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Okay, so David R prefers to see returns on his entire portfolio instead of returns on the trade itself. David R, that is your opinion and preference on how to calculate returns but to imply that 10PPM is deceiving everyone is way off base.
On their Performance Page, 10PPM states that the returns are an average of all positions opened for each month, period. If you want to calculate based on your portfolio, with cash you don’t even use, that’s your prerogative. A bank CD only pays you interest on what’s at risk for that certificate, not your entire balance at the bank. Whatever the case, a $100 return on $1000 is 10% no matter how you look at it.
David G, please stop arguing with David R. You’re just fueling the fire and adding to the senseless arguments and opinionated claims. The intelligent readers out there can see that David R has only posted opinions and not actual experiences to warrant a review. I will contact Travis Johnson, who runs StockGumshoe.com, and plead that he remove all of your recent comments (both Davids). We are here to read experiences of past/current subscribers, NOT how to calculate returns or how much people could pay in commissions or what other services have done. These have nothing to do with 10PPM and I hope you readers can see that.
For those that want actual review details for 10PPM:
Performance is great, as you can see from their site! And yes, the numbers on their site are exact returns for my trades. Commissions are not a part of the service and are not included in the returns. As previous reviewers stated, one can get low commissions from Eoption who only charge $3 per ticket and $0.10 per contract. A $10k iron condor trade only costs $26 with them, reducing a 10% gross return to 9.75%.
10PPM is very consistent with their trades. They are very patient when opening them and won’t rush into anything. The 10% goal may not be hit every month, but that’s only because they don’t force a risky trade just to do so.
They may not have an official educational program but can answer any and all of your questions. I did not know much about options trading when I first started with 10PPM but they were able to answer all of my questions/concerns promptly. They’ve instilled a solid sense of confidence in me with regards to their experience and trading strategy.
Despite the many, many reviews, I see only Tori answering my request to provide actual brokers used successfully with 10PPM autotrading. Thanks to her for that. I am just starting to look into it, but already see some mixed reviews on Eoption. I’ll follow up more post-holiday. Would the rest of you who are so positive on 10PPM please post what brokerage you used? As I say, my trial run with $20k autotraded via Tradeking for just over a year resulted in a not insubstantial actual net loss despite the successful numbers 10PPM posted for the same time period. I do however agree that 10PPM was nice, responsive to emails, tried to minimize losses, etc. The bottom line is simply that 10PPM cost me money once subscription and brokerage fees were factored in. I’ve got no dog in this fight and would like for 10PPM to be a good option. It just didn’t turn out that way for me, despite Tradeking being supposedly “low cost” and apparently trading timely in response to 10PPM instructions.
10ppm performance page has not been updated more than 2 months. I assume the reason is heavy losses. They also stopped responding to emails. So much for full transparency..
Any recent results from long term subscribers of 10PPM and what trading service do you use? Autotrade? How many points is it reducing your returns?
really poor service. they claimed 80 of success, but this means that 80% you have a return between 2-9% (seldom they reach the 10%) but when you are loosing, you are loosing 20-50%…this sucks
We did have a bad run near the end of 2017. Despite that, our service has been very successful over the 10 years we’ve been running it. One bad quarter does not reflect the overall performance of our service. Also, it is recommended to use a fixed dollar amount each month and to not compound profits into future trades. As long as you follow that rule, you will do just fine over time. For some reason, some traders insist on putting everything into the trades. When a trade goes wrong, they then blame the service. When our trades are opened, they have at least an 80% chance of success to earn up to the 10% monthly goal. This does not mean that 20% of the time you will lose everything. We try to limit our losses to about 15% or so.
Take a look at October 2017 performance.
They sold 0.48 of premium and bought it back for $3.61. That’s 3.13 loss on three $2 spreads, which translates to 56.7% loss. But they report 27% loss only. Previous months have same reporting issues. You CANNOT report performance as average of the trades. It doesn’t work like this.
As stated at the top of our performance page, “Results are a gross return of an average of all positions opened that month.”. This has been the way we’ve reported returns since we started. Look at March 2018, where we earned 100% on one trade. We had to average it out with the others and came out to 42.1% for the month. This way, if subscribers allocate an equal, fixed amount for each position, they can expect to see similar results to what is published. Some feel the need to try and pick a single position or trade their entire portfolio and get upset when things don’t go their way.
If you report it this way, it doesn’t make it right. The October example demonstrates it very clearly. Assuming equal allocation, 3.13 loss on three $2 spreads, translates to 56.7% loss, but you report 27% loss.
If you have one iron condor, and call side losses 100% and put side wins 5%, the overall result is NOT 47% loss. It is 100% loss because you lost the entire capital on risk.
The iron condor position you presume us to have is not an iron condor. They are 2 separate credit spreads. Just looking at the strikes, you can tell that it is not a condor position. It is obvious now that your comments/reviews are based on your interpretation of our performance page instead of actual experience.
