Author/Editor
Ken Trester
Publisher
Investorplace
Description
Weekly option trade recommendations, focuses on what Ken Trester calls “undervalued options.” (Trester also writes Power Options Weekly, both seem to offer several short-term options trades per week and are priced similarly.)
Overall Rating
Rating: 2.9/5. From 15 votes.
Please wait...
2.9
Rating from 74 votes
If you’ve subscribed to Maximum Options, please click the stars below to indicate your rating for this newsletter, and please share any other feedback about your experience using the comment box below.
Investment Performance
Rating from 26 votes
Rating: 3.6/5. From 26 votes.
Please wait...
Your vote
- 5 Stars 11 Votes
- 4 Stars 4 Votes
- 3 Stars 5 Votes
- 2 Stars 2 Votes
- 1 Stars 4 Votes
Quality Of Writing/Analysis
Rating from 18 votes
Rating: 2.8/5. From 18 votes.
Please wait...
Your vote
- 5 Stars 2 Votes
- 4 Stars 5 Votes
- 3 Stars 3 Votes
- 2 Stars 3 Votes
- 1 Stars 5 Votes
Value For Price
Rating from 15 votes
Rating: 2.1/5. From 15 votes.
Please wait...
Your vote
- 5 Stars 2 Votes
- 4 Stars 1 Votes
- 3 Stars 2 Votes
- 2 Stars 1 Votes
- 1 Stars 9 Votes
Customer Service
Rating from 15 votes
Rating: 2.9/5. From 15 votes.
Please wait...
Your vote
- 5 Stars 4 Votes
- 4 Stars 1 Votes
- 3 Stars 4 Votes
- 2 Stars 1 Votes
- 1 Stars 5 Votes
Trester Complete Options/Maximum Options.
I’ve had Complete (which I believe is the same as another of his services “Maximum”) for about 2 years.
He does very well with credit spreads, in the 80% I’d guess, but with ToS (or the like) software and reasonable technical analysis, so do I ….. As long as I set and obey my stops.
His longs are about average with others I’ve seen.
To me, for $135/mo, it ain’t worth it. Maybe at half that.
And at half that, I’d bet he’d get a lot more subscribers.
My longs have done a bit better than his, but I stick strictly to DIA, SPY and other “1¢” ETFs and the occasional volatile equity (AAPL, AMZN).
I kind of doubt other services will be any better. I’ll see if I do as well, consistently, over the next bit of time. If so, I’ll stick with me.
I believe he may also have another service for selling naked Puts.
Z-Trades are nothing more than put credit spreads which he promotes as safe 100% winners. Started out with one winner made $100 on a couple of contracts but the risk was $850. Then He had us in two positions holding them through earnings season and they both tanked overnight. We were helpless as the stocks gapped down bigtime overnight. The one I was trading was WTW and it tanked Feb. 14th, 2013. I lost everything I had invested. I just got another email ad from Maximum options today listing his “full disclosure” = only his 100% winning Z-Trades to date (March 14th, 2013) since Jan. 1, 2012 and he doesn’t show any of his losing “z-trades”. He sure doesn’t show the WTW trade. Not a mention. His advertising is deceptive and his Z-Trades are a lot more risky than he lets on since he doesn’t disclose his losers. Stay away from this guy would be my advice. He’s just a hack. If he could trade as he claims he wouldn’t be messing with a newsletter. They did promptly refund my subscription price.
I tried it earlier this year. I cancelled after 9 of the 12 trade recommendations (spreads and long call/put positions) I took were losers. They were courteous and professional, there was no problem cancelling and getting a full refund as promised.
I signed up for Ken Trester’s Power Options Weekly in August on a 2 week trial for $19.95 with no obligation to continue. On September 8th, they charged my credit card $79.95. I called to complain and asked for a refund. They said my order was for ongoing membership with autopay and I disputed that. I told them to cancel my order and refund my money. They said there was nothing they could do. Once again in October, they again charged my credit card $79.95. I again called to complain, they said they would cancel future charges, but would not refund my money. I would never do business with any of Ken Trester’s companies or any other company that would not honor a refund request for services not provided. In addition to that, of the 5 option trades per week that were made, long calls and puts, more than 75% of trades were losers. If one actually did those trades, a significant loss would have resulted.
