The trading method

The method’s ups and downs

I went through phases when opening a calendar spread was a free meal in 80% of

the cases. I remember when this happened between 2005 and 2006.

I bought butterflies without an afterthought in the first part of 2007, when the market

went down without a hitch and I was earning from volatility, time or from direction,

but it was not difficult to bring money in, taking well judged risks.

I saw the break-even points of my options strategies fly from one side to the other

during the crashes of 2007, whatever the underlying.

I then decided to operate buying monsters and gianty swaps, as we called them, to

earn from volatility without taking a risk on direction even when the market went on

moving violently and did not seem to want to stop.

I operated with options on the Vix, to earn rapidly during market crashes, with an

underlying that was maybe even more volatile than the market itself, simply

because the Vix represents the measure of the market's volatility.

I have been able to create, with the help of expert scalpers, an unshakeable

operating strategy for the Forex.

Besides all this, I had to face difficult, non-profitable or even loss periods.

But above all, why did I go on changing strategy if I had a strategy that worked?

The method is useful to understand how a determined strategy has to be applied.

In any case, you cannot think that the strategy you use is the only one for your

entire life.

Your ability as an experienced trader will allow you to understand the conditions in

which to use one strategy or the other.

No business lasts forever without innovation.

Trading needs to travel step by step with evolutions in the market.

The application method of a strategy can last for 6 months, a year or maybe 2

Then this method will end up in the drawer to make room for a new method, waiting

for one you used for the previous 2 years to come back into fashion.

And when your method ends up in the drawer, what do you do?

The method is not wrong.

What is wrong is to always go on using the same method, at any cost.

The true method is the one of knowing how to recognise the method that works in a

defined, longer or shorter phase of the market, and to know that if you do not know

the right method, it is better not to risk your own money.

I expose myself to risk when I’m conscious of having the chance of earning a profit

and definitely not when I‘m at the mercy of risk.

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