M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

The M21 Study Guide:

How Smart Options Traders Thrive
Despite Changing Market Conditions

By John Locke

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 M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

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5. No relevant positions

6. Please note: Hypothetical computer simulated performance results are believed to be

accurately presented. However, they are not guaranteed as to accuracy or completeness and
are subject to change without any notice. Hypothetical or simulated performance results have
certain inherent limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated results do not
represent actual trading. Since, also, the trades have not actually been executed; the results
may have been under or over compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors
such as liquidity, slippage and commissions. Simulated trading programs in general are also
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being made that any portfolio will, or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those
shown. All investments and trades carry risks.

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 M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

Welcome to the M 21 study guide.

How to Improve your Options Trading Results

Having a great trading system is one thing, making it work is quite another.

I’ve lost count of the number of traders who have poor results or have given up
on good trading systems simply because of execution problems. This includes
both the execution of their trading plans and the execution of the trades
themselves.

Let’s face it, trading is a mentally demanding game and in order to follow your
system and perform well, you need to keep the proper mindset.

And even if you follow your system, trade execution can be the difference
between a winning and a losing system, or at the very least, poor execution can
take thousands of dollars out of your pocket. The situation is even worse for an
income trader who deals with complex orders and hundreds of options contracts.

The M21 trading program addresses both these challenges.

To improve your mindset, we teach you the very same mindset concepts that the
most effective people in the world use to become successful, and show you how
to apply those winning principles to trading.

M21 Objectives

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 M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

To improve your trading results we take you step by step through the process of
properly pricing your options spreads and then show you to get the very best
execution on your trades by analyzing synthetic trades and using market
movement to your advantage.

The goal of the M 21 program is to help you become a confident, competent

options trader who will have the skills needed to identify and adapt to the
changing market conditions so you can prosper regardless of what’s happening in
the market.

The M 21 is specifically designed to maximize the strengths of the bearish

butterfly, M3 and ROCK strategies by identifying the appropriate times to utilize
them.

Each of the previously mentioned strategies can be used as a stand-alone trading

system; however, their bigger purpose is to be used as building blocks to
understand how various options configurations react to price movement,
volatility changes and the passage of time in order to know the best time to use
each configuration.

This helps you maximize the strengths of each strategy while maintaining lower
drawdowns and higher profit targets when the systems are put together with the
market analysis and trade planning of concepts in the M 21 program.

This e-book is supplemental training to the M 21 online seminar.

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 M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

Why Blindly Following Your Options Trading Rules Eventually Leads to Failure

Trading rules are designed to help us make money and eventually become a
better trader.

Unfortunately market conditions change. The static examples you find in trading
education don’t provide guidance to navigate new price action.

This is where the rubber hits the road and where success or failure lives or dies.

How do you adapt? What is your plan after the perfect entry?

Price action, Greeks and volatility readings don’t remain in a perfect vacuum and
neither should you. Ignoring them is why most people ultimately never transform
into “traders.”

Why Rules Based Options Trading is Not the Answer

Back in the mid 2000’s iron condors, bullish verticals and covered calls were the
big thing. We had an extended period of time with a low volatility, and up
trending markets. Those strategies were working great. All you needed to do was
follow a basic set of rules, all of a sudden you were a great trader.

In 2007 these iron condor and neutral to bullish bias strategies started taking
losses. Traders who were “merely following a set of rules”, didn’t understand how
to adapt to the market. They never learned how. So they started to panic.

They would take on too much risk and trade differently without understanding
the consequences. They started jumping around and implementing unfamiliar

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systems without proper testing. Like many people, they took what appeared to be
the easy path to success, only to find out was really the path to failure.

The lesson here, is following a system without learning how to trade in the
process leads to a false sense of security.

What Most Options Traders Never Truly Understand

All options trading rules have their weaknesses but unfortunately you don’t find
them until market conditions change and they stop working. At this point you’ve
found that you’ve mistaken a perceived skill for your ability to follow directions.

Many rule sets work for extended periods of time but as market conditions
change and trading losses began to mount; many traders try to force the rules to
work anyway. They end up taking on too much risk and trading differently without
understanding the consequences.

