Yet another service trial

I am currently using three services that involve data, brokerage or outright trade calling. I have, as I mentioned, given in to the temptation of easier money... or at least money with less overt work to achieve profits.

In review, my initial goal in trading was to do it on the cheap... buy no books, online self directed education, free chart services, DIY trading. I ended up buying a book or two and paying for some inexpensive chart services as I found that better data was in order. I progressed through all sorts of trade styles and execution types including short selling, option buying and selling and have traded a variety of timeframes from minute charts to weekly charts.

Like any long term venture the idea behind the whole process has remained the same, to ultimately become consistently profitable, but the path continues to change along the way as various opportunities present themselves that seem to be consistent with my initial idea.

I begrudgingly signed up for a service last year in order to see if the claims were valid. They were not and I received my money back. Since then I have done the same with trade advisories, stock selection services and educational material. Anything claiming to give trades has not panned out. Anything attempting to provide education has not given anything more than I either already knew or could readily find online.

I found a couple of exceptions. I signed up yesterday for a momentum option trading service. They provide option ideas on stocks with entry targets and followup exit alerts. I actually tried this service once in the fall and ended up cancelling as it did not fit with my mode of trading at the time. Since joining the trading room and listening and reading the comments and whatnot I decided to give it another shot as my trading plan has shifted and the feedback for this service has been very good.

I also know that the moderator in the daytrading room is the source for the momentum trading setups and some of the daytrades have been the same securities in action in the other service.

I am now in one index futures option broker service, one mostly stock swing trading service, one day trading stock/option room and now one options momentum service. As I mentioned in a late blog I also plan on getting back into my very own system(s) as well.

All in all I am finding diversity in the variety of services that I am trying. I think that I will likely keep these four going. At this point two of the four are proving their worth, my timing sucked with the futures option broker but I find their rigid trade entry criteria to be a hobble. This last service looks quite promising given some of the historical trades. The issues I had with it before stemmed from them trading larger priced options than I had capital set aside for and there was a problem with my membership resulting in a week and change gap in the alerts. As a result I missed out on some trades and I also missed some exits... I just cancelled rather than having it cost me due to the cancellation policy.

My idea remains intact of consistent profitability. My path has changed but I still stand behind not having to spend an arm and a leg on education if one is willing to put in some time and keep an open mind about the whole learning curve in trading.

Jeff.