit” and “percentage chance of achieving 50% of max profit” on options positions.
- In a feature called “chains,” it can track the P&L of the entire duration of an options strategy, including all the various adjustments that have been allied to it.
Cons:
- Options analytics in the platform are not as in-depth and full-featured as ThinkOrSwim
- No simulated trading
- No APIs available for algorithmic trading
- No Forex trading
- There isn’t a good stock or options screener
- Charting capabilities and technical analysis indicators are very limited
- No historical pricing information
Tasty Works
Launched in 2017 by the founders of Tasty Trade, Tasty Works is an options brokerage firm targeted at you guessed it – retail traders. The exact audience that is watching all the free content on Tasty Trade, getting hyped up about becoming a trader and then searching for the fastest entry into the market.
While there’s nothing wrong with running a brokerage company and offering free education, it’s worth peeling back the layers behind the potential motivation and bias that might start to creep into (or already be in) the educational content that’s provided.
There are three primary ways brokerages make money. These are commissions, margin lending and finally administration and other fees. It stands to reason then, that a brokerage firm providing education might be incentivised to keep you trading as much as possible, regardless of whether it’s a good trade or not.
Why? Well the more often you trade, the more commissions and fees a brokerage firm will charge you. They want you to trade often. They want you to trade in all conditions. They want to generate those commissions.
Is it any wonder then, that Tasty Trade is absolutely flooded with a myriad of trading strategies from both the Tasty Trade personalities as well as viewers of the show. After all, the more strategies that exist, the more there is to try out, the more times you’re going to get it wrong and the more times they make commissions.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the team at Tasty Trade are going out of their way to make you lose money or make bad trades., They’re a group of highly capable, smart and experienced traders who actively monitor and manage their positions.
As highly experienced professionals they can react a lot quicker to market events and know in an instant how best to manage their positions. They also use advanced strategies, likely off-air such as portfolio hedging.
Most retail traders do not have the breadth of experience yet or the time to monitor their trades 24/7 and respond with appropriate hedging and defensive strategies when things turn sour. This is why, even though there is a lot of wonderful content on their website, I caution you to take a measured approach.
Tasty Trade – Worth The Hype?
Despite so much free content, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding Tasty Trade. It seems that everyone feels strongly either one way or the other – they either love the platform or hate it with a burning passion.
With so many polarised views, there must be some kernels of truth. With this review I hope to shed light on some of the good and bad elements of the Tasty Trade platform so that you can make an informed decision about whether to engage with their content.
The first issue to be raised is their strong adherence to using Implied Volatility Rank as a basis for almost all of their trading, whilst actively discouraging other trading strategies. This is a dangerous approach because no one strategy will beat the market all the time.
Traders should understand that different market conditions as well as different periods in history will favour different types of strategies. It’s up to traders to educate themselves on what are the different conditions where one strategy might be favoured over another and also how best to manage their portfolio properly.
To do otherwise invites ruin on traders as they become inflexible and pummelled by the market when their chosen strategy falls out of favour (which can happen very rapidly, even multiple times a day).
If you look up any successful trader, you’ll see many of them have been successful using many different strategies. From technical and fundamental analysis through to trend following and breakout strategies. There is no single best strategy for all timeframes and all market conditions.
The second issue is the constant pushing for trading using small volumes. This I believe, ties in with their brokerage company strategy. After all, brokerage companies make more money the more often you trade so it makes sense that you would advise your listeners to trade as frequently as they can – one way to do that is through small position sizes.
Trading well means identifying when you have a strong edge and then exploiting it to the maximum possible, whilst adhering to your portfolio and risk management guidelines. If you’re not doing that, you’re instead making a series of sub-optimal trades with a lower or even no edge – a recipe for losing money rather than making it.
The third concern is around when to exit a trade. In general, the hosts are averse to using stop losses or cutting losses short, hoping for a trade to eventually turn in their favour by holding it long enough.
While it’s never nice to take a loss, it’s better to take smaller losses than big ones and cutting losses short and using stop losses is one way to achieve that.
There’s a reason why the hosts get so many calls from traders suffering because their losses are growing. What these callers might not see, is that the hosts may be hedging their positions, offsetting any losses. Your average retail trader won’t know that – which is why getting yourself educated properly is always better than just blindly following what someone else does.
While there are a few concerns with Tasty Trade, there certainly are some great benefits to the platform too.
