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Options Hawk Subscription Products: What It Is and What It Is Not

Feb 20, 2012

With the markets being closed for President’s Day I have some free time to clarify the Options Hawk subscription products.First, any one that has used my service can validate that it is the single best full-service trading product in the market with an options focus.  I provide a complete product ranging from pre-market reports to after-market reports with a live trading chat throughout the day where hundreds of actionable content posts are delivered daily.  I spend hours upon hours on stock research and everything is laid out in a very organized setting on the Trading Hub Member Page.  Details of what MAX Members receive are here https://www.optionshawk.com/services_detail.phpHowever, my products are not for everyone.  I am not one of these “Options Picking” services that sends out a few picks per day or week.  I am not the be-all and end-all of trading services that requires no work on your part, there are no free lunches.  I see many of these services posting daily on how great of a January 2012 they had, up 60% or whatever, when I also know these same services completely blew-up last July.  These services often only know one trade, long calls, and a 60% gain in January followed by a 40% gain in February is nice until that 80% haircut comes in March, they just do not know any form of risk management nor how to play the market from the short side.These products are irresponsible, it is impossible to know the trading style or the individual risk profiles of all of your subscribers, yet you are recommending the exact same picks to everyone.  Traders must take responsibility of each of his/her trades, and know the inherent risks associated.I am also not one of the stock-pickers playing these illiquid sub $10 stocks and day-trading these garbage names for $400 here and $500 there.  That is just not enticing to me, I look for 50%+ gains in days with options, no interest making those little figures.  To each his own, but I’d rather have a sound reason for making a trade then trying to pump-up these penny stocks and taking advantage of market inefficiencies.I was a game-changer when I launched my service, now it seems everyone has a live trading chat.  However, my chat is 95% me and I filter the rest, only adding actionable content that other users post, to avoid the fluff seen in most chats and now across twitter.  Others can copy the business plan (ask Stock Monster who is now utilizing the exact business plan I created for them 3 years ago, but I never got around to taking legal action), but one thing that cannot be copied is me, (well I’m not sure how far cloning has come along).  I am always coming up with new ideas to enhance the features for members, and after using options flow to find trades for the past 5 years I am as much as an expert as anyone at reading flow.I focus more on providing the actionable content, and clients can selectively choose trades that best line-up with his/her views, often as simple as “I was liking that name too, and now this gives me further confidence to enter that trade.”  I do run a mock portfolio with the trades I consider the highest probability for success, combining picks from monitoring unusual options action, technical trades, fundamental based trades, and earnings strategy.  It is done very well to say the least, started at $100,000 in June 2009 and now sits at over $2,200,000.  I know that seems unreal, but every trade is tracked and can be found in the archives of the live chats with entry/exit, and I post quarterly results on the website at https://www.optionshawk.com/cms.php?page_name=OptionsHawk_Performance . Yes, there will be some slippage on entry/exit with option spreads, and also does not take into account commissions, but the point is my methods are wildly successful.I have turned away countless number of prospective subscribers for multiple reasons.  One common reason is they are looking for these Email and/or Twitter picks to be delivered, but I simply do not have time to be able to take my focus away from the Trading Hub, it would be unfair to my paying members.Second, traders are often seeking that “Golden Ticket” and saying they have $20,000 and ready to trade options.  I simply tell them the account is too small to take on the risk of options and they are better served investing for the long term in high yielding stocks.  This also goes back to the earlier note of not being an “Option-Picking” service.My services are not for those who are not willing to put the work in to become better traders, and looking to blindly follow picks.  I am also not an educator, that can be found elsewhere on the internet and I know Steve Place does an excellent job at Investing With Options and highly recommend him if looking to learn more on options trading.The majority of my clients are Hedge Funds and High Net Worth Individuals that are already established as traders.  My service is providing an edge, a method of idea generation to capitalize on high reward/risk ratio trades.  I have a great background in Fundamental Analysis and Technical Analysis, and combining it with my methods of tracking options order flow has been a very successful combination.  Less experienced traders are quickly over-whelmed with the amount of content I provide, and can get frustrated, but my target market wants to see everything I see, so I am generally posting at minimum every 5 minutes.  I excel with customer service, clients have full access to me throughout the day in the chat, although as noted earlier I do not have the time to educate, but can clarify any uncertainties.I have many clients that have been with my service for more than 2 years, and it is all about knowing how to use it.  I provide in depth Investment Research with a focus on Institutional and Unusual Options Order Flow, and leads my clients and I to names we would not have found simply by looking at charts or P/E ratios, I combine 3 important pillars of trading.Sometimes I am asked why not just trade, and forget about running a service, which is a fair question and often debated.  My first response is why not do both, a steady flow of income on top of trading profits, and there is plenty of liquidity that sharing picks has little interference on my trades.  Second, and most importantly, is that I like to share.  I share so much free content on Twitter and on my site, and have always been a selfless person that is constantly looking out for others before myself.  However, I also feel that hard work deserves to be rewarded, and hence a subscription service for serious traders looking to gain an edge in the markets.  My work-ethic is unparalleled and it shows in my work.It may sound unusual coming from a stock-market junkie, but money is not all that important to me, I have everything I need and then some, and the recognition of great work and fame is much more important to me.  I have been published in Bloomberg, Reuters, Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal and countless other global newspapers.  I consider this a nice achievement for having started just 2.5 years ago on an aluminum chair in my room with a laptop and an external monitor, and building up a business that has more than doubled each year.  This has happened without me ever promoting and advertising, just word of mouth really.  If I really wanted to go for it I could easily start up a large company and bring in 10X what I do now, but for now I am comfortable being the small-business, although my mind is full of so many great ideas that I just cannot undertake on my own, I may one day need to look into expanding.Hopefully this post clarifies what OptionsHawk is and how to best use my products.I’m not trying to sell anyone, I offer 10 day trials and some find it is the most amazing product in the world, while others are looking for something less intensive, and I completely understand everyone has a different situation.  I have posted many of my testimonials on the Home Page from clients, worth a read if you have not seen.  Also I never really use the Investimonials Site (and have converted to a new twitter handle), but also some reviews on there with 11 at 5-Stars and 1 at 4-Stars http://investimonials.com/twitter/reviews-twitter-optionradar.aspxI just needed to lay this out today as something I can reference when I receive all these questions, and had the time to get it out today.

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