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Mr. Satisfied
Guest
Mr. Satisfied
June 23, 2011 6:15 pm

Not sure what the problem is with all the above whiners! I have been trading their Puts and Calls service for several months now and the performance has been excellent! I think there is some sabotage going on here…year to date I am up around 25% after all costs.

I know the spreads strategy has not performed as well but at least these guys are honest and put out accurate and true results.

They charge $99.00 a month for all three strategies combined.

oilandice
Guest
oilandice
June 23, 2011 8:29 pm

No whiner and no sabotage,the service is a fraud . If you have high expectations you better lower them.

oilandice

Bob
Guest
Bob
June 24, 2011 2:42 pm

Mr. Satisfied, how much have you made on those OIH calls, especially after you were instructed to double down? Or on the SLV calls? Or the GDX calls? The problem with Mr. Mendes is that he doesn’t seem to know what a put is. He buys calls when the market is going up and buys calls when the market is going down. Since I started the service Mendes hasn’t recommended a single put.

Mr Satisfied
Guest
Mr Satisfied
June 25, 2011 9:06 am

The service is profitable. How can you stand there and complain based on a couple of trades that lost money…What the about the other trades that have made money? You must not have much experience trading options Oilandice…

Stop whining. You are responsible for your own portfolio not the autotrade newsletter.

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Ticks
Guest
Ticks
June 27, 2011 9:25 am

Started trading their alerts in April 2001 and lost $18K within 2 months. They went giddy on OIH and GDX with huge losses.

Here are my statement from TOS:

YEAR TO DATE PROFIT & LOSS TOTAL P/L YTD: ($18,330.76)
SYMBOL YTD P/L
ERX ($1,556.48)
FAS $250.00
FXI $140.00
GDX ($11,196.48)
GLD $850.00
OIH ($7,835.48)
QLD $476.26
QQQ $85.16
SLV $961.00
SMH $233.76
SPY $65.00
TNA ($465.62)
UYG ($647.40)
XLE $309.52

The results below says it all (TOFI Spread performance available at their site):
OIH 04/06/11 – 04/26/11 -44.6%
GDX 04/26/11 – 04/27/11 -92.3%
GDX 05/11/11 – 05/31/11 +01.3%
OIH 05/02/11 – 06/01/11 -51.6%
GDX 05/02/11 – 06/02/11 -92.9%
OIH 05/11/11 – 06/04/11 -40.0%
OIH 05/11/11 – 06/14/11 -53.4%
GDX 06/03/11 – 06/14/11 -84.5%

Be prepared for small profits and HUGE losses, sure to wipe out your account. CJ never replies to your questions/emails.

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Bob
Guest
Bob
June 27, 2011 9:53 am

Mr. Satisfied, the trades that made money made a few hundred each. The many, many trades that have lost money have lost thousands each. I can’t believe you’re using the same service the rest of us are.

Kim
Member
Kim
June 27, 2011 10:59 am

Mr Satisfied, when you say “the service is profitable”, which time frame are you referring to? According to his performance page, the last few months have been pretty bad. He stopped posting the summary of the trades with average and total gains. I assume the reason was the recent losses. Spreads performance has been especially bad, with three 65-92% losers and four 40-50% losers. In fact, since April he had 10 trades, only two winners.

The long term performance might be good, but such drawdowns are unacceptable. They can wipe out your account pretty quickly.

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Mr Satisfied
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Mr Satisfied
June 27, 2011 1:15 pm

I don’t trade the Spreads strategy just the deep in the money puts and calls strategy. The service is profitable in year to date and over the past 12 months.

They trade a spreads strategy a DITM Puts and calls strategy and they are coming out with an ETF strategy next month. I have made money trading their system and I am up well above the market for these periods. Their trades are tracked by Pro Trading Profits by the way and are verified.

They are 75 out of 100 trades positive for the Puts and Calls service. The spreads service did over 200% last year! I guess these strategies should be reviewed separately? My trading account is larger as a result of their trading recommendations and that is what I have to go by.

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Ricky
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Ricky
June 27, 2011 1:28 pm

I have been a subscriber to CJ’s autotrading newsletter since January. I chose to go with them because their performance was exceptional and I had received a good review from my broker on CJ. The strategies were very profitable early in the year and I traded them both but was fortunate enough to cut back on the Spreads strategy around March and switch 100% to the in the money puts and calls strategy. That move saved me a bundle!

