Podcast – Episode 60 – Case Study: How To Make 168% Returns in One Year

Podcast Transcript

Passive traders, welcome. Let me ask you a question. How much do you think or what would be a good return for you in your books, in your eyes, right? How much, if on a yearly basis, would be a good return? Now, I was at a party, a house-warming party this weekend, and somehow we got talking about investments and making money. Some guys, they get to that. And a friend of mine was saying that he wouldn’t invest in anything that didn’t give him at least a 10% return.

We were talking about real estate, commercial real estate. Buying a shopping center or something like that. And he was saying that currently if you buy real estate, you can only make 6% or 7%. And I thought that was a little bit strange because I have friends and I’ve looked at potential investments that are paying you a lot more than that. But he is adamant that you can only make 6% or 7%, and he wouldn’t want to do anything that was making less than 15%.

I was like, “Okay. 50%, that’s a really good return if you can get it.” Meanwhile, he’s putting his money with his financial planner who’s telling him that he’s going to make average of 7% a year in the stock market, and then have to pay fees on top of that. So, he’s going to make even the less. Probably roaming around 4%, is what he’s going to take home after all is said and done, but that, he’s happy with.

Now me, knowing that I can go into the market, sell options. And I have said this on many occasion, my monthly goal is 10% a month. If I don’t get there and I make less, 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%, I’m still happy because for a month that’s really good. In 2019, the stock market itself was up over 25% and everybody made a lot of money. 25%, that is a lot. That is a huge return in one month.

Now, I wish the stock market gave that kind of return every year, but it doesn’t. So, who knows what’s going to happen in the future? But that kind of return is not common, and obviously, you know that the average stock market return is somewhere around 8%. So, what’s a good return to you? What do you think? 10% a year? 15%? 20%? What would you be really ecstatic about?

The reason I ask is because it’s a perception. Some people think that selling options is great. It works consistently, but you can’t really make that much money. And I don’t understand that thinking, because if you can literally make 10% a month, that’s 120% in a year, which is unheard of. If you can do that year after year, double your money every year, that’s crazy. But some people still tell me, “No, 10%? No, I have this other investment where I’m going to make 40%, and it’s only going to take me three months.”

But how often can you duplicate that investment? Right? That’s a once in a year investment or once in a lifetime type of thing where you can buy something or invest in something and they’re going to pay you 30% and you get your money back in three months. And it probably has a lot more risk as well. So, we’re talking about what should be a good amount that you’d be happy with.

Well, Warren Buffett himself has made in average 22% a year, and at one time he was the world’s second richest man in the world. At one time he was the richest man in the world, then he fell behind Bill Gates and now he’s further down the line, but he’s still top 10, I do believe. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re not on that list, right? As long as you’re fabulously wealthy and you have all your needs taken care of, then who cares? And that was at 22%.

Now, the title of this episode is 168% in 2019, and that is how much I made in one of my accounts. 168%, and I knew the account was doing well, but I didn’t know it was that well. I have several different accounts and this one is a small account. So, basically, what had happened was I had wanted to see how well I could do by trading oil options in a small account.

Now, I’ve been trading oil options for a while. We do have a course and a coaching program that teaches you how to do that. But the biggest knock or the biggest complaint that people have is that it takes a lot of money to get started with trading futures options. And that’s what oil options are there. They’re not stock options. They’re actually futures options.

And some people will contact a broker. They’ll contact somebody like TD Ameritrade and they’ll say “How much money do I need in my account to trade futures options?” And the response that they get normally is $25,000. And they’re like, “I don’t have $25,000 to start this.” And then, we’d actually go back and talk to Ameritrade and it’s no, it’s more like 2000. The person who answered that question didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. So, it’s a lot less, but if you have an account with them you can still open it and… I don’t want to get into all that now, but that’s the thinking, the general thinking, that you need a lot of money to trade futures options.

And so, what I wanted to do is I wanted to set up a separate account, have a teeny-tiny pit of money in there and to see how well it does, right? Trading the same way, the same strategies, the same exact trades as I do in my larger accounts. And so, I started off the year 2019 with an account. In the account was a little less than $3,500. So, $3,485 to be exact. That’s what I started off the account with.

Now, for this particular program, we have a Facebook group. And what I like to do is I like to post the trades that I’m doing in my own accounts with oil options in the group. So, every single trade for the year is documented in that group. If you’re a member, if you’re part of the program, you can go back anytime and look at every single trade. So, this is completely verifiable.

