Yesterday I had the most surprising experience after work – and it was a good surprise. I’d left my car to have the air conditioning repaired.  Air conditioning is pretty much a requirement in Orlando.  And the initial estimate for the repair was $1384.  And you know how those things go, don’t you. They always [...]

So here’s an interesting fact for you about stock options.  We know that when people buy options, 80% of the time they expire worthless and they lose their money.  That leads to one of two thoughts. First thought — let’s just not buy options, because they seem to be a bad odds proposition.  That’s not [...]

People often get too greedy when they are in a profitable options trade and hold out for more.  And they frequently lose their profit and even take a loss. So when you are tempted to do that, just think of it like this.  It’s late at night and you are leaving a restaurant.  As you [...]

When you have a winning option that has turned profitable, you are going to be VERY tempted to keep hanging on to it to see if it will go up even more before you sell it. But don’t do it.  Because options can lose value just as quickly as they can go up in value [...]

I placed my first options trade over 17 years ago.  It was a commodity futures trade on the price of corn — thousands of bushels of corn.  Analyzing my charts indicated the price of corn was going down so I bought put options. Indeed, the price of corn did drop shortly after I put on [...]

Many people don’t understand stock options and so they never use them.  That’s understandable, because just about every explanation I’ve read is pretty complicated. But I don’t think it has to be that way, so let’s give it a go, you and I.  If nothing else, I promise that you will fantasize about the phone [...]

We often hear stories about people who “bet it all” on one investment, or business, and became fabulously wealthy.  What an appealing story that is.  It gets me all fired up just thinking about it. But before we all rush out and bet the ranch on that big investment idea we just heard about, it’s [...]

Here’s a profitable investing secret that I use that is so simple you are going to wonder why I bothered to write it. But before you pass judgment, let me tell you one other thing.  It’s simple, but for some of you, and sometimes myself,  it is not always easy.  It should be, but often [...]

Another speaking myth I have run into often is that you should not use notes while giving a speech or presentation.  I just heard this one again the other day in a corporate office from a Senior Director. Hmmmm … balderdash, I say.  You get to use notes.  It is far too difficult to put [...]

One of the reasons we fear public speaking so much is that we create such a high performance standard for ourselves.  Quite often this standard is perfection. We do this because we fear making a mistake in front of other people.  That’s understandable, of course.  But the perfection standard is unreasonable.  In fact, it contributes to [...]