Being able to watch real traders in action is a valuable source of education. While they don’t always get it right, you can always learn from both their successes and their failures. Often in trading, it’s our failures which teach us the most.
Second, a lot of their educational material is useful, particularly in easily explaining basic concepts and helping you understand the different strategies that are out there. Just remember to not rely on any one strategy or personality as the sole basis for all your trading.
The final and probably most beneficial thing the platform provides is a source of entertainment. Trading can be a very lonely activity and being able to watch some interesting and smart personalities debate the markets in an entertaining way has a lot of value.
Final Thoughts
With a lot of free content on the Tasty Trade platform, there’s something for every trader out there. As with anything that’s free, make sure you understand the person’s motivation behind providing it and ensure you arm yourself with the knowledge to identify and avoid conflicts of interest.
I’m concerned that their associated brokerage service may present such a conflict, perhaps generating a bias on some level towards a focus on many smaller trades, which of course means more brokerage commissions.
I encourage you to view the platform as a source of entertainment but not as a way to mirror and follow the same trades that the hosts perform on and outside the show. These are experienced professionals who monitor their positions constantly and likely use dynamic hedging and other strategies off air to manage their portfolio.
The best route is to take the time to educate yourself fully on options and the different ways to trade them so that you can listen with an intelligent ear, absorb useful ideas, question everything and know what should be discarded.
FAQ
Is Tastytrade a good broker?
Fool.com gave TastyWorks a 4-star rating out of 5 stars. Investopedia gave it 3.8 out of 5.
It is good for the retail options investor, the primary clientele the brokerage firm is focused on.
Does Tastytrade make money?
Yes, Tastytrade is profitable enough for IG Group to acquire it for $1 billion in June 2021.
After the acquisition, Tastytrade contributed £20.8 million to IG Groups’ Q1 revenues – according to the article: https://financefeeds.com/ig-group-profit-grows-strong-h1-revenues-Tastytrade-acquisition/
Is TastyWorks safe?
TastyWorks is regulated by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)
TastyWorks is a member of SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation), which has funds to meet client claims of up to $500,000 and up to $250,000 for cash claims if TastyWorks becomes insolvent.
FINRA brokerage check: https://files.brokercheck.finra.org/firm/firm_277027.pdf
Is Tastytrade commission free?
It is zero commissions for opening and closing shares (and fractional shares) of stock but does incur a small clearing fee. This is not much different from most brokerages these days.
For options on equities, it is $1.00 commission per contract to open (but capped at $10 per leg). There is zero commission to close a trade. You also incur a clearing fee.
See the full fee structure here: https://TastyWorks.com/commissions-and-fees/
Does TastyWorks have a monthly fee?
As long as you have an account with them, there is no monthly fee to use the TastyWorks platform for trading or just viewing prices and performing analysis. There is no monthly fee for Tastytrade’s streaming content available within the TastyWorks platform. And there is no inactivity fee.
What’s the difference between Tastytrade and TastyWorks?
Tastytrade is the parent company, and TastyWorks is a subsidiary of Tastytrade.
Both are targetted at individual self-directed investors; in other words, the do-it-yourself retail investor. As such, Tastytrade is an online financial content network with about 50 streaming shows for the beginning to experienced investors.
TastyWorks is an online broker and trading platform.
What can I trade on Tastytrade?
While Tastytrade is focused on options and derivatives trading, you can trade stocks, options, futures, options on futures, and Crypto-currencies. This includes trading ETFs and indices. The aforementioned provides exposure to commodities. No Forex trading is available.
Does Tastytrade have paper trading?
Tastytrade and TastyWorks do not have paper trading. There is no demo account or simulation trading available.
You may have been thinking of the ThinkOrSwim platform, which was founded by much of the same executive team and later sold to TD Ameritrade. ThinkOrSwim does have paper trading.
How much money do you need to open a TastyWorks account?
There is no minimum to open a cash account. Cash Account means that you can not borrow on margin.
You need to maintain an end-of-day balance of $2000 or more for a margin account with margin privileges.
Technically, you don’t need any money to open an account and therefore have access to their platform and streaming content. However, to really be able to trade options, you should have at least $2000.
Reference: https://support.TastyWorks.com/support/solutions/articles/43000435184-account-minimums
Trade safe!