At the end of the year, at the end of 2019, remember I started with 3,485. The end of the year, the account ended with $9,325 which was a gain, a positive return, a gain of $5,840. So, it’s a lot more than double. It’s 168% using a very small account trading oil options. Now, if you needed a larger amount of money, then obviously [inaudible 00:06:18] would not have let me do that in this account because there was nothing else in there. There’s no other money in there. There are no other trades in there. That’s it. It was only oil options and it was started with $3,485, ending the year with $9,325.

So, I did this because I wanted to prove a point. I wanted to say, yes, you can do this with a small amount of money. It’s not impossible. It’s very doable. 168% return is freaking amazing in anybody’s book. I don’t know why I’m not jumping up and down. I guess I’m tired, but I should be jumping up and down. I should be screaming. I should be like, “168% return!”

Now, we’ve had students in the past that have made a lot more than that. We had one student, he made 425% in his first year of trading oil options. Holy cow! We have other folks that have made over $100,000 in a year, right? Other people who have quit their jobs and now they’re traveling the country trading oil option. Other folks who were able to quit their jobs, but they don’t because they love their jobs, but now they’re making as much from trading oil options as they are from their jobs. So, even if the job didn’t pay them, they’d still be okay financially, right?

I mean, the ability is there, the program is there and it works. And the return last year, in 2019, just phenomenal. What’s going to happen in 2020? I don’t know and I can’t predict, but I do believe we’re going to have a similar market in oil as we did last year. I’ll just tell you a couple of things that really over the last several years, the biggest indicator of what oil prices are going to do is OPEC. They’ve had their meetings and they’ve basically told the world, “Hey, we’re going to cut production.” And that has sent prices higher, or, “Hey, you know what? We are not going to cut production. We’re just going to pump as much as we can.” And that sent prices lower.

And so, the last few years we had big spike up then spike down, and then spike up and now it’s stabilized and going sideways. Who knows what’s going to happen? But just about every other pundit out there is saying that oil is going to be trading within a range. I agree with them because right now there are no other catalysts to make it go super high or super low. If it does go high, if it starts trending up higher or starts trending lower, that’s great, because we can sell puts and calls on either side and still make money while it’s trending.

And we’ve had fabulous years when oil was moving up and down and we did great. You make a lot more money when oil is moving sideways. So, you can sell puts and calls at the same time. And so, that’s what I did to some degree in 2019. I didn’t do too much of it. To some degree. So, the returns were a little bit higher because of that.

But even if I had not done that, it still would have been over 100% return. Probably more like 130% return if I had not done both sides. If I’d only done one side, if you understand what I’m talking about. Selling just either puts or just calls. When you do both, you can make more money on the same amount of margin that’s required.

And so, in 2020, we’re also expecting a very similar price movement as oil did in 2019. We think is going to be pretty calm. We think it’s going to be sideways moving. And so, if that’s the case, then we might have another return of how well we did. Another thing is that volatility has been low in oil lately. And so, it’s been wonderful because we don’t have to really work that hard or pay that much attention and it’s still working like gangbusters.

So, I don’t know if you’re interested in learning how we made 168%. You can email us and let us know, and we will definitely let you know. Or, you can just go to our website optiongenius.com and we have a link at the top of the website called, products. Hit that link, click on that little word and then it’ll list all of the products that we do have. And then, there is a listing there for our oil options product.

Actually, it’s a training. We want you to understand the strategy that we use. We want you to understand why oil options are safer and more lucrative than equity options, and they are a great way for you to add a lot of extra money to your retirement account. Oil options are more lucrative in a sense that they are more leveraged. And so, they do require more timing or more time on your part to monitor them if you’re in it.

So, if you have time to monitor them during the day, if you have time to look at oil prices, I mean, two or three times a day and get into your computer if you have to, then that would be something that I think would be very beneficial to you if you’re interested in looking at it. It’s one of my favorite ways to trade. And so, over the last several years, I’ve been moving more towards oil options and what I call passive trading and more away from more labor-intensive and time-intensive trades like iron condors, butterflies, calendars, ratios, all that kind of thing.

The more exotic type stuff, I’ve been finding that you don’t really need to do. Butterflies and broken wing butterflies and all that kind of stuff, they’re great if you’re really into it and you want to be in the market all the time, or if you want to be spending a couple of hours a day on your screen, that’s fine. I’m moving more away from that. And so, I find that with the oil options, it doesn’t take that much time, but you can make a lot more money.