When you add another credit spread on the same underlying and same width, you are using the same margin. If the new position earns 5% and the other position loses 100%, the loss is NOT 47%. You just cannot calculate performance this way. This might be a good way to deceive new members, but existing members can obviously see the real performance in their accounts as we see from the reviews here and on investimonials.
These are separate spreads. Look at the strikes. They would overlap and not make an iron condor possible. Please refer to the reply posted down below. It is clearly explained for all to see and shows that you were not a former subscriber. You continue to discredit yourself with more comments. You are also showing everyone who reads these reviews that what you say is false and gives credence to discredit these other negative reviews. Thank you for that.
I’ve been with 10ppm for the past couple of years and have learned similar to others that the losses far outweigh any possible gains. If you start with a fixed amount and remove gains each month and only add funds for losing months, you might be ok. I started to do that in the beginning but I got lazy and stopped paying attention. The losses then overwhelmed any gains. I’ve since decided to cancel the service.
Using a fixed amount each month is the recommendation. We do not suggest compounding any profits into future trades. As you stated, if you had continued to do this, you would be just fine. Risking all profits on any future trade is just not prudent.
10ppm now sells naked strangles. In March they sold IWM strangle for 9.40 and bought it back for 4.70. They recorded 100% on this transaction. Which of course is complete nonsense – you need to record return on margin, not return on credit. To me, they just turned from “have no clue” newsletter to “complete scam” newsletter in terms of performance reporting. The track record now is complete BS. Be aware.
We never sell any naked positions. When the markets were trading in a highly volatile environment, we adjusted and traded a few straddles. These are a long position on both a call and a put, at the same strike. This strategy takes advantage of big movements, which happened when we opened these positions. No position uses margin, all cash. This person’s claim is not accurate.
This is taken directly from your performance page March 2018:
Open Date Underlying Strikes Type Credit Debit Result Trade Notes
Mar 01, 2018 IWM 150 Both 9.40 4.70 100.0% Sold Put for $0.70. Sold Call for $8.71
You sold a naked straddle for 9.40 CREDIT and bought it back for 4.70 DEBIT. This is a NAKED position, and it is definitely not 100% gain because it requires more than $3k in margin. The gain is slightly over 10%. Same is true for SPY and DIA positions.
No. We BOUGHT a long straddle of the IWM 150 for $4.70. This is a purchase of a call and put at the 150 strike. We later sold the put for $0.70 and on another date, sold the call for $8.71.
If you were truly a subscriber during this trade, you would know that these are long positions opened to take advantage of the volatile market at the time.
This is not what your performance page says.
The credit column is listed before the debit column but that does not represent the order of how the trades were opened.
It is apparent now that your comments/reviews are based on your interpretation of our performance page instead of actual experience.
If anyone out there has any questions regarding our performance or service, feel free to contact us directly.
I joined 10PPM in the Summer of 2005 and stayed with them for almost 13 years.
Do they have mostly positive months? Yes
Did I make money over these 13 years? No, I lost. I lost big time.
Why? Even though you may get a streak of positive months, after a while you have a month when you get crushed really good. After this, with you capital destroyed, it takes time to come back up. When you are barely managing to come back up making 5-10% a month…the next crush hits you again.
The service is 125$ a month plus transaction fees. Over these 13 years, I lost about two thirds of what I put in.
I would not recommend the service to anyone. This is my experience with 10PPM.
This post is an obvious lie. We weren’t even in business during 2005. What name did you subscribe to our service with? I’d like to confirm whether or not you actually were a subscriber. As with most posts/comments, many are false and turn out to be from competing services instead of actual subscribers. Take each comment with a grain of salt. Contact us directly and form your own opinion then.
What about 2008 and 2011 when you had heavy losses? Those years are now conveniently removed from the performance page.
2008 had a cumulative return of 81.4% and 2011 had 100.7%. More false information that you are apparently trying to spread. A pattern is forming here…
Our performance page goes back 5 years and as stated on the bottom, those more historic results are available to our subscribers. Anything beyond 5 years is a different market than now. Subscribers are more interested in how things are going currently. Past performance does not guarantee future results and as all can see, we have been profitable every year since inception.
If anyone has a question about our performance, contact us through our website. We’ll be happy to help!
Actually as a potential subscriber, I would like to see how the service performs in different markets. If the performance was so good why wouldn’t you post it? Why would you hide all devastating losses you had in 2008, 2010 and 2011? Not to mention the fact that your methodology of reporting performance as “average of all trades” is a complete scam.
If any potential subscriber asks for performance on those years, we’d be happy to provide it to them. It’s not on the site currently, even though they’re great, since the more recent performance is what people focus on, the last 5 years. Our trades are published on our site with complete transparency. We state that it’s an average of all trades each month and that is true. If we had 3 positions that earned 10% each, we publish the average… 10%. Not 30%. Just because you don’t like it does not mean it’s a scam. You claim certain years to have devastating losses too but they had over 80% returns on the year. Your false claims should be brought to the attention of the hosts of this site. Spreading false information seems to be the norm nowadays but needs to be stopped. If anyone has any questions regarding our performance or trade calculations, do not hesitate to contact us directly on our site. We’ll be happy to provide anything we can to clear up the misinformation being spread out there.