Disclaimer: The information above is for educational purposes only and should not be treated as investment advice. The strategy presented would not be suitable for investors who are not familiar with exchange traded options. Any readers interested in this strategy should do their own research and seek advice from a licensed financial adviser.
Thanks for the reference to my article Gav. Well, my article reveals my opinion about them. I think it is great to have something in the world similar to what they have been doing. Almost entirely for free. And it is also good that you spread the word about them. I think they are very genuine guys.
The greatest criticism I have is that they let their losers run to become full losers. Even though their own studies have supported that defending your trades gives better results. For example this one from November 15, 2012. https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/market-measures/episodes/2236 very interesting study which I highly recommend.
So the question is, if their own studies prove that defending trades is better in the long run, Why do they insist in not managing positions?
I don’t know. It is beyond me.
But it is clear that you need to be careful with your position sizes when trading their style.
Thanks for the article.
LT
HI LT,
Thanks for your comment. Totally agree with you. Position sizing is the key, small traders cannot continue to hold once the trades go in-the-money. Retail traders should never let that happen.
Tom Sosnoff might be able to handle it because he has a huge amount of capital but retail traders can get wiped out doing that.
I agree with you that the show is great and very informative. The only other reason I would be wary of following their trades is because of their “trade small, trade often” mantra.
Tom presumably still has some sort of equity stake in TOS / TD Ameritrade, so he will benefit if thousands of retail traders start trading more often. i.e. his brokerage will earn more in trading fees.
Just my two cents. I really like the guys and the show, you just need to be wary of blindly following someone else’s strategies, which is true of anyone, not just the tastytrade guys.
Great comment
Yes, I think day trading and being active is NOT the only way to become profitable. Through history there are have been many successful: dividend growth oriented investors, value investors, Index credit spread traders etc that have been profitable for many years doing things in a different way.
There’s no single strategy in the world that is king and trumps all the others. As such being open and receptive is paramount. Sometimes I get this impression that TastyTraders think it is “their way or the highway”. And in my humble opinion that is a mistake.
In particular trading so actively, over 5000 trades a year is not do-able for most people with a day job. Then we talk about the impact of commissions (which is way more harmful in a small account). I mean, there’s no perfect strategy.
Again, I love their show. They have brought the trading world several steps closer to “freedom of bullshit”. And that’s invaluable. But in the end, you cannot be blind and you have to find what works for you.
Love this comment. Couldn’t agree more.
Agree 110% Lazy trader and Gav…I have followed Tasty style for a long time and have lost for a long time(Never used more than 1.5% on any trade)..U always will when u have a bias to the downside (TOM SOSNOFF) has and the market continues to go up up up up. I do believe they provide wonderful education. I have a question for Caleb…If u let your losers run to 100% loss and take your winners off at 25% (Tasty Trade way) You need a 4/1 win ratio to break even and 50% (Tasty Trade way)You need a 2/1 win ratio to break even.
As I said I think Tasty Trade is awesome but as Gav said be WARY and I do believe you need to trade the wrong way to understand the right way FOR U!
Another great comment. Thanks ME
Love all your replies and agree 100%.. I think what tasty trade does do well is shedding a light on the industry and various strategies – especially for options traders. I myself have learned a lot from them, but you’d be a fool to do exactly what they do… trading is as much about your personality and risk tolerance as it is about a proven system. I think they manage their losing NAKES positions but any risk defined they likely let the probability of when the trade initiates plays out.
I use their show as education and always look at the options chain, charts and analyze each one of my own trades to validate their comments… i then form my own opinion. Most of their research are done on major index or commodities and so if your trading individual stocks, their findings could be completely irrelevant.
Pretty nice article. I agree with it, mostly
The trade small trade often works. Its not because he is trying to make money for TDA either. Its because it works. The studies show it and my account P/L shows it.
As far as defending trades that have gone bad, they defend undefined risk trades always, they defend defined risk trades almost never.
The guy that was down 40% is because he does not follow the trade small trade often mantra. No matter what, if he lost that much he was too big. When you have a trade gone bad, you must be allowed the time to improve cost basis as well as time to be right.
But still I could not agree more that traders must, absolutely must, know what they are doing and to blindly follow anyone’s trade is stupid. This is all from a trader that is inclined to trade just like Tom and Tony. Watching them merely refined my thought process and made it ok to think this way (it’s very counter to what all other trading education teaches so I thought, at one time, I had to change my natural inclinations to trade successfully which is bad as well).
