Iron Condor – Oh Man, I Want My Mommy…

Iron Condor – Oh Man, I Want My Mommy…

The iron condor is one of the most popular option strategies available to traders. Unfortunately, it is also possibly the most dangerous.

See here’s the deal: when a new fresh faced option trader first hears of this trading strategy – he or she becomes so enamoured with it that they just can’t seem to help but jump right into trading them – risking way too much money – and without much thought of what they are going to do if the trade starts to go wrong.

And it seems that a good percentage of them – if not most of them – promptly wind up getting their groins kicked in, their heads ripped off, their eyes poked out, and getting hurt really, really bad.

Now stop.

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. So let me explain something.

I actually LIKE iron condors. I like them ALOT.

And yes – I really do think it’s a great and dependable way to trade.

And those claims and stories of ten percent monthly gains and ninety percent probabilities? They are absolutely true.

The problem is – there is something big that is being left out of all those claims and stories – and this something is causing way too many fresh new doe eyed option traders to misunderstand this strategy right from the beginning and blindly jump into them with completely wrong expectations.

See, while it may be true that the iron condor and credit spread strategies can kick off yields of over ten percent monthly and that they favor the trader by offering high probabilities of winning (in some instances as high as 80 and 90 percent) – what isn’t being talked about is the risk to reward ratio of these trades – which can be as high as 10 to 1.

That means that while trading these trades you are putting at risk 10 bucks for the chance to make just 1. Or – in reality, in the instance of say a standard ten lot index iron condor, you are risking ten thousand dollars for the chance to make just one thousand dollars.

And as mammy used to say to us kids – ‘that ain’t nothin but a real awful bad egg’.

Because once you do the math you find that even with those glorious monthly returns with 80 to 90 percent probability of winning – all it takes is just one problem month to come along and cause a loss that will completely obliterate the 8 to 9 wins you’ve managed to rack up – as well as potentially the rest of your entire account!

Nevertheless…

All isn’t lost. There IS hope…

As I mentioned earlier – I really do LOVE trading iron condors.

Over the last ten years it’s been extremely profitable for me.

So clearly there must be a way to profitably trade this strategy without allowing that awful risk to reward issue to get in the way.

And there absolutely is.

It all revolves around how you go about handling the trade.

As soon as you discover the ‘right way’ to place these trades initially – and then how to properly go about managing and adjusting them – that risk to reward dilemma instantly vanishes and goes away.

You just need to take the time BEFORE jumping into the iron condor pool to equip yourself with this little bit of knowledge. A few simple ‘tricks of the trade’ – so when those problem months DO come along (and they WILL believe me) – you will know exactly what you need to do to immediately squash that threat, easily adjust yourself out of the problem, and experience the iron condor for all it’s ‘really’ cracked up to be.

To learn how to properly trade the Iron Condor Strategy for consistent monthly income, go to this Iron Condor Adjustments website and watch our Free Video and get our Free Report.

Posted in forex trading on Jul 13th, 2010, 11:01 am by Ted Nino   

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