False claims? All you need to do is to look at testimonials of your subscribers. Many of them lost 50-80% of their accounts.
As I mentioned before, posting performance as average of all trades when you trade credit spreads is very deceptive.
Taking October 2017 performance as an example:
Your sold 0.48 of premium and bought it back for $3.61. That’s 3.13 loss on three $2 spreads, which translates to 56.7% loss (5.52 was on risk, 3.13/5.52=56.7% loss). But you reported 27% loss only. Previous months have same reporting issues. You CANNOT report performance as average of the trades.
I see these testimonials and there are a lot of glowing ones which outweigh and clear up any confusion created by the negative ones you try to highlight. So yes… false claims.
You are repeating yourself and it is obvious that you are NOT a subscriber. You THOUGHT we sold naked strangles in another comment above (April 10, 2018 1:04 pm). That was proven false as we explained they were LONG STRADDLES. You interpreted the results the way you wanted to instead of how things actually took place. This claim for October 2017 is another example. There were actually 6 different spreads this month, resulting in 27%. If you were a subscriber, you would have known this.
At the top of these review pages, it states “If you’ve subscribed to 10 Percent Per Month… please share any other feedback about your EXPERIENCE using the comment box below.” So please, state your experience, not your skewed opinion without the facts.
Thank you for your opinion and showing everyone that negative reviews must be taken with a grain of salt. They’re either from competing services or subscribers who didn’t follow instructions by committing all capital into a single trade, which turned out to be a losing one.
6 different spreads? Not really. When you open SPY 256/258 call spread and then open 254/256 put spread later, you are using the same $2 margin. You opened positions on 3 underlying indexes (SPY, IWM and DIA). No matter how you call it, they used $6 per spread in total margin. This is a fact no matter how hard you try to hide it.
As for glowing reviews – those are probably from lucky members who experienced few winning months and thought they found a holly grail. Yes, those trades win 80% of the time – the issue is with the losing months that erase all previous gains and then some.
The second spreads were separate. Look at the strikes. They overlap and wouldn’t be possible to open as an iron condor. Using the DIA trade for example, the 229 short call is below the 232 short put. To form a condor and use the same maintenance requirement, the short put would have to be at least 228 or lower. Just look at the details and you’ll clearly see for yourself. Compare to December 2017 where we had 3 condors.
You neither were a part of these trades nor even understand them. Why are you making false claims? Who are you? You’re obviously not a past subscriber.
You can add up all the months and we’ve never erased all previous gains, and then some. This is your false claim… again. Trading is a marathon, not a sprint. If you try it for just a few months and experience a losing trade or two, you may have a negative experience but it doesn’t accurately reflect the service. If you stick with it for the long haul, you’ll have a MUCH BETTER experience. But you aren’t speaking from experience so…
SPY strikes didn’t overlap. But in any case, when using credit spreads, averaging all spreads is NOT the correct way to do it. If you add strikes that do overlap, you increase your margin significantly. But members who allocate the capital based on 3 trades per month might not have the available margin to do it.
No matter how you present it, the performance reporting is highly deceptive.
Yes, trading is a marathon. But when you sell high probability credit spreads for pennies, you cannot allow your losses to exceed your gains by 5-7 times. If you typically open iron condors and earn in a good month 0.30-0.40, you cannot lose over $3.00 in a bad month like October 2017.
Not sure why David has a vendetta here but his claims are being debunked and don’t hold any water. “Devastating returns” – oh wait, those years earned over 80%. “Selling naked strangles” – oh wait, those were long straddles and I read the performance wrong. “3 condor spreads” – oh wait, those were 6 different spreads, and i read the performance wrong.
I’ve been with 10P for a while now and over the long run, this is a very profitable service. There are losing months but what trader is correct 100% of the time? It’s just bad luck if your first month or two happens to be a rare loser. What David is claiming is completely untruthful and obviously not from experience. He couldn’t even tell 6 credit spreads from 3 condors.
Performance numbers are transparent. Calculation method is stated and not hidden. And you have to average them for multiple positions during a period of time but David will disagree. He’d rather see 3 trades earning 10% each be displayed as 30% monthly gain instead of 10%, the true return on risked capital. Don’t pay any attention to this guy. He’s just an Internet troll.
My experience with 10ppm is similar to many other reviews. One bad month wipes out months of profits. Winning months are usually 5-6% if you include commissions. Losing months are in 50-70% range.
Don’t trust the posted performance. In October 2014 my account lost over 50% while they posted only 19.5 percent loss. The method of “average of all trades” is very deceptive and doesn’t reflect the real numbers.
Stay away.
