The last of the services bites the dust.

Well, tonight I decided to cancel the last advisory service that I subscribed to. This was a $2000 per year setup and the refund is pro-rated. I have, over the last couple of months, realized the downfall of the "as advertised" claim. I made decent money initially but the style of trades they provide do not fit my trading style at all now. I only have to decide how to manage the trades that I have left.

If I traded everything exactly as they recommend I could see a decent return with two main exceptions.

1) I cannot sell naked options... and likely have no intention of doing so, this would make the difference in performance as at last every second trade involves selling a naked put in conjunction with a long call. Usually this is for a credit which makes taking the call trade alone questionable. Lately every trade has been a naked put sale... I don't think so.

2) Their recommendations are no better than playing the trend using a relative sector method of trading. They happen to have some insight into things "options related" that I can never hope to in the near future. That does not mean that I cannot make decent profits in options trading.

The long and short of this whole exercise is interesting.

For anyone wanting to trade, be ready to absorb and try as much as possible. Get familiar with the execution, the feel of loss and gains and be prepared to realize that anything that looks good on paper may not work in real life... paper trading is for the birds.

The final word on the various services that I have tested is that, seeing as none worked as advertised, or did but there was far more to the story than meets the eye, I cannot recommend anything that I have looked at or tested... none. That is why I have not bothered to mention any names here as none worked out well enough to get any credit to.

If anyone is still reading and happen to be interested in finding out what I did test and why it didn't work out, drop me an email. I believe that "no publicity is bad publicity" so mentioning them here only attracts attention that I do not intend. Questrade as a broker and Optioneer as a service are exceptions... along with Esignal and Stockcharts.com. There are a few other free services that I am using here and there that I might mention in future.

Jeff.