Thanks Caleb,
Very good comment. I agree, if you find something that works for you, stick with it. There are so many different ways to trade, and what might work for some won’t work for others.
Tom and Tony are stubborn with the numbers in the option platform as time and time again trade price and not value. Tony has the mentality of a 16 yr old and the egos just soar day after day This year percentage wise on the broad market they have done poorly. They are bears and fight value structure. Different ways to skin a cat but the most successful traders on that network are Brad and Peter on Shadowtrader by far!
I think just the fact that all of us are having such detailed two sided discussions about strategies and we can put into context and contrast trade price against value structure and letting losers run in defined risk, which is a bit misleading as the loss is defined on entry, while managing undefined risk has made the Tastytrade network an invaluable resource to all of us. The meat and shear volume of knowledge on this network is powerful. How can one ever get to the top of their game if they have nothing to contrast their game against? The tastytrade network has given me the opportunity to increase my knowledge base, gain insight into the minds of successful traders and yes, realize that success is not a given but an acquired skill that only comes through perserverance, number of occurrences and something like the tastytrade network to provide all of us with a place to play while we hone our individual skills and define ourselves as traders. I love it. It is absolutely refreshing. Where else can you flood yourself with archived research and yes opinions too which you can then research yourself to your hearts content to help yourself become whatever type of trader you end up morphing into.Incredible
Well said Kirdog! The point of my article wasn’t to bash Tastytrade, merely to point out that blindly following their trades (or anyone’s for that matter) is not a good idea.
Overall I really like TastyTrade for the education they provide but be careful, building a trading career requires much more work than what Tom Sosnoff and his team wants you to believe. I know that times have changed and techology has evolved to a point where things are much easier now however, one cannot dismiss the fact that there’s a lot of intuition involved in trading. This intuition can only be acquired through countless hours of screening. Trading is a craft, and one of the hardest ones out there one could argue. I think there’s a lot of shared interest in regards to the things they teach at Tastytrade and their involvement with TD Ameritrade. For example, their moto, trade small trade often, benefits TD Ameritrade. They in turn support and finance Tastytrade. Plus, Tom Sosnoff having sold Thinkorswim to TD Ameritrade a few years ago now holds a certain % of TD Ameritrade. As little as that might be, this benefits him over the longer term.
I do not take for granted every single backtesting studies that they present on the show because statistics can be biased. You know what they say, numbers are fragile beings, if you torture them enough they end up telling you whatever you want to hear. I find Tom’s dogmatism in regards to the non brownian nature of the markets quite annoying. Clearly, the studies they show supports their specific selling strategies. However, a lot of studies have been done by great directional traders out there and their results also supports their specific directional trend trading strategies. I guess what I mean to say is that you can skin a cat in many ways. Absolutism in trading is costly over the long term. Flexibility is what pays.
I tried to stay fair in my rating because I still think there is value in their education. Just dont buy everything they say because again, their interests are shared. In the end, home work always pays.
It takes time to become a trader. It has always been the case. It works the same way for any highly competitive endeavor out there and it’s not now that it’s going to change.
Ivan, that has to be the most insightful and well thought out comment I have ever had on my blog, let alone this article. Couldn’t agree more.
this thread of 80 plus pages says it all………
http://www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php?threads/tastytrade.260376/
” Where do I begin………First of all. Any traders that buy in to TT are drinking the Kool Aid. They have negative accounts for 3 years, they have blown up Case and Katie’s accounts and the trade recommendations are reckless in a bullish market as they trade price extremes, in their assumptions. Value over price. Value has overlapped for a long time and trumps IV and option numbers in relation to the platform. You might not know that Tom has a kickback with TD. Trade small, trade often. Commissions. They never show there P/L which is red now for 3 years. Callers are ALWAYS losing money and they are the same ones. Rinse and repeat. Now they are scalping intra day as they are scrambling. The premise is trading core positions and they are losing the war. Don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors of decent production, appearance by Rahm Emanuel, Karen the supertrader which is another half truth of many. 80 plus pages on legit complaints of TT agenda. Silly trades, flying blind. Where is the edge they say they have created. Great traders adjust to market conditions. They don’t. They always say they are learning which means screen trading. They were market makers in the pit. Different entirely. No track record of positive P/L over time as retail screen traders. Tom made his money from selling the platform, not as a trader.