I am in total agreement.. They are careless when they try to save a trade from being a loss and rather than take a small loss they try to turn the trade into break even or profit by incorporating other sexy trades which if unsuccessful can cause a loss of 50 – 100% …Please beware and act with caution.
The best way to show the performance for a given month is to average them. We can’t just add them up. Let’s say 3 trades earned -10%, 12%, and 8%. The average return would be 3.3%. If we just add them up and show 10%, that would be, as you stated, “very deceptive and doesn’t reflect the real numbers”. How we display the returns is explained on the page so there is no deceptive practice as one claims. When viewing our performance pages, just click on each year and you will see the monthly breakdown of trades.
What some subscribers have done, which is against all recommendations, is allocate all of their capital for just one or two trades instead of equally diversifying into our 3 positions. As shown in our example above, sometimes one position loses while the others gain. If all of their capital went into the losing trade, they will definitely have a different result. The best is to have an equal allocation to our 3 positions. A fixed dollar amount is also suggested as to not compound profits into future trades. Pocket those profits and don’t put them at risk. We are not gambling here.
There are guidelines that are suggested to optimize our service but it is up to the individual on how they allocate their funds. Those that deviate from those guidelines have the worst experience and want to blame the service instead.
Stan is repeating the same comment he made above. Unfortunately for him, he said his first trade was a loser. He also stated, “when a person is new and their first trade or two are losers, that does not speak well in their minds”. This is true but does not accurately reflect the performance of the service. Losses happen but we recover and those that stick with us see profits. Over the past 5 years, a losing month has averaged to only 10.5%. This is, of course, if you follow our guidelines. Those that don’t will have a negative experience.
Let me say it one last time:
YOU CANNOT REPORT PERFORMANCE FOR CREDIT SPREADS AS AVERAGE OF ALL POSITIONS.
For example: if you opened put credit spread for 0.10 credit, then call credit spread for 0.10 credit, one of them expired worthless for 5% gain, the second one expired in the money for 100% loss.
You would report it as 47.5% loss. In reality, the risk was 2.00 less 0.20 credit = 1.80, and the loss was 100%. NOT 47.5%.
If the strikes overlap by $1.00, the margin was increased from 2.00 to 3.00. Still the loss on the increased margin is much higher than 47.5% loss.
But if your members allocate based on 3 trades, and you add more spreads that overlaps and requires more margin, many members would not have that margin. Your average number of trades is 3 per month, so it is reasonable to allocate 25% per trade and 25% in cash. When you add trades that increase margin, members don’t have enough cash to do it.
No matter how you look at it, your performance reporting is deceptive and members performance would be much worse during losing months as reported by many members.
David, you clearly do not understand how the trades in October 2017 were structured. They were all separate spreads, no matter how much you want to believe they weren’t. From your example above, if the two credits of $0.10 each were a condor position, then yes, it would be a 100% loss of that capital. Of course, that is NOT what happened. The risk was $4.00, not $2.00. Each spread for the month in question is a separate position, requiring additional capital. 5% return on one and a 100% loss on the second does average out to 47.5%, no matter what you want to believe.
We never recommend using one’s entire portfolio. Keeping cash on the side is always a good idea. The fact that some subscribers deviate from our guidelines is out of our control. If they choose to allocate everything into a few trades, keeping no capital on the side, of course they can’t participate in subsequent trades. Again, that has to do with how much they allocate in their account which we have no control over. We have 3 positions but that doesn’t limit us to just 3 trades on those positions any given month. Using a percentage allocation is not what we recommend. Your example shows again that you didn’t follow our guidelines. We suggest a fixed dollar amount for allocating to the trades. This prevents compounding of profits and gives one better control over the capital.
I understand perfectly well how October 2017 was structured. You opened DIA 229/231 Call spread and then DIA 230/232 Put spread. The spreads overlap by $1, so your risk increased from $2 to $3, not $4.
And in case of SPY, you added another spread making it an iron butterfly, using the same margin. So the risk remained the same $2.
Now, this assumes that your members even had the sufficient finds to increase the margin. If you do 3 trades per month most of the time, it is reasonable to allocate around 25% per trade and leave 25% in cash. If you add another 3 trades as you claim, how exactly would they have the funds to trade them?
Separate spreads, separate allocations. Specific instructions go to the brokers to have separate spreads and allocations unless told otherwise. These secondary trades were not linked to the first ones in any way.
Members are instructed to not over-allocate, saving capital in their accounts for additional trades. If you were all-in after the first set of trades, you did not follow the guidelines and over-allocated.
How about October 2014 when you opened TWO SPY PUT spreads one after another and TWO DIA PUT spreads one after another? Do you still average the losses? No, you should actually ADD them, because they were one on TOP of the other. SPY puts lost 41.8% and 23.8%, so you report it as 32.8% loss, when in reality, the loss is exactly double. Same for DIA trades. This is why your members report over 50% loss in October 2014 while you report only 19.5% loss.