When that doesn’t work they start jumping around and implementing unfamiliar
systems and that starts the process all over again.

Instead of having one year of experience you now have 12 one-month

experiences. You are not benefiting from the cumulative education and growth
that can only come from a path intentionally designed to seek out feedback to
improve.

When you are prepared in your mind, for nothing but a seamless positive
outcome, it will be difficult to make progress. If not impossible.

How to Become a Successful Options Trading Student

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To start with a solid foundation, your goals need to align with your current skill
level. Your initial plan must be designed to withstand large price movements and
minimize drawdowns while you learn how to trade (the real mechanics of options
trading), not just following instructions.

Next you will need a basic framework that explains how to properly analyze and
understand your position. You should seek to understand the multiple adjustment
strategies, which scenarios they correct and of course when to use them.

When you truly understand your position, how to identify risk and how to correct
that risk, you begin to transform into a “real” trader. Developing the skill to adapt
strategies to changing market conditions will help ensure your long-term survival
in the markets.

In order to really get the most out of our trading and ensure your long success,
you need to go beyond trading theory.

You need to have a winner’s mindset and the proper psychology so you can
create great goals and plans and then successfully follow through with those
plans.

Introduction to the M3

If you are like most income traders you’ve probably scoured the internet looking
for trading rules that are going to make you money.

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There are programs all over the internet, and after trying a bunch of things that
don’t work, you may have been lucky enough to find something that does. And
that may just be the most unfortunate event of your life.

You see what tends to happen is that we find a set of rules that work, we put a
system in place and it actually makes money. That’s great, you scale up your
trading size and retire to make your living trading. There’s only one problem.

Those rules you’ve got, they have their weaknesses and when market conditions
change, you’ll find them. All of sudden that set of rules you were using no longer
work.

And that income you’ve been getting, all of a sudden it’s gone. Worse than that,
you’re taking consistent losses. What do you do now? Look for a new “trade”?
Good luck. By the time you find something you’ll be begging for your old job back.

The problem here isn’t the trade, the problem is that you’ve mistaken your ability
to follow directions for your ability to trade and you set yourself up for ultimate
failure.

You thought that successful trading long term was simply being able to follow a
set of rules and you found out you were wrong. Successful trading is much, much
more. Enter the M3.

The M3 is a market neutral income trading strategy that is designed withstand

large price movements and minimize draw-downs while it helps you learn how to
trade (the real mechanics of options trading), not just follow instructions.

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It has a basic framework of an extremely effective income trade and then goes
beyond that by explaining how to properly analyze and understand your position.
It also explains multiple adjustment strategies, what they correct and when to use
them.

When you truly understand your position, how to identify risk and how to correct
that risk, it’s simple to adapt the strategy to changing market environments,
helping you ensure your long term survival in the markets.

The search for the Holy Grail (Perfect “fixed rule” Trade)

Many of the traders I speak to have been conditioned through advertising to look
for the perfect “trade”. So much so that it is hard to break them of that mindset.
The problem with this mindset of depending on that “fixed rule” income trade
that actually works, as stated before, is that you mistake your ability to follow
directions for your ability to trade and that sets you up for ultimate failure.

You will find that while there may be perfect trades for specific market conditions,
there are no perfect trades for all market conditions.

In order to depend on your trading as a long terms source of income you must
learn how to change your trading strategy with market condition changes.

The first step in adapting an income trade to market conditions is understanding

how changes in market conditions affect the way a given complex options
position reacts.

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Understanding the way your position will react is much more than understanding
what Delta, Theta, Vega and Gamma of your position is.

One of the big fads that fade in and out is “trading by the Greeks”

Where the Greeks Fit in

One problem with trading by the Greeks is that the Greeks you need to maintain
vary greatly depending on market conditions and, how you correct those Greeks
will vary depending on what you want to accomplish and how you want the
position to react.

If you try to hold low Delta in a volatile choppy market, you will lose. If you let
your Greeks get too loose in a large directional move, that can mean disaster.

A bigger problem is that most income traders are only taught about “static”
Greeks which are a very small part of the overall picture.

