Why Do I Sell Options?

Hey traders,

I’ve been in the game for nearly 40 years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that most options buyers lose their money.

In fact, depending on the stats you look at, somewhere between 80-95% of options buyers end up losing all their premium by expiration.

So why would I want to be on that side of the trade?

Simple answer: I don’t.

I realized early on that I didn’t want to be the one buying options, hoping for some massive, home-run win. Instead, I decided to become the house — just like in a casino, where the odds are in favor of the house, not the gambler.

When you sell options, you flip the odds in your favor. You don’t need to be perfect or time the market just right. The options buyer? They’re the ones taking the risky bet.

But as the seller, I’m the one collecting the premium, and I’m okay whether the stock moves a little, a lot, or not at all.

In short: I sell options because it works. The odds are on my side, and when you stack the odds in your favor, the wins follow.

Stick with me this week because I’m going to dive even deeper into two devastating things that happened to me early in my career that turned me from an options buyer to an options seller — for life!

UPDATE: You can now find those two stories here:

The Time I Had to Take a Bus Home for Thanksgiving (And What It Taught Me About Options)

The Day Izzy Collapsed — And What It Taught Me About Options

Trade well,

Jack Carter

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