Let’s do some math, David, so you can understand what you are saying.
Taking the October 2014 SPY example, you say the losses of 41.8% and 23.8% should be added together. If that’s the case, the total loss would be 65.6%.
Now, to keep things simple, we’ll assume each position risked $100 for a total of $200. If we lost 41.8% ($41.80) on the first trade, we’d have $58.20 left from that. The second trade would lose $23.80, leaving us with $76.20. We started with $200 and now have $134.40.
Divide $134.40 by $200 and we get 67.2%, meaning we lost 32.8%, which is stated on our site!
With your claim of adding them up, we’d lose 65.6% of the $200 which would leave us with $68.80 instead of the $134.40. See how your math doesn’t add up?
The real reason why some subscribers do not experience the same results is because they allocate their entire portfolio in just a few trades instead of diversifying and keeping cash available for subsequent trades. Follow our guidelines and you will profit like most of our subscribers do.
Wrong! Your math would be right if they were opened at the same time. But you closed one and then opened the second one. You risked $100 at any given time, not $200. You didn’t start with $200. You started with $100, lost $418, and closed the trade. This $100 is not at risk anymore, now you opened another trade risking the same portion of the account.
To make things more clear: lets say that your members have 10k portfolio, assume 3 trades and allocate 25% ($2,500) per trade. You opened SPY, IWM and DIA, allocating $2,500 per trade. Now you closed SPY trade for 23.8% loss and opened another SPY trade, using the same $2,500. The second trade lost 41.8% of the same $2,500 on risk.
Actually, the second spreads were opened when the first ones were still open too. Your math does not apply.
The fact that you don’t have enough capital for the subsequent trades proves the point that you over-allocated. If one has a $10k portfolio, and risked 75% on a few trades. They have no more capital for additional trades. More often than not, the subsequent trades turn a profit as they had more time to observe the changing market condition. If a member doesn’t have the funds to participate on the later trades, their result will be drastically different, as is the case with you.
It’s unfortunate that you had such a bad experience that is so contrary to the majority of our members. We may reach out to our members to have them share their views on this site. They really do need to be heard.
So if you normally have 3 trades per month, are you saying that allocating 25% per trade is too much? Are you saying that you should always keep 50% in cash in case there are 3 more trades in the same month (that’s 17% allocation per trade)?
But if this is the case, then in months when you have 3 trades (which is majority of the time) and make 10% per trade, your real return would be only 5%. And it’s only 2 trades, 17% each, then the return is 3.4%, not 10%. But you still report 10%.
No matter how you look at it, your numbers don’t add up. But of course you blame your members instead of taking responsibility.
Sure, reach out to your members. More fake reviews that nobody can verify.
Your fake reviews and math can definitely be verified as untrue, that’s for sure.
We don’t make any recommendations as to how much to trade with or what percentage of one’s portfolio to use. That’s up to the individual since everyone’s situation is different. Let’s say we have 2 traders using $10k on their trades. Trader A is using a $10k portfolio while Trader B uses $100k. If our trade returned 10%, it doesn’t matter how much is at risk, it’s still 10%. If a $2.00 spread receives $0.20 in premium, that’s 10%, regardless of how many contracts they sold. We report 10% because that’s what the trade returned. If one includes the cash on the side, Trader A would earn 10% while Trader B earns 1%. See how inaccurate this could be?
Keeping cash on the side keeps it safe but also won’t earn a return. This ratio is up to the individual and what they’re comfortable with.
We try to get 1 trade for each of our 3 positions opened each month but reserve the right to open less or more. The market conditions dictate how many trades get opened and our traders won’t know until it’s time. If your capital is all tied up after 2 or 3 trades, and we have additional trades after that, we have to include them in our performance regardless of you having funds to be in the trade or not.
Those who follow our guidelines see consistent profits. Some, unfortunately, later decide to take the capital from the sidelines and put it at risk. They don’t like to see it sitting there, not earning anything but this is where greed steps in. After this happens, a loss occurs and they want to make it up by putting even more capital into the trades. Now they’re tapped out and a great opportunity comes along, which they miss. The service is now the blame.
“The market conditions dictate how many trades get opened and our traders won’t know until it’s time.”
Yes, exactly my point! You recommend to keep cash – which is fine. So I check your history and see that you can have up to 6 positions. Which means that to have enough cash for 6 positions, I have to allocate 17% per trade. If you have only 2 positions, and each earned 10%, my account earned 3.4%. Not 10% as you reported. In a month like Feb.2017 when you had only 1 position, my account earned 1.7%. Not 10.8% as you reported.
This is why you numbers are so off and don’t reflect what happens in members accounts.
We report the return on the trade. This is clearly explained on the performance pages. Members can keep as much uninvested cash as they’d like and that is a personal decision. We make no recommendations to that amount. Everyone’s risk tolerance is different. Depending on that amount, and your view, this would skew any member’s numbers. Because of that, the most straighforward and accurate figure to report is the return on the trades. If we have 1 trade, we report 1 result. If we have 12 trades, we report 12 results. Members can then incorporate their entire portfolio balance to calculate the return but the return on trade applies to all.
