Jack Carter Trading

People are shocked when I tell them that I’ve been in the markets for almost 40 years.

I’ve been trading options and making money for decades…

I’ve even been a Wall Street market maker…

And I don’t know or understand the Greeks!

What Are The Greeks?

I actually don’t know, to be honest with you.

I know they’re supposed to be something that you use to trade options. But I’ve never used them once in nearly 40 years of trading.

I had to look this up on Investopedia and I’m not even going to try to summarize it for you. Here’s a screenshot if you care to read about it:

Best as I can tell, it’s a way to calculate different things that go into an option, like time decay and price sensitivity.

The Truth

A lot of traders — both beginners and “market nerds” as I call them — think you absolutely NEED to understand the Greeks before you place a single trade.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. And honestly, I think it does regular, everyday traders a disservice to tell them to stay away from trading until they understand the Greeks.

Have you ever tried to read a book on the Greeks? I tried once, it put me to sleep.

I never picked up the book again. I think those folks write these books to prove how smart they are.

The Black-Sholes Model

Another famous “thing” in options trading is the Black-Sholes Model. It’s a formula that (supposedly, I don’t actually know for sure) calculates the price of options.

Here’s what it looks like:

But here’s the thing. When I was getting ready to write this article, I went to Investopedia to see if I could tell you what it was about and I learned something:

Tons of traders talk about Black-Sholes and it turns out it’s not even used to price American options! Who knew? Not this guy.

What I Do Instead

I’m not a nerd and I don’t pretend to try to be one.

Sometimes I even say I’m the “Homer Simpson” of the trading community.

And I mean that as a compliment. I don’t need to be a nerd spending years of my life understanding some formula.

Early on in life, I took action. I dove in. I found work on Wall Street. I got trained by the best. And what I noticed is that those that took action made money.

And those that understood formulas wrote books.

What This Means For You

I know some folks have tried reading about The Greeks. And they read the same chapter over and over and over because it’s not sinking in.

Guess what? If it’s not sinking in, ditch it. There’s another way.

And it doesn’t need you to understand these really complicated formulas.

At the end of the day, a stock either goes up, down or sideways.

And spotting a trend is the best way to figure out what a stock is going to do next.

Reading the broad market is another good way of increasing your odds.

And using spreads is yet another way to increase your success with trading.

At the end of the day, if you’re a nerd, that’s great. Read the books if you want.

But if you’re not, you shouldn’t feel shut out of trading. Because none of that stuff is actually necessary!

If you ask me, those formulas only serve to complicate something and keep people from taking action.

I don’t believe in conspiracies, but it’s almost like Wall Street doesn’t want regular people make money from the markets!

Those 3 short articles I shared above are more than enough to get you started. I’m not saying you should trade real money after reading just those 3 articles.

But you will definitely know enough to start paper trading and getting comfortable with some basic ways to target weekly income from the markets

Remember: the most important thing is taking action!

Trade well,

Jack Carter

Quick note before I share this week’s stocks with you. I just went live today to share how I spot Wall Street’s huge, market-moving orders AS they’re happening. And then I trade in the wake of that activity to target massive gains. Check it out right here.

Now back to our top stocks for the week:

To help you discover the power of trends, every week, every week, I share with you a handful of the top trending stocks.

These stocks are picked by the custom-built TrendPoint software I designed to pick the strongest trending stocks in the market right now.

If you know anything about me, you know that every trade I get into starts with a trending stock.

Unless a stock is in a strong trend, I don’t want to hear about it. In my book, wishy washy stocks are the quickest way to losing money.

This Week’s Stocks

My rule of thumb is: always trade in the same direction as the broad market…

But this market’s been stuck in a weird pattern lately. So the past few weeks, we’ve been adjusting.

This week I give you 3 bullish-trending stocks that are in such a strong trend, I think they’ll continue no matter what the market does.

AL
MCK
VRT

And don’t forget about last week’s picks, which you can find here.

This week’s stocks show a strong trend and could still be in play for the next few weeks.

What can you do with these stocks?

Well, there are a couple of things you could consider — after doing your own research, of course:

You could just buy the stock. This is probably the simplest thing you could do. Then just wait for it to go up and sell when you hit a profit target you’re comfortable with. This is only for stocks we’re long on. For stocks we’re short on, you can short them.
You could buy an option. You know I’m not a fan of speculative plays, but every once in a while it doesn’t hurt to throw a little cash at a speculative option. Of course, while options can move bigtime if the stock goes up… the downside of options is that you have a time limit on how quickly you need the stock to make that move. So think about your risk tolerance and consider buying calls or puts depending on the stock recommendations above.
You could do an income play. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that I’m a big fan of income plays, because they increase your odds of winning. We do this by SELLING options instead of buying them. If you haven’t tried your hand at income trading yet, I urge you to try this exercise for yourself.

Without risking any money, it will really let you see the power of income trading and why it’s my favorite method.

Whether you end up doing naked puts, covered calls or some kind of spread, this is really my preferred method to use when I’ve found a great trending stock like the ones on this week’s list.

That’s it for now.

Stay tuned, because I’ll be sending you a new list of TrendPoint Best Trending Stocks every week! (usually Mondays)