The spread strategy is very aggressive and should only be traded by those who want speculative exposure. The in the money puts and calls is also aggressive but for some reason they have managed to show profits for each of the past 4 years. The spreads lost money in 2009 but they show huge positive returns for 2010.

I am going to continue trading the in the money puts and calls service and their new ETF service as spreads are a bit to volatile for me.

CJ’s daily updates are very good!

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Kim
Member
Kim
June 27, 2011 2:50 pm

I guess it really depends when you started. It might be profitable in the long term, but the latest drawdown was pretty severe. In the P&C service, they had 60% losers in the last two months, most of them in 30-40% range, and just few small winners in the 13-17% range. Aiming for 15% winners and allowing 30-40% losers is not a good practice, even if you have 60-70% winning ratio. Didn’t you take those losing trades?

Mr Satisfied
Guest
Mr Satisfied
June 27, 2011 3:23 pm

Kim,

This is right out of their members site. The puts and calls recommendations are 36 winning trades out of 50 for the year. the average duration for trades are 6.4 days. the profit made on winners is $5871.00 versus losses of $3848.00. the average trade size is $1,126.50 per contract and commissions for this strategy are very low. I have traded everyone of these trades with the exact same results. I dedicate $5000 total to the strategy. Am I not seeing something that you all are?? Even considering the bad trades I am still up a good amount and doing much better than the market.

These are not trading strategies for someone to trade their whole account in and CJ mentions that almost on a daily basis in his updates. Anybody who trades these at full throttle is a fool.

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Kim
Member
Kim
June 28, 2011 9:37 am

I think the difference is in timeframes. You are looking at the whole year, others look at the last 2-3 months. Depends when you joined, you might have different opinion. But the point is that the risk management is not good, no matter how you looks at it. When he had 70% winning ratio, taking profits at 15-20% was working very well. But in the recent months the winning ratio went below 50%, he still takes profits at 15-20% but lets the losers go to 50-60% (80-90% in the spreads service). Not a good practice.

Bigbelly bo
Guest
Bigbelly bo
June 28, 2011 12:31 pm

Mr. Satisfied…
You miss the point. The poor fool who signed up with CJ in the last quarter of the year would have lost all the money allocated…he is not going to have much confidence in CJ’s trading ability is he. Only a greater fool would trust a 100%+ drawdown.
Doesn’t matter when one starts with CJ, or his trading history, drawdowns of this magnitude are absurd. Traders worth their salt never do this…never.

If CJ is taking big losses, then he has a problem, don’t you Think? And the problem is simple: He is not defining risk. He isn’t determining what the loss will be. Instead, he’s just trading like a knucklehead making one desperate move after the other, each with greater risk intended to make up for the last string of lousy trades he made. If it were possible, I’d give him a cyber slap and reach through my monitor and slap his face. Sadly, technology doesn’t yet allow for that. So instead, I just have to say that you’d better learn to control your risk RIGHT NOW! Don’t “intend” to do it. Losers “intend” to do. Winners “do”. There is no time lag between intending and doing.
Winners anticipate making money, but assume that they will be wrong.

CJ is a loser, he doesn”t define his loss…because it isn’t his loss, it’s the customers. .
Bottom line…. if we have to rely on people like CJ to call our trades then we are the biggest losers of all.

C. Plosky
Guest
C. Plosky
June 28, 2011 2:00 pm

Bigbelly Bo,

You sound very angry and frustrated… The big losses you talk about are not stand alone positions but individual legs on a complex position. The percentage loss on the complete trades are not nearly as dramatic as you state.

CJ has been on the wrong side of the market for seven weeks, I know for a fact he has been on the right side of the market much more often than not because you see, I have been a subscriber since 2008.

For the same period last year, CJ had the following returns:

23.5%
30.2%
21.7%
9.8%
-56.3%
134.9%
130.6%
16.3%
27.9%
20.8%
22.7%
-6.3%

So I guess had you joined then you would be praising his glory as he was on the right side of a market in the middle of major correction (15%+). Did you not evaluate the large loss on the previous trades before you joined the service? In 2010 there are several losses of over 50%…

Man up buddy! you got greedy and put up more money than you could afford to lose. This is an aggressive trading strategy.