Having been a subscriber, never again, I was amazed at the number of trades that worked. 80% sounds amazing, and at 10% per month you’re doing great. Until that one month when you lose 90% of everything you have in the trade. To me that was the kicker, you’ve made me about $2000 over a 5 months, not bad. Then a $3000 loss hits. We were told that these things happen but stay the course. I tried that and it happened again a few months later. I was down about $5000 over those 7-8 months.
I wasn’t really down 4K – I was down 4K with commissions (which they entered the condors at different times to gain greater value on the spread, so 2 commissions per position multiplied by 3 per month) probably about $100 per month, unless they bailed on a position, then more commissions. Then add into it that you have a membership fee of $125 per month.
So here is my 5 month breakdown. $2000 made – $500 commissions – $625 membership = $875. Not too bad, but not great either.
Here is my 8 month breakdown. $3000 made – $900 commissions (they pulled the plug when in the money, so more commissions were required) – $1000 membership, and last $5000 loss = -3900.
Some of the losing trades were offset by winners, so my 100% loss was called 80% for that month. Testimonials on a company website are a joke. They only post the good ones, duh. Each trade should have their own place on the performance page.
How to fix it:
No membership fees for losing months
On the results page – show each position’s result, not average, Show dollar amount per contract made per contract along with amount on hold for the trade. While percentage is important, show your customers the dollar value per contract.
Stop getting into overly risky trades, that’s for amateurs.
As stated previously, we do not recommend allocating one’s entire portfolio in just a few trades. It is suggested to keep cash on the side for subsequent trades that take advantage of market conditions. If a subscriber allocates everything in the first few trades, they no longer have capital to trade with for that month. If those first few trades are losing ones, they have a loss in their account versus those that took part in the winning trades later that month. Of course they feel like the returns should show the loss they experienced but it is not the true result of our service for that month.
Unfortunately, it sounds like you did not have the capital for subsequent trades and therefore could not participate in the recovery as others have. Commissions are a cost that your broker charges and this can be shopped around. We’ve heard of some paying over $1 per contract. eOption advertises $3 per leg and $0.15 per contract. With a $10k account, an iron condor would cost only $42.00. That would have reduced your commission fees dramatically.
We do not cherry pick our returns and actually publish all of them on our performance pages. If you click on each year, it will show you a monthly breakdown of each trade’s result. The dollar amount will depend on how much the individual allocated to that trade which is why we do not create a figure for that. The return on trade is what’s important. 10% on $1000 or $10,000 is still 10%.
Lets follow your logic and assume that members should keep 50% of the account in cash. So if I have 10k account, I would allocate 5k for the 3 trades and leave another 5k for adjustments.
During normal month, those 3 trades would make anywhere between 2% and 10%. 10% is rare, so on average, it’s around 6%. 6% of 5k is $300. This is what you would make on good months on 10k account. That’s around 3%/months. Not 10% as advertised, but still not bad.
Then October 2014 comes. You had 3 trades that lost 100%, 50% and 25%. In dollar terms that’s around 3k loss on the $5k portion.
Now you opened another 3 trades using the 50% reserve. Those 3 trades earned around 5% each. That’s $250.
Your total P/L for that month: $3,000-250=$2,750. Which is 27%, in line with what you posted. But now you erased almost 10 months of gains. This is if I’m lucky and I had few months of gains before October.
Now, $300 gain during normal month assumes 3 open positions. But some months you have only 2 open positions, sometimes even one. That reduces the gain to $200 or $100 on $10k account.
And I didn’t even mentioned commissions. When you open and close 6 positions, even with eOption it is much more than $42.
See the problem? If you recommend to keep 50% in cash for adjustment, then your return during normal months is half of what you advertise. If I keep allocate more than 50%, then you I over allocate. You cannot have it both ways.
We do not make recommendations on the amount to trade with or what percentage of one’s portfolio to use. We do say that going all-in is foolhardy. Cash on the side is not at risk but also won’t earn a return. How much one decides to trade with and keep on the side is up to them. Trading $10,000 in a portfolio of $10,000 is very different than with a portfolio of $100,000. Which one do you think is over-allocated?
We currently trade 3 positions (IWM, DIA and SPY). Typically, we’ll try to get one trade for each position but there are times where additional trades may we warranted. The market may present a great trading opportunity and additional trades are entered. Not having enough capital to trade with is not the fault of any service.
Here is another way to show how deceptive your performance reporting is.
If you add all monthly returns in 2017, you get 33.7% return. Again, 3% per month, less commissions and subscriptions fees.. still not bad.
BUT: lets add all credits and all debits for all 12 months.