And as you can see, 168% return, I would estimate that on a daily basis when the market is open, I always probably spend maybe five minutes a day. Let’s say 10 minutes. 10 minutes a day was spent on my oil option trades. And because of the way the trades work, I put on a trade, I’m usually out of the trade in a couple of weeks. Average time for me to be in a trade is two weeks. So, if I get in a certain day and I get out, I still have half the month where I’m not even in the market. I’m not even having any trades on. So, I don’t even have to look at the market. I don’t care what oil is doing when I’m not in the market, right?

And so, when I have trades on, let’s say 10 minutes. And that’s… If I’m in front of the screen, I’ll check, hey, what’s oil doing? If I’m not, if I’m out and about, I can check on my phone, hey, what’s oil doing? And if I need to do something, I can log in and change it very quickly. But that’s when I’m in a trade. When I’m not in a trade, I don’t even have to worry about oil.

Like right now, at the end of 2019, I got out way before Christmas. And so, I didn’t have any stress or anything until I put more trades on in January. No stress, no tension, no nothing. Because I already knew, hey, I already made 168%. I don’t need to push my luck, right? I’m happy with what I got. I’m going to take my time off. I’m going to relax, enjoy myself. Let’s spend some of this money on these kids that I have, right? Some of these 168%, let’s go spoil them a little bit. So, that’s what we did.

So, if you’re interested, you can either email us, help@optiongenius.com and ask about the oil option program or you can go to the website, click on the products link at the top and find it. Watch the training. It’s about a two-hour training, I believe. And it talks you through the several reasons why futures options are better, the different protections that they have that stock options don’t have.

It give you some examples of why they’re safer and more lucrative than stock options, trying to compare apples to apples. I talk about my strategy and exactly how I do it. And then, if you’re interested, then at the end we have a button or a link or something where you can actually schedule a call, schedule a time to talk to somebody on my staff, if you’re interested in learning more and getting more information about the program.

Now, it’s not a fit for everybody and that’s why we do that. It’s not for everybody. I started this with a small account with $3,500, but if that is your rent money, then we don’t want you to do this, right? If you’ve never traded stocks before, we don’t want you to do this. If you’ve never traded options before, we have to walk you through it a little bit and explain to you that it’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve if you’ve never traded options before.

We have had people in that situation and we have been able to help them because we do have lots of educational material that we can help you with. But if that’s the case, we want to know about it and we want to get you that information as soon as possible. So, we’ll talk about that when you call or when we schedule the call.

And then, for some people, we also talk about payment plans. There’s ways to break it up into several months. There’s even ways to finance it for six months with no payments and no interest. So, if that’s an issue, we can work that out on the call as well. So, if you’re interested in this, again, I want you to watch the whole training so that you know exactly what it is we were doing and how it works.

We also have some case studies that we want to go over, talking about different people and how they did the program and how the results were for them. The exact strategy that I’m using. And then, when you book a call, we’ll get on the call and you’ll actually talk to somebody. Whatever questions that you have, they can answer on the call. And then, we’ll also see if you’re a good fit for the program because if it doesn’t fit for you, if it’s not right, then I don’t want to charge you for the program. I don’t want you in the program. I don’t want to waste your time. I don’t want to waste my time. Because as it is, I spend a lot of time dealing with the students in the program.

So, we have coaching sessions. We have a community group that I’m in everyday posting my trades, answering questions, just chiming in, helping out, doing whatever I can to help people along the way, to hold your hand, really, to get you to where you want to go. That’s the whole point of the process.

And so, yes, 168% return in 2019 completely verifiable and you can verify it in the group. Look at every single trade that we’ve done. It’s an amazing return. Hopefully, we’ll be able to beat that in 2020. That’s what I’m going to aim for. But if not, does it matter? No. I try for 10% every month, but if I don’t make it, it’s okay. Right? If I make 4%, 5% I’m still happy. 5% a month is 60% a year. That would be crazy, crazy good.

So, you don’t have to make 168% every year, but it is doable. It is very doable. I just did it. In fact, we even have a video that I’d posted a few months ago when I was only up about 120% and I walked through the whole system, the different stuff that I had done. So, we even have that video. So, it’s verified. It’s doable. Can you do it? Yes, you can. I’m willing to hold your hand. I’m willing to take you with me on the journey.

And so, if you are interested, please reach out to us. I’ll put a link in the show notes if we can. And again, it’s going to be on our product’s page at optiongenius.com. That’s our website, optiongenius.com, and again, that is our oil options trading program.

All right. Folks, if you have any questions, please hit us up. Help@optiongenius.com. Make sure you always trade with the odds in your favor. That’s the best way to make 168% in a year or more, and take it easy. Talk to you next time.