This happened to me and I wrote the Attorney General in PA and they without hesitation refunded my money.
I have tried Trester in the past, and tracked his trades for two months…primarily losers…the vast majority of them. I’d never use his services. it amazes me that he continues ot pump out junk, and yet they market the heck out of him. Garbage.
I wont lie when I started kens system I was in the green on some trades. That all ended in May 2015, bad week after bad week. Loses surpassed any gains I would make. All and all lost a total of 2,500 over 4 months on his picks either from close outs or left at the wrong time due to the option price getting beating down so badly. I wouldn’t recommend Kens system unless you have a very good understanding of options. Although if that’s the cases you would need to spend 80 dollars a month on “recommendations”.
I thoughtlessly just signed up for the $19.95 one month trial of Trester’s Power Options Weekly ($79.95/month after that). I had a non-lucid moment and didn’t think to check with the all-knowing, firewall piercing Gumshoe first. (NOTE: I do have to say that a service or two that I thought were very worthwhile and that helped me make me some good money got torn to shreds in the Shoe — the Shoe apparently fits all sizes of cynics and skeptics, mostly well justified.) Indeed I’m now regretting that I forgot that important step. Within about five minutes of looking over the trade history I knew that I would do better with darts thrown by a sailor late on his first night of shore leave after having just survived six months of 30 foot seas.
Now I must face that gnarly question: Can I escape relatively unscathed, or will I have to get my credit card replaced again?
I took a trial on Power Options ($19.95 for the first month). That gave me access to historical results in CVS files, which actually is more than many advisory services will provide. Unfortunately when I ran the results through a spreadsheet, adding up percentage P&L on all trades, I came up with -1643% for 2015 and (as of May 14, 2016) -657% for this year so far. Educated guesses by anyone who has any experience with the options market could easily outperform this service, or for that matter if one were to just buy the major indices…or…just throw darts at their computer monitor! I will be canceling and hoping that I don’t have the troubles others have had getting out of this ludicrous excuse for an advisory service.
i AM IN THAT 50/50 CLUB AND THAT WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT ! tHE BEST RESULTS THAT YOU CAN GET AND THEY ARE VERY RELIABLE IS GET HIS SERVICE FOR A WEEK OR TWO IF YOU TRUST WHAT EVERYONE HERE HAS SAID AND TAKE EVERY KEN TRESTER TRADE AND PLACE THE TRADE THE OPPOSITE WAY, I ASSURE YOU YOU WILL BE HAPPY WITH YOUR RESULTS OR JUST PAPER TRADE AND THEN REPORT BACK FOR I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IF I AM NOT ALONE. HE IS WORSE THAN A SPORTS BOOKIE BUT HE IS LEGAL!
Every year from 2013 to year to date 2016 have been losing years. And that’s exclusive of trading fees. I asked for win loss ratios & profit factors they kept directing me to their closed trades. What service doesn’t know these vital metrics? A total & complete scam!
I too was tempted to spend $49 to see what Trester had on offer. I knew it had to involve credit spreads but I thought that maybe he had something I do not know about. After reading Gumshoe however I decided that it was not worth the hassle. Anyway, I trade equity options for my own account and more to the point I trade credit spreads almost exclusively. My go to strategy is the bull put spread, and quite successfully I might add. If anyone would like to read up on this strategy I have written an article here: https://bullputspreadtraders.blogspot.com/. There are no adverts and I am not selling anything. Kindly leave a comment though.
~Joseph
I am wonder, other than signal service, does he provide education on his strategy?
Did he has way to reduce the risk when on losing trade to reduce losses and method to set trailing to maximise the profit?