Total credits: $5.02
Total debits: $5.75
That’s total loss of $0.73 PER SPREAD. Since the spread is $2.00, that’s 36.5% LOSS. Not 33.7% gain, but 36.5% LOSS per risked capital. Again, using your own performance page.
With that math, we could have a 90% return after 3 months! How? Try to follow along…
If we had 3 months of where three spreads earned $0.20 each, that would be $0.60 each month or a total credit of $1.80 for the quarter.
Total Credit: $1.80
Let’s say all of them expired worthless, realizing the entire premium collected so the debit would be $0.00.
Total Debit: $0.00
Divide the total credit by the $2.00 spread
$1.80 / $2.00 = 90%
Your math would result in a total profit of 90%!! That’s absurd!!
To put the aforementioned example into dollars, let’s say we are risking $3000 each month, or $1000 for each trade. Each trade earns 10%, or $100. Three positions equals $300. Multiply that by 3 since we are using 3 months to get $900. $900 is NOT 90% of $3000. It’s actually 30% of the starting $3000 which goes in line with we’ve been saying all along. Each month, the position averages 10%. After 3 months, it’s a total of 30%.
10 + 10 + 10 = 30
It’s plain to see that you have no idea what you are talking about. None of your claims are from experience. You refer to trades you had no part in and didn’t know how it was timed or structured. Maybe your first trade with us was a loser and you bet the farm on it, ignoring our guidelines. What other reason would drive you to go through such lengths to try to discredit our service? If that did happen to you, it is unfortunate but our guidelines are there for a reason. Let it go. We’ve been trading for decades now and sometimes, no matter how we guide members, they feel as if they know more or just want to do things their way. Trust the service and experience of professional traders and not David’s math.
No matter how you spin it, the truth is that you reported total GAIN of 33.7% in 2017, while in fact you had a LOSS in 2017. You got 5.02 credits and paid $5.75 debits to cover them. Are you disputing this simple fact?
Your math doesn’t work, as explained in the previous comment. Repeating it does not make it true.
Need another example?:
Let’s keep it simple and say we have just 2 trades, both earn a $0.10 credit. Trade 1 expires worthless, realizing a 5% gain on the $2.00 spread. Using a $100 trade amount as an example, this is a gain of $5, bringing that allocation to $105.
Trade 2 is closed out at $1.00, realizing a $0.90 loss. This is a 45% loss on the $2.00 spread, bringing that allocation amount to $55.
Add up the 2 new totals and you’ll get $160, which is $40 less than the initial $200, or a 20% loss.
Using your math, the credits of $0.20 and debit of $1.00 results in a net debit of $0.80. Divide this by the $2.00 spread and you get a loss of 40%?!?! That is double the actual loss! How is this accurate when I still have $160?
Your calculations make no sense and THAT is a fact.
You can argue how to calculate the amount on risk. You cannot argue that total debits is 2017 where more than total credits – which means 2017 was a losing year. How much losing depends how much was on risk on average. It is probably more than $200 since on average there are about 2 positions, so we can assume average risk of $4.00, not $2.00. Loss of $0.73 on $4.00 risk means 18.2% loss in 2017.
Again, argue as much as you want – 2017 was a losing year, but monthly returns shows 33.7% gain.
Even with jerrick’s clear explanation, it doesn’t make sense to you. You can’t just add up the debit and credits like that. It’s completely inaccurate.
Which part is inaccurate? If you get total credits of 5.02 and had to pay total debits of 5.75, YOU LOST MONEY. Plain and simple. My calculation of the loss was not completely accurate because I assumed $2.00 on risk. But the loss itself is indisputable.
In your example, if the 2 trades are part of an iron condor and use the same margin, then yes, the loss is 40% not 20%. If this is the same trade, then you got 0.20 credit and paid 1.00 debit. Your total loss is 0.80 or 40% on 2.00 risk.
If those are 2 separate trades, then your total risk is $4.00, and the loss is 20%.
But the question is not really how much was the loss. No matter how you calculate it, if you paid to close the trade more than the initial credit. You have a loss. Period. And if you have 50 trades that got 5.02 credit, and you paid 5.75 in total to close them, you got a loss. Period.
Two separate spreads, not a condor. Total risk is 4 but you want to use 2 in your calculations. That is why your numbers are inaccurate. Now you want to use 4 for your first calculation but that’s also inaccurate since there were many more than just 2 trades. You have to obtain the result from each trade, not just add things up and divide how you want.
Yes, but some months you had 2 trades or even one. But even assuming 3 trades, that’s $6 on risk. 0.73 loss on $6 risk is 12%. In reality it is higher because not every month had 3 trades.
But the important point is that it is still a loss. Less than I first calculated, but still a loss, compared to your 33.7% reported gain.
I’ve been trading with 10Percent since mid 2015 so I have a couple of years of experience with them. There were some losses in 2017 but following their guidelines, I did have a profit for the year. David doesn’t seem to have a clue and is trying to confuse everyone.