Knowing how to modify your position to make it react the way you want it to for a
given situation is essential.

In order avoid unexpected losses you need to properly read your T+0 line and
accurately identify price movement, time and volatility risk. You must understand
your “Dynamic Greeks”.

If you have a negative Delta problem for example, what are you going to do?

Buy an ITM call? Buy an OTM call? Sell a vertical spread? Roll back a vertical
spread?

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They will all correct static Delta and, they will all cause the position to react
differently. Often times you can correct your Delta improperly and make the
situation worse.

Can you learn how to properly manage a position on your own?

Sure, I did, because there is no one else who teaches it and here is the challenge I
had with learning how to properly manage a position on my own.

The rule based systems available in the marketplace such as iron condors,
butterflies and calendars are poorly designed for learning. They have poor
risk/reward profiles and take on way too much price movement risk especially in
their adjustment procedures. This was fine when things go my way but it meant
that I took repeated losses that were larger than expected when market
conditions when against me.

This unfortunately meant that it would take years of favorable market conditions
just to get back to break even. I knew there had to be a better way.

What the M3 Teaches You

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The M3 teaches you how to trade a market neutral position that is very resilient
to price movement for the duration of the trade.

It is designed to “lose as little money as possible” while you learn how to monitor,
identify and control price movement risk in your position.

This allows you to make the proper adjustments to keep your static and dynamic
Greeks in line so that you can be in the market, learning how to properly trade a
live position without the excessive risk of most other strategies.

Many traders learn the M3 and fall in love with it.

They love the high win rate, mild draw downs and ease of management when
properly traded.

And most of all they love the tremendous amount they learn while trading the
system.

After all the M3 Trading System was designed to minimize your risk while you
learn and make money at the same time so it makes sense that risk adverse
traders would gravitate towards this type of trade.

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Introduction to the Bearish Butterfly

Once some traders have mastered risk management techniques in the M3, they
want more. And there lies the problem.

You see, there is no free lunch in trading and to get types of characteristics in the
M3, you need to give something up and in this case its high yield.

Unfortunately most high yield income trades come with a cost and that cost is
that they are extremely sensitive to price movement.

If you’ve attempted to trade an “income” position that goes for a very high yield,
I’m sure you’ve felt the wrath of a volatile market. The large price movements can
be devastating and often result in disproportionately large losses.

To combat this I created a high yield, high probability trading system called the
Bearish Butterfly.

The Bearish Butterfly is by far the most powerful rule based income strategy I’ve
ever seen. The system is designed to handle as large a market move as any “high
probability” market neutral income trade and does so with a potential yield that is
at least 3 times that of your average income trade.

When market movement matches up with this trade, the results are amazing. The
unique entry, scale in and adjustment design of the Bearish Butterfly has taken
away most of the price movement sensitivity of your typical high yield income
trade.

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As we stated earlier however, every “rule based” trading system has its weakness.
If you want to make a lot of yield, you need to take on risk and you’ve got to put
that risk somewhere and that’s true, even for the mighty Bearish Butterfly.

The simple fact is that that there are certain situations when it is very beneficial to
be in a high yield position that might be sensitive to price movement and other
situations when would you would be much better off to avoid that type of
position.

Something else to consider is that directional and trend following traders tend to
take repeated losses in sideways markets. The most common strategies to
combat those losses such as covered calls, naked puts, bull verticals and collars do
very poorly in down trending markets and most market neutral strategies take
major losses in extremely volatile and quick down trending markets.

All of which can cause major damage to your account.

The Bearish Butterfly is a trading system that is specifically designed to take

maximum advantage of volatile, choppy down trending markets as well as
sideways and mildly bullish markets which allows you to achieve maximum
performance when most traders are lucky to just break even.

How the Bearish Butterfly Unfolds

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The Bearish Butterfly takes the advantages of directional trading and combines
them with the advantages of high probability income trading to create a high
probability, high yield, positive Theta trading system.

Some things I love most about the strategy are that there is no searching for
stocks, no need to pick direction, no need to perfectly time the market and no
need to sit in front of the computer all day.

The Bearish Butterfly works exceptionally well in high volatility markets, down
trending markets and sideways markets. It can also work well in moderately up
trending markets as the trade can withstand a substantial move against the
position.