Kim
Member
Kim
June 28, 2011 2:44 pm

C. Plosky,

What are talking about? What individual legs?? According to his own track record, those are the last 8 trades in the spread service:

GDX -44.6%
GDX -92.3%
GDX +1.3%
OIH -51.6%
GDX -92.9%
OIH-40.0%
OIH -53.4%
GDX -84.5%

Each of those trades represents a full position, not individual leg. He just continued to double down even when it was obvious that he is wrong. Risk management is important in stocks, but it is even more critical in options because options have limited life time. You don’t have the luxury to hope that your position will recover. If you are wrong, admit it, cut the loss and move on. This is the basics of trading.

I agree that his long term record is very good, but you could make 100% in the last two years and lose 80% in the last two months. And guess what? Making 100% and losing 80% is not equal 20%.

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Bob
Guest
Bob
June 28, 2011 2:55 pm

C. Plosky, I don’t know what you’re talking about — “individual legs on a complex position”. My biggest losses have been on straight puts and calls, nothing complex about that. (And even the spreads are hardly “complex positions”. The little bit you gain on the short side when the trade goes awry is small consolation for the large loss you take on the long side.) CJ uses deep ITM calls and puts. He typically takes profits when there are 10 – 20% gains. He holds losers to 50% losses or worse. So even if 60% of the trades are winners you still lose.

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C.Plosky
Guest
C.Plosky
June 28, 2011 6:54 pm

A bit of an exaggeration Bob. the service average loss for 2010 and 2011 is 21.7% and the average gain is 14.4%…(right from their website) I grant that the last few weeks have not been fun but the overall results over time have been very good.

Kim, this service trades an aggressive strategy. If you roll your gains from month to month you are increasing your exposure exponentially… I look at their results from month to month rather than from trade to trade.

It seems that the guys and gals complaining are those who got burned recently (and with good reason)while those with something good to say have been around for a while.

Bigbellybo
Guest
Bigbellybo
July 8, 2011 10:39 pm

C Plosky , In response to your comment: “Man up buddy! You got greedy and put up more money than you could afford to lose. This is an aggressive trading strategy.”

Plosky, my only motivation in taking the time to comment on this site is to shed some light on Mendes lack of professionalism, and possibly save some other fool some of their money. You say you’ve had success with Mendes. I do not doubt that. But, I did not have success, and though my losses are but a small portion of the total amount I have at risk, I don’t like losing my hard earned money, and that is my money, not yours Plosky. You do not know me or how much money I can afford to lose. As a result of my comments on this site, I expose people like you. “Shills” always reveal themselves by attacking others personally. Bullies.

• A “shill”, plant or stooge is a person who helps a person or organization without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with that person.
• “Shill” a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.
• The “shill” attempts to spread buzz by personally endorsing the product in public forums with the pretense of…
• “Shill” One who poses as a satisfied customer or an enthusiastic gambler to dupe bystanders into participating in a swindle.
• The “shill” attempts to spread buzz by personally endorsing the product in public forums with the pretense of sincerity, when in fact he is being paid for his services.

Plosky, you said “this is an aggressive strategy” An “aggressive investment” or approach to investing is one that seeks above-average returns by taking above-average risks. What Mendes does is not all that sophisticated. Taking above average risk is no excuse for not managing risk.

I work hard for every penny of my wealth, Plosky. I say these things not for you but for the unaware, whom I hope will think long and hard before they put their hard earned money with Mendes.

Take heed folks. If Mendes was legit he would not need your monthly subscription fee. He would be placing his own money at risk and not yours. He can lose all your money, if you like. It means nothing to him. He has nothing at risk and you have his ridiculous excuses for huge loses. He makes his money on all those Plosky’s out there. I wish I had realized this sooner.

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Bob
Guest
Bob
July 9, 2011 11:21 pm

No exaggeration, C. Plosky. I know what my losses were. I stopped out of the OIH calls and several other trades with a 50% loss or worse. For the past two months C. J. Mendes has been flailing around without a clue, buying calls when everything is going down and buying puts when everything is going up. There is no possibility of me getting back to break even with this service.

Salsa2hot
Member
Salsa2hot
July 17, 2011 1:29 pm

I auto traded with TOFI from mid March thru mid June. Like most of the above reviewers, I lost over 50% of my spec trading account before dropping them. The winning trades were few and usually for one or two hundred dollars.The losers were too frequent and in the one or two thousand range.
Menses ignored the market direction and traded emotionally. He ignored or doesn’t understand the Greeks. I suspect that a career change is in his future.

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