He rants daily about everyone’s an idiot, even those that make money.
Some of the studies they conduct are flawed. Rants about all these companies that don’t make any money yet TT makes no money but VC’s dumped $25M into TT.
Lesson is don’t put the cart before the horse before launching a show on trading if you lack any track record on the retail side.
They hold no water. period.
Great article. Its always good to understand the other guys motives, but tt is great for learning the mechanics of the market. You have to understand it well to write two trading platforms.
I would also note that tt’s option fee structure gains them $1.20 for a defined risk trade that you let expire, vs the 65¢ on tos. Given tt encourages frequent defined risk and undefended trades, they can rack up the bill faster on those trades.
I agree with some of what your saying. Anyone that begins trading and commits too much capitol may be listening but not hearing what they are teaching at tastytrade. Stay small is a constant message. While that is hard to do when you are new to trading and or new to this method. It is critical, and in all honesty a problem I have too… The people at tastytrade and TOS (thinkorswim) Can be very helpful when a trade goes against you. Given you contact them with time to adjust your trade. (in other words, dont wait till your three strikes in the money and call them the day of option expiry) No one that listens to tastytrade or uses Dough should be risking or losing 40% of their capitol.
Saying to be wary of tastytrade because somone who”listened” lost 40% Is like saying the person that accidentally shot them self while ignoring everything they were taught about gun safety bought the gun from a bad dealer…
YOUR COMMENTS ARE QUITE VALID. WE CANNOT FORGET THEY ARE TOTALLY
IN BED WITH TD AMERITRADE. THEY SAY THAT THE PAST IS NOT INDICATIVE OF THE
FUTURE AND IN SUCH REASONING DISCOUNT TECHNICAL INDICATORS.
HOWEVER ALL THEIR STUDIES ARE BASED ON PAST RESULTS.
Looks like Karen the “supertrader” allegedly committed fraud and is currently being investigated by the SEC. Looks like your “Be wary” was spot on!
http://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-98.html
Great article, always do your own research.
I agree with Arian in that the only people on that network that is consistently profitable is Shadowtrader and those that are using the same method as Peter and Brad.
No idea why people are so enamored with this guy about trading. He did not make his fortune trading, he made it all booking other traders bets as brokerage. That simple.
ARB, That maybe the same reason why most pit traders left the floor and now work for busy Brokers. Tom is brilliant in that he had seen a need for a trading platform then left the trading floor pit to create one. After reading many replies and looking at my own P/L I now know directional trading with a portfolio of stocks that pay dividends, sprinkling it with option trading is the way to go. I know of a very successful guy that used to trade in the pit, now retired, and has a portfolio that uses options to enhance its returns. He works with the broker Tom sold his platform to for a paycheck at the trade shows while writing a daily blog which I enjoy reading. Holding a portfolio is risky in that a heavy bear market can wipe out 60 percent (or more) of your money. My advice is all trading and portfolio account size should be if you lost that much you could still survive with cash reserves you had on hand for that kind of disaster.
Great article. I am a huge fan of tastytrade, but I DO NOT follow their trades. Not because they’re bad trades, but because they might not fit my risk profile, portfolio, or the product doesn’t fit me. Thought I was gonna read a BS article. But it is actually unbiased and fair. Appreciate the opinion.
Thanks Austin, I appreciate the comment.
I agree with you all. I myself tried for a couple of months. You probably do have high winning percentage making money with selling options strategy. However, when you lose, you tend to lose big. After paying all crazy commissions on options, you are not getting much profit at the end. Tastytrade is very educational but it is not suitable for small size account holders. Selling option is not the answer in trading. Seriously, nothing outperforms the buying and holding strategy. The only option strategy that I use is ratio put spread with intention of hedging and buying stocks at the lower price.
I really like Tastytrade. Tom and Tony are as entertaining as any duo around. I have seen Tom speak at a local event and in Las Vegas, always entertaining. But, I also strongly agree with the “Be Wary part” of this discussion. While the educational content is good, picking up a trading style like they employ is questionable. The longer I trade, the more I realize it is about me. What fits my personality, what resonates with me. The only way you get to discover that is by being an active trader for a long period of time and having a “traders intuition” develop. Controlling size and risk only come from knowing what not to do because you found out the hard way over time. I would never try to trade like they do on Tastytrade, to me it would be a recipe for disaster. I do not question whether Tom and Tony are good traders, they have lasted for years so I assume they are. Trading is a continual journey that only a person can take individually, not in a group setting, one size fits all. Having said that, I still tune in to TT from time to time, it is after all much better than CNBC…
Very, very, very well said Alex. Couldn’t agree more.