Does this mean the trade always wins?

Of course not, no trading system wins all the time.

But it does give the position a higher probability of winning than wide iron
condors while maintaining a much better risk reward profile and the ability to do
well in volatile markets when iron condor strategies often fail.

How to Adjust Options Positions for High Yield

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To review, many traders love the high win rate, mild draw downs and ease of
management of the M3 and most of all they love how the M3 Trading System was
designed to minimize your risk while you learn to trade.

Essentially the M3 allows you to earn while you learn with a low risk position. It’s
awesome for risk adverse traders.

For some, this is as far as they ever go. For others, once they’ve mastered risk
management techniques in the M3, they want more. And therein lies the
problem with trading, no risk, no goodies.

In order to get the low risk characteristics of the M3, you need to give something
up and in this case its high yield.

High Yield Strategies Can Create Price Movement Sensitivity

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Unfortunately most high yield income trades come with a cost also and that cost
is that they are extremely sensitive to price movement and usually produce major
losses with large move in either direction.

The Bearish Butterfly is the ultimate high yield income trade. When market
movement matches up with this trade, the results are amazing. The unique entry,
scale in and adjustment design of the Bearish Butterfly has taken away most of
the price movement sensitivity of your typical high yield income trade. This too
comes at a cost however and that cost is being sensitive to large extended periods
of upward price movement.

This means that in order to get the best performance from our trading we want to
be in a high yield income trade when the market is not likely to move very much
and be in a protective low risk position when the market is likely to have large
unpredictable movement.

When to Correctly Enter Aggressive Positions

What if there was a simple way, without looking at charts or guessing direction, to
determine which type of position to enter?

Enter the ROCK Trade

The ROCK trade uses a simple and effective entry test that helps determine
whether the market makers and others “in the know” are expecting large
unpredictable price movements or slower, more predictable price movements
that we can use to our advantage.

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We use the results of our test to determine whether we should enter the market
in an aggressive high yield position or a more protective low risk position thereby
maximizing our chances to enter in the most favorable configuration.

What if conditions change during the trade?

That’s OK too!

The ROCK trade uses 7 different configurations.

Each configuration is designed for a specific purpose and will be utilized as market
conditions change during the trade.

If you entered the trade in a “high yield” position and the market moves down
excessively, the ROCK trade’s adjustment sequence gradually shifts the trade from
an aggressive high yield position to a defensive position that can much better
handle large price movements and improve your chances of winning the trade.

The opposite is also true. If the trade is entered in a protective position and the
market transitions into an upward grind, the ROCK trade’s adjustment sequence
gradually shifts the trade into a more aggressive high Theta position to maximize
gains.

The bigger benefit of the ROCK trade is that it teaches you how to dynamically
change your position configuration from a position that is extremely resilient to
large price movements to one that is extremely aggressive and maximizes profits
in a flat market.

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The ROCK not only shows you how to manipulate position but it also provides
guidelines for each of those configurations so you understand how to match the
position to what is going on in the market.

It teaches you a systematic way to manipulate your T+0 line in a way that is
understandable so that you can create a position that reacts the way you want it
which allows you to have greater understanding more control over your position.

Why Options Traders May Have the Better Mindset

*The following is a guest point of view from a veteran equities trader after a
discussion we had in the summer of 2013.

After fifteen years trading equities the insight hit me like a sledgehammer…

A casual conversation with John Locke turned into one of those movie scenes
where the actor wakes up from a deep sleep with a new mission.

In my case it was a new thought process of how traders actually earn money. Now
keep in mind here I am not talking about how to place trades but how to get paid.
To put it bluntly, this seemingly innocent comment John tossed at me rocked my
world.

The Outcome Is The Same, But The Mindset To Get There Is Drastically Different.

Equity trading is about price, stop-loss and profit targets. Options trading is about
a time frame and windows of opportunities. Forty Five days and a price range of
$150-$190; for example.

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When you enter a new equity trade your focus is on your entry price and your
PnL. You are focused on static points and an undefined point of time for the trade
to create opportunity or loss.