My first trade was a losing one and I wanted to quit the service immediately. After they answered my questions, I followed their guidelines. Those losses were erased and quickly replaced with profits!
Maybe David put his entire portfolio on a few trades which turned out to be losing ones and didn’t have the capital to make other trades. He sounds upset and is now speculating on how the results should be to reflect his own experience. I can tell you this, I didn’t follow the guidelines my first month and had a bad experience. It didn’t mean the service failed me. I made my own rules and thought I could be better. I was wrong. And so is David. Now that I follow the guidelines, my results reflect exactly what is on their website, minus commission fees, of course.
Wealth grows over time, not overnight.
Losses are inevitible when it comes to trading. Some will be more than you prefer but if you keep locking in winners, you’ll do just fine. 10PercentPerMonth has been very reliable to me over the years. I’ve been with them since 2012.
There are some drawdowns but the frequency of winning trades makes it all worthwhile. Just stick with it and you’ll see your account grow as I have.
I tried to read some of these negative comments to see if they have any merit but the complaints are more of opinion and assumption than anything else. Trying to make a case without facts is pointless. Trying to convince someone that doesn’t want to see the facts is a waste of time.
All trade results are available on their website. The credits and debits of all the trades match up with my autotraded accounts so I can honestly say that what they post is accurate and factual. One could even contact the autotrade brokers to confirm, if they wish.
Do your due diligence but make sure to filter out all the “noise”. This is a solid service.
No merit? Then please explain how their own performance page shows loss in 2017 based on total credits and debits, but the monthly returns show 33.7% gain? Those are facts, not opinions.
Explained in my comment above…
I admit, I didn’t follow the guidelines initially. My first trade was a losing one but I learned from it. I gave it more time, relied on their experience, and that patience has paid off. When I first allocated, I wanted everything to be used, to maximize my return. The loss set me back and I wasn’t able to open the subsequent trades they sent out that month. Since then, I scaled my allocations back, keeping capital preservation a priority. If someone were to continue putting everything into just 1 or 2 trades, they’re asking for trouble.
Sticking with their guidelines, I was able to open all of their trades each month and turned my initial loss into a winning portfolio. Advice for those on the fence: Wealth grows over time, not overnight. This service may be slow to some but the steady wins pay off.
Grateful to have found this service. They’ve done me well. Compared to other services, they don’t have the volume of trades. Having more trades just ties up more cash and increases commission fees anyway. When condors are opened, it could be on the high side for fees but the consistency of profitable trades makes it negligible. Just make sure you have a competitive rate with your broker. Services that tout small trades here and there rack up the commission fees much more quickly.
If a trade goes bad, these guys will close it down and not roll them into future months. I’ve used services like that in the past and they kept rolling until they got it right, tying up more cash or blowing up my account altogether. 10PPM is a perfect mix of slight to moderate risk with moderate to high rewards over time. Don’t give up after a loss. You have to stick it through. And by all means, don’t put everything into a single trade or month. Spread out your risk.
10PPM truly is a great newsletter. I don’t like to write reviews but this service must be praised! They regularly open credit spreads each month. Sometimes they pair them with another to create a condor or just a separate spread itself. It depends on the market. When the market conditions change, they change their strategy as well. Earlier this year when the markets were having some wild swings day after day, they opened up some long straddles. This takes advantage of the volatility and they handled them flawlessly. One of them earned over 75% and another doubled! As soon as the volatility dropped down to a more normal level, they went back to their credit spread staple. Their flexibility in adapting to market conditions is phenomenal! A must have service!
I’ve tried numerous online advisories and 10PPM is the best. Others have multiple trades which turn out to be a commission generator whereas 10PPM has just a few quality trades each month. Sometimes the markets have trading opportunities for the service to open additional trades. This doesn’t happen all the time but it’s great to see that they change their strategy when the market environment changes too. My portfolio doubled after about 18 months. I have since taken out my initial investment and am happily watching my portfolio grow without any worry of losing my initial amount. Defnitely a long-term gem!
10percentpermonth has been very patient with my endless questions. They are very professional in answering all of them to my satisfaction. The service has been a great educational tool as well. I only knew the basics of options trading before joining their service and am now very experienced with credit spread trading. When exiting a trade, their experience is very valuable. Instead of fighting the market, they close out positions in order to reset for the next trade.
I’ll keep this short and sweet. Returns ARE as advertised. Just follow their rules, don’t over-commit trading capital, stick it through during the ups and downs, and you will be very pleased. Trades are simple to follow. Autotrade available with some brokers if you can’t trade yourself. All emails have been answered personally, promptly, and professionally. Great service all around.
I have had a very pleasurable experience with 10PerentPerMonth. They are very knowledgeable and answered all of my questions in a timely manner. Trades are solid and are structured in a way that not much babysitting is required for them. They manage each trade by watching the markets just in case things go crazy. If they do, they are quick to close down trades and protect my trading capital. The July 2018 cycle is going to expire tomorrow and it should be another 10%+ month!