And for his signal, did he provide TP and SL, and did you educate in the program how to do the trade size and money management? Did he has a rule to follow? And is there anyone do a back test with his rule to see if it is profitable after applying those rule?
Would like to understand more on what he offer on his service other than hearing losing trade > winning trade, because sometime winning trade if profit ratio is high to fight again the losing trade with Stop Loss being set and Risk being managed may be it is still good to have such service.
Sorry just my neutral comment as i did not see how his service like and can’t comment too much without seeing more fact.
Any more can provide more details here so we can try to analyse?
Ken provides his Options alerts very clearly. He tells you when to take profits as well as when to close out at a loss. Hos site also has extensive Options training. When I called to cancel my automatic subscription I told them it was because most of Ken’s trade recommendations are losers. I was told that was the reason whey he had all that training available so that members can enter into trades using their own knowledge and not go in blindly with Kens recommendation. I was told to be selective on which trades Ken recommends to enter. I don’t think Ken has a scam going on. He just loses more than he wins.
It’s quasi not possible to make money with any options’ letter. Options are still traded by market makers, real sharks, and when the letter issues the reco, all the members jump at the same time. The shark at the other end sees that, adjusts the price accordingly and you’re down 20% just to start with. The few options that are very liquid and trade volume and low spread are usually not linked to shares that will provide great return. With stocks fun to trade you may have liquidity for a while at a certain strike but this liquidity will move to other strikes with the price of the stock; they’ll get you when you sell. To this you have to add an MLB batter type of timing to your transaction. It’s too much for us the oi polloi.
Excellent points. Services that recommend trades in illiquid securities (like most options) generally do far better on paper than they can possibly do in the real world, particularly once they’ve got more than a few dozen subscribers.
I tried Maximum once and it was a disgrace. More losses than wins.
I keep getting this amazing marketing material singing the praises and huge gains on Power Options ( which is Maximum options in disguise)so I caled and asked to see the track record. No problems, I received it very promptly.
From 4/29/16 to 8/12/16 there were 224 trades 137 were losers 87 winners. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist! I don’y how these frauds keep going.
Read the marketing material then look at the results. It’s complete bullshit
Just cancelled subscription, automatic billing, for a trial period. It is a scam, The advice was not profitable, requested refund, but was denied
I tried it twice this year 2017 and in both cases I lost a lot of money. Of the 5 weekly trade recommendations the vast majority are losers. Maximum Options RECOMMENDATIONS ARE GARBAGE A SURE WAY TO LOSS MONEY.
Too much hype in ad!! Negative return; sure way to loose money.
I tried his free recommendations and have the same results.The trades lose more money than they make.This guy is either a total loser or he is a market maker taking the opposite side of his recommendations.
I paid $495 USD for an annual subscription in April of 2017 and executed 95% of the suggested trades. Now, In July, my tracking shows the majority of the recommended trades to be losers. I have lost money due to this aimless advice. Inquiring about canceling, I was pleased to receive a pro-rata refund of 83% of my subscription price. My advice: AVOID, ADVOID,AVOID.
Thank you. I’m grateful to have Stock Gunshot that gives the place for us to get honest information about the offerings online. I am very grateful for the folks who tried it and posted their earnings about it being a complete sham.
Just received my first email about Ken’s wonderful service. All I can say is thank heavens for the Gumshoe and the irregulars and their much more solid advice.
One thing that folks can do if the “service” continues to charge your credit card after you have cancelled, is to call your CC company – Visa or whoever – and tell them that you cancelled the service and you want a refund. They will help you get your money back, but will charge you 10% to do so. I would rather have 90% of my money back than lose it all.
If your “service” is advised of this, they may be more likely to issue a refund instead of stealing your money every month. These crooks will try to get away with everything they can, it seems to be the way many of these “services” are run these days.
One other thing I think we should all consider doing, is to tell the latest round of hucksters that we are NOT going to subscribe to these $2,000 a year outfits, unless there is a refund policy, other than “No Refunds”.
These thugs must be collecting millions every month, and for what? Bad advice? It should be outlawed.