Static and undefined, a lot of room to get antsy about the result. Here is the
difference John made me realize.

Options trades are designed from the start to know how the ending looks and
how long you have for it to happen. It gets better, most options trades have a
window of opportunity to earn money, multiple scenarios to earn a profit. In
equities you make a directional call. That’s it. One scenario.

It gets better part two. John explained the trades he employs have trade
adjustments predetermined into the trade management. He is expecting to need
to adjust the trade. As long as it trades within a window of prices, within a certain
time period, the probabilities are on his side.

Why This Is a Dramatic Difference

Options trading, as John teaches, focuses on holding and adjusting to the end.
Hold and adjust for a certain designated time period, within a “price tent.” Its
brilliant, the focus is on the end goal and adjustments are expected and planned
for. “We work the trade in a price range and adjust the window if necessary until
the trade duration is expired.”

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I have made too much money trading equities to say options trading is “better” as
John teaches and trades. I am, however, saying multiple potential outcomes to
earn money and a focus on the end is a seismic shift in trade management.

How to Custom Design Monthly Options Trading Plans

Why You Need to Learn How to Adjust Your Plan

“Jeet Kune Do is simple, but you need to know when to use a certain movement.” -
Bruce Lee

Many trading frustrations come from allocating capital at the wrong moment.

Most strategies live in a vacuum but the market doesn’t. Each month many
traders hope the market conditions match their strategy and they often end up
confused and lighter in the wallet.

The strategy works when you map out the math, but it doesn’t address that
conditions are virtually guaranteed to change after you enter the position.

Each market condition signals for a different attack. Each month there are
different opportunities to exploit.

Trying to fit a fixed strategy into a moving target is doomed from the start unless
they happen to line up at that moment.

How this Will Improve Your Options Trading

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To truly become a complete market neutral options trader, you need to learn how
to combine multiple techniques to match the market, this makes it easier to
manage positions. You are in sync with the market, not hoping it does you a favor.

When you eliminate trades that are likely to lose from the start, you improve the
odds of a positive outcome with that very decision. An advanced but important
side effect of this mindset is when your skills improve each month, you will
understand when to trade bigger.

Some trades simply have better odds and justify an aggressive position. Slam
dunk opportunities should not be traded with a meek position. Good options
traders who understand this concept will earn more as they learn to adapt the
strategy to the conditions and will lose less by simply avoiding the application of
the wrong plan.

Why Technical Analysis Matters

Technical analysis is of course, in the mix, to identify market conditions but we

want more. We want you to stack the odds.

We want to create a regional expectation for price movement for the duration of
our trade. The advantage of this knowledge is that you can take on risk on some
areas in order to make more money in others.

We have our options software and it has its place. In addition to that we can
choose technical exit points and sometimes technical adjustment points rather

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than simply exiting or adjusting our trade based solely on a profit target and a
maximum loss.

The M21: Putting the Pieces Together

As you can see each of these programs, the M3, the BB and the ROCK trades by
themselves are responsible helping people who have struggled for years finally
recognize that they really can make it as an options trader and yet they are mere
building blocks to a much more effective way to trade.

One of the problems that we discussed at the beginning of the study guide is that
there may be perfect trades for specific market conditions but there are no
perfect trades for all market conditions and this is true no matter how powerful
your strategy is.

In order to depend on your trading as a long term source of income you must
learn how to change your trading with market condition changes.

We said that the first step in adapting an income trade to market conditions is
understanding how changes in market conditions affect the way a given complex
options position reacts.

The M3 teaches you how to do that in a mild, risk controlled manner.

Next we discussed how some people want more yield from their positions and we
showed you a powerful way to get maximum yield from an income position in the
Bearish Butterfly. But there was a challenge with that. Big yield means taking on

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big risk, which is fine in the right market conditions but can be a real problem in
the wrong environment.

To remedy this we introduced the ROCK trade which uses a simple and effective
way to analyze the market without looking at charts.

By doing this we can see what the big guys are thinking and adapt our entries to
maximize our chances of entering the trade in a configuration that will match the
current environment.

