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The naked put is a low-risk strategy, despite commonly held beliefs to the contrary - guest post by Michael C. Thomsett. The market risk of the naked (uncovered) put is identical to the market risk of a covered call. However, the two strategies also have important differences:

During the market's closing hour on Monday, February 5th, some sort of "flash crash," likely triggered by margin calls, attacked the CBOE Volatility Index (INDEXCBOE:VIX), also known as the "fear index." What was a bad day, turned into a never before seen move. Here is it: 

In trading, as in life, sometimes the best solutions come after a problem has occurred. For this reason, I have decided to provide you with a slightly different blog post, or slightly different perspective. Instead of writing on a certain topic, I have decided to take the time and compile one based on a recent e-mail from one of my followers.

This is a guest post from Bill Luby. It was published in his VIX and More blog in December 2012, but still remains very much relevant today. With VIX spending most of the last year around 10-11, today's 30% spike is a good reminder that volatility is not dead yet.

A trend trader’s goal is to systematically ride the waves in price action for as far as they will go. There are two different types of traders: discretionary traders and systematic traders. Lets examine the differences between those two types of traders.

Investors often are looking to diversify from the stock market and options and frequently turn to real estate as another asset class. Many like the idea of "owning" something tangible, that they can go look at, or know they physically possess. They may purchase rental properties, commercial buildings, developments, or a variety of other possibilities. 

If you have been trading for a while, for sure you have heard that most traders under-perform, including the so called professionals, the big funds, the "smart money". As it turns out, I had nothing better to do and decided to take a look at how some of those pools of institutional money performed in 2015 when all was said and done.

Most options traders are aware of the definition of risk for strategies. For example, a covered call is low-risk and an uncovered call is high-risk.  While not recommending that everyone run out and open uncovered call options, a point worth making is that these “universal” definitions are not always reliable.

Investors in 2018 are faced with a challenging investing environment for both US stocks and bonds. So what can an investor do to increase portfolio returns without taking on too much additional risk? Those comfortable with and capable of trading simple option income strategies like strangles may be able to accomplish this objective.  

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) follows the overwhelming pattern of this bull market's personality -- bullish momentum in a stock just days before earnings. Let's take a look at how just a two trading day period has been influenced so heavily by optimism. Alphabet reports earnings on 2-1-2018, after the market closes.

For my first guest post on SteadyOptions, I poured through many potential topics before coming up with this article.  It was exciting, as the community is active and advanced – we could cover anything.  Ultimately, instead of a typical educational post, how about we tackle a slightly different topic? 

Have you ever wondered what sets the best options traders apart from the amateurs? Why is it that certain traders can consistently outperform no matter what the market cycle? Below is a list of the Top 10 Traits Of Successful Option Traders.