A pox on complicated trading systems
Simple trading systems are superior
I talk a lot about how simple my trading system is.
When compared to most of the other complicated options trading systems out there — Verticals, Iron Condors, Butterflies, Ratio spreads, Iron Butterflies, etc. — just selling Puts is pretty simple.
But I’ve also spent around 6 years trading options.
I tend to forget how complicated everything is when starting out.
It’s sort of like driving a car:
Once you’ve driven for a few years, it’s pretty automatic.
Hop in the car, start her up, and go for a drive.
But when first learning how to drive, it’s a complicated process: learning the different gears, how to check & adjust mirrors, applying the right pressure on the gas & break pedals, keeping a safe distance in traffic, ... etc.
None of those things are intuitive, you must learn it all.
Same thing happened when first learning to tie my shoes.
For a five-year-old, it’s a complicated process.
But now, thousands of shoe laces later?
Automatic.
In fact, it’s so automatic that I’d have trouble telling you the step-by-step process of tying my shoes ... I just tie my shoes.
Trading can become almost automatic like that too.
Especially if you have a simple system with easy to follow guidelines.
Now, I’ll admit, I struggled to teach my system when I was starting out. I had been watching and reading charts for so long — logging thousands of hours reading charts — that I almost didn’t know what I knew.
I constantly had to go back and explain things because I had skipped past complicated steps while teaching others.
But I’m grateful for those early days of hands-on teaching because it helped me craft my system into something that can be followed by many others.
Including newer traders.
It’ll never be passive income, but less than 2 hours per week is pretty close.
Especially for returns on risk that compound to over 100% per year.
I’m happy to trade off a little extra time in the markets for great returns like that.
If you want a sample of my teaching style, I have a 30-minute “Options 101” mini course that gives you both a foundation for my trading system and shows you how I teach my main strategy course.
I give everyone who subscribes complimentary access to my mini course, just tap the button here:
— Ricky Ketchum