Been a TTer for years and making money. I think folks read TT as prescriptive and that is not the intent. Take what TT teaches you, take what you know about trading and come up with your own trades and trading style. I don’t follow TT exactly to the letter, but the basic concepts work. You’ll notice many members of their team follow the core foundation of TT, but deviate in personal style.
Too many folks look for an easy button and think that is what TT is. Trading has no easy button.
The hardest way there is to make easy money. I agree with what you’re saying Greg. TT is great in what they teach, but no one should ever follow someone else’s trades exactly. We all need our own style and risk management.
Great info and. comments. I received an education at Investools and then watching Tastytrade. I sell premium on the 3 cash settled indexes and developed my own trading style that is consistently working. You have to spend hours and hours learning and honing your skills, there is no shortcut to being a successful trader but it can be done. Selling premium with technical analysis is working very well. In the last year every sold put vertical has worked. When most people are losing money in a down move selling call verticals at 10 delta 45 to 56 days out allows for you to still be wrong and make money. Slowly laddering positions on taking your time and watching your technical analysis works. There is no getvrich scheme it is taking your time and manage 50% profit and not be geeedy. If you lose money at times that is a learning opportunity. I agree that always shorting the market will hurt you in that the market goes up more then down and will do what it wants to! Seeing the success of the put verticals has made me realize to not worry about the inevitable crash because the market is more bullish then bearish, let tech analysis give you a small edge.
Keep trading!
Tastytrade is a great educational tool. I have enjoyed better than average returns by employing their mechanics. You need to trade small and often. I have about 400-500 trades a month……and the numbers play out. Follow their mechanics!!! I about doubled what my returns were under a buy and hold philosophy. Its a numbers game………just follow their lead and get your occurrences up………..and better returns can be had.
Nice article, clear to the point, and did not miss anything. As a TT’er I agree 110% with the articles and comments. You not only write an informative and precise article but your readers are well informed and there is no wool over anyone’s eyes within this site.
Thanks Tim, much appreciated.
I lost way too much money on TT following their prescription for short strangles gone in the money. I now accept losses and cut them, which is the complete opposite of what they preach.
Not the first time I’ve heard that story from people to be honest. Thanks for sharing.
It is very evident and clear that not one person commenting on Tasty trade/ tasty works have any idea what they are talking about. I not only have made a good amount of money doing the trades advertised on their platform, paying specific attention to the delta that’s POP or for you newbie’s that’s probability of profit. I only do the trade that has an 80 or higher POP. They pay out but don’t believe me, I don’t care. What I do care about is people talking like they know… which in fact are spineless and clueless. They are either jealous or getting payed to write bad reviews, to hell with them. Use Tasty trade for education and learning the trades and get in slowly, build up a good understanding, success rate and scale up slowly. I’m telling you any one reading this be very careful of reviews on the internet, I’m not a tasty trade disciple, I have been using Schwab for decades now and like it. I will one day trade with tasty works one day to test their execution and save on commissions because I do thousands of trades a year and tasty works will save me in commissions and possibly give me better execution. Good hunting. Peace out.
We are all personally responsible for our trading success and failures. Now retired, my professional life was spent investing for family offices.
At one point we owned one percent of the stick of a single company that we wanted to hedge. In the way back machine I had to call the institutional desk for our broker dealer to get a series if quotes to establish call positions.
Tasty is great content and I would disagree that Think or Swim is better than the Tastytrade system. Let’s remember that Sosnoff and Sheridan built and sold both systems.
Heres an example. Assume i would like to own a REIT like MPW. I can look quickly at Tasty and decide if a short ratio spread will give me a credit and adequate downside to where i would own the common. Then i can quickly screen to l see the a leap call premium.
Dislikes
Tasty has a very poor news feed it is a series of advertisements that pay Tasty. I always go elsewhere for realtime news.
Tasty has a limited futures offering. Use IBKR for your sugar contracts. I asked Sosnoff about that. It seems Tasty is satisfied with its offerings.