Another thing the ROCK taught us is how to make adjustments that gradually
transform our position back and forth between a position that takes advantage of
lower volatility trending markets to a position that is suitable for high volatility
environments so we don’t have to just sit there and take what the market gives
us.

If you’re like most rule based income traders, you should be completely amazed
by now and yet we haven’t even discussed the most important steps in your long
term success as a professional options trader.

In order to really get the most out of our trading and ensure our long success, we
need to go beyond trading theory.

We need to have a winner’s mindset and the proper psychology so we can create
great goals and plans and then successfully follow through with those plans.

We need to know how to properly price and execute trades in order to get the
most out of entries, exits and adjustments.

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Let’s face it trades can be won or lost in execution and this is an extremely
important skill set to have.

And perhaps most importantly we need to know how to analyze the market that
we’re entering and then create a trading plan that best matches the market
environment so we can set ourselves up for the very best chance to maximize
profits while keeping drawdowns at a minimum.

In the M21 program we start of by teaching you the winner’s mindset and the
success formula of masters to help you keep your mindset in check.

We teach you how to get the very best execution on your trades by analyzing
synthetic trades and using market movement to your advantage.

And we teach you how to analyze the market by diving deep into technical
analysis and showing you multiple ways to analyze the market.

And before we go any further, I realize that technical analysis is a sensitive

subject for many market neutral traders.

Usually when I mention technical analysis in my 1 on 1 sessions most income

traders cringe. Usually this is because they either don’t understand it or they’re
thinking “I’ve tried it to call direction and it doesn’t work”.

And you know what, you’re right. Technical analysis does not allow you to reliably
and accurately call the direction of the market.

But that doesn’t mean that the information contained in technical analysis isn’t
useful.

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We all pay attention to the weather forecast on a regular basis. I don’t know
about you, but where I live, up here in the mountains of northern New England,
the forecasts aren’t all that accurate.

It’s not unusual to see temperatures readings off by more than 20 degrees and we
often get rain showers or snow squalls without warning. Now if I was using the
forecast to predict the exact temperature a week from now then I’d have a
problem because the forecast isn’t that accurate, but doesn’t mean it has no
value.

On the contrary, it has a lot of value. It gives me temperature ranges, expected

wind conditions and the general probability of precipitation for the timeframe I’m
looking at.

And although I know it won’t be perfect, I know it’s usually close enough that I
can make plans to get the most out of the upcoming week.

This is how we look at technical analysis as an income trader. We observe what’s

happening in the market and use past patterns and cycles to forecast the general
conditions for the duration of our trade.

Yes we are sometimes wrong but we’re usually close enough that we can make a
dramatic improvement in our results.

Think about it. Just by identifying the likely market conditions, we can avoid
entering trades that are destined to lose, we avoid placing adjustment points
where the trade is likely to get whipsawed.

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We get better fills on entries, exits and adjustments, and most importantly, it
helps us recognize when market conditions change so we can adapt our strategy
before we get into trouble.

Bottom line is that technical analysis is an extremely valuable tool and you’d be
foolish not to use it. Income trading without technical analysis is like running
across a busy street with your eyes closed.

It can be done, it can sometimes be done successfully but your chances are a heck
of a lot better if you open your eyes.

And this is what we are doing with the M21 program we are opening your eyes to
help you avoid the dangers as well as recognize the opportunities in the market.

Once you are aware of the opportunities and pitfalls present in the market, we
then teach you how to take advantage of them by showing you how to create a
custom trade plan for the for the month using the M3, Bearish Butterfly and ROCK
strategies that is designed to maximize profits and minimize risk for the expected
conditions.

The great part about fully understanding how to trade, how to analyze the market
and how to custom design a high probability income trade around what is actually
happening in the market is that you can stop worrying about the need to
frantically go looking for the next new fad in trading systems when your magic
box stops working.

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 M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

Instead you can confidently identify and adapt to the prevailing market conditions
and steadily improve your trading while the others are flailing around jumping to
the next new thing.

I look forward to helping you accomplish your options trading goals through my
M21 program.

All the best,

John Locke

SMBTRAINING.COM
 M21: Study Guide- Playing Chess with the Market

smbtraining.com
(646)-560-5953

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