From Struggling Trader To Making A Killing With Dan Hayden - 49

People literally ask me this one question ALL THE TIME… “Allen, how did come up with such a lucrative, safe, and easy way to trade?” I explain it all in my new book Passive Trading, get your free book here  https://www.passivetrading.com/free-book! Option Genius was built with you...the individual trader, the breadwinner, the dreamer, the rock your family depends on ...in mind. Because we know what it takes to become a successful and profitable trader. And that’s exactly what we help you do best. Get your $1 trial of Simon Says Options, our most conservative and profitable trading service here https://simonsaysoptions.com/stockslist-ss-trial-offer.  -- How do you go from being a struggling trader to making a killing with options? That's what I'm talking to Dan Hayden about. You see, Dan Hayden is one of our students in our new course that we have released, it's called the Passive Trading Formula. He's been in the course for a few months, and he wrote to me, and was very enthusiastic and was very happy with his results. When I read them, I really could not believe my eyes. I was shocked and I was like, "Man, I got to interview this guy. I got to figure out exactly what he did, how he did it, and I have to share that information with you guys." This episode is an interview with Dan Hayden and how he is learning. He was already an experienced trader. He knew a lot of strategies and everything, but it was just something in the course that helped him to take it to the next level. Then we're going to help him take it even more to the next level.  If you are struggling, even if you've known a lot of strategies, even if you've done courses or whatever, but there is something still missing, I think this episode is something for you to listen to. Hopefully you'll get something out of it. Let's go ahead, let's cue the music and get with it. For more info on the program mentioned in this episode check out our Passive Trading Training HERE.   Dan, why don't we get started and let me know a little bit about you. Who is Dan? Why do you trade options? Dan Hayden:      Yeah, so my name is Dan. I'm in Upstate New York. I started trading options a long, long time ago just because I wanted to earn along with the normal earnings of the stock market and I wanted to complement my trading. Way back when, I don't know how, I think it was from my family, my grandfather, I was drawn to the stock market because it seemed like that's one of the ways in order to build wealth. Not to say that I had a lot of wealth, but it's another tool in your bag to complement your normal investing that you're doing with normal stocks. Allen Sama:        Do you work full-time? Dan Hayden:      That's when you and I got in touch with each other, because I was actually laid off. I had a awesome job, I was laid off, and I was at the point where I had to decide, "Shoot, do I just retire now? Do I go back into the workforce?" I had an awesome job and loved what I did, but I did travel a lot and it took a lot out of me. Therefore, it hampered my ability to just trade options because I was so busy. When I contacted you, you had a promotion going for your new program. Right now, I am consulting. I do some work on the side and I am trying to, with your services, and system, and help, and as well as people on your site trying to get back into it, trade, develop a strategy so that I can comfortably earn a couple of thousand dollars each month is my goal. Allen Sama:        Yeah, I mean your story is very similar to a lot of the stories that we hear. People have been working really good jobs, they're making a decent amount of money, their family gets accustomed to a certain lifestyle. Then because of the economy, or the company, or something happens, and that job and that income is not there anymore, then the question is, "What do I do now?. [inaudible 00:04:01] go back into the workforce?" If I do, a lot of times it's hard to make the same income as you were making before in the same job. Dan Hayden:      That's exactly right. Allen Sama:        That supplement income has to come in [inaudible 00:04:14]. Then a lot of people come and say, "Okay, I have money that I have saved up over the years. How do I make the most of it?" I'm really excited that you're taking action. Dan Hayden:      As we spoke, you and your program has given me the confidence to realize that. All of these services, and I get way too many in my emails, and they're provocative, they stimulate your interest and you're like, "Oh, wow. Maybe I should join this. Maybe I should do this."  It was great because as I jumped in, it made me realize that I am blocking all of these other emails that come to my inbox, and I don't want to be clouded by they have the best new widget, and they have the best this and the best that. Because you've shown to me, and I have questioned you that these other places are making something very, very easy complicated. Your scanning, your reviewing of the three moving averages, and showing the trend makes it very, very simple to select the trades that are applicable. Allen Sama:        There are people who are traders and then there are people who are expert marketers. Sometimes I envy them, some of the other companies. They're like, "Man they make hundreds of millions of dollars a year selling their services. I wish I could do that." Dan Hayden:      Yeah. It's all what you want too. If you're a really good trader ... I always said, if you're a really good and you have something that's really, really a great program, why do you have to charge people right away? Let them get into it and then bill them. If you're so good at trading, why would you even offer this because you can just stay at home, do your trading and make your money there. Why do you have to offer these services?  That's where the suspicion comes in. I just had one in about a year, a year and a half go subscribe to them. That's when the market turned. I realized that they're not doing anything different than I was doing in selecting the verticals to trade. Their losses were like my losses on my own. It's like, "I can I lose my money on my own without having to plunk down $750 or $1,000, or whatever." When you and I, when I applied to your program, it was perfect timing because I was down. I was hitting the chops because you never expect you to be laid off. Never in my life had I been laid off before. I'm like, "I had invested and been wise with my money all my life." I was at the point where I could say, "Well maybe I can just stay home and enjoy my family, and relax a little bit and start getting back into trading options."  It was perfect timing because you lifted me up and got me back into trading. It's been fun. You have a very practical approach to selecting stocks to trade on. I also like your methodology of thinking. It's almost like a cycle. You could sell puts on really good stocks that you want to own and collect dividends, because I have another fund that I do that with. You own those stock and then you can trade covered calls on those. You can bring in, if you are executed and you do now own Verizon with a 5% or whatever it is dividend, and then you start selling covered calls on those so you have more income coming in. Then you're also doing your vertical spreads so you have additional income coming in. Technically there's three ways to create an income stream and it just made a lot of sense to me. Allen Sama:        For our listeners, I just want to let you know that Dan is part of our Passive Trading Formula program, our course. That's what he keeps mentioning, the program. That's the one that he's in. Basically the idea behind that is I got to a point where in my own trading, where I didn't want to spend os much time watching the markets and watching my trades. You can do that in the beginning if you're just starting out with a little bit of money, you have to be a little bit more aggressive, so you have to take more risks. But eventually you get to the point where you're a little bit older or you [inaudible 00:08:47] a little bit more money, and you say, "I just want to do this in a passive way." The myth is that if you're not as actively engaged, you won't make as much money. Dan has proven that, what would you say, Dan? In the first four months of 2019 or the first five months, your paper trading account was up about 90,000? Dan Hayden:      Yeah, but I do have to take a little bit of that back because some of that I was called out on and it impacted my results. But I think overall it was $45,000. Clearly ... Allen Sama:        In about five months? Dan Hayden:      Correct. Yes. Allen Sama:        On what type of account? Which size? Dan Hayden:      I did a paper trade account and I automatically, I think I put in $250,000 into it. Allen Sama:        All right, that's a really sweet gain. How long do you think you spend every day on your trades? Dan Hayden:      It's actually changed because from the beginning of the year, I think we got started in January, I had all the time in the world. Then I just got called for a contracting position, so I am working as a consultant with a company right now. I've pulled out a little bit more. I traded a lot for January, February, March, April. May has been a little bit less. I just have to figure out what my time scan is going to be so that I have the appropriate amount of time to be trading. Allen Sama:        Do you think that the trades that we're doing require a lot of time for you? Dan Hayden:      No. I think in and this is something that I want to learn more of and I asked on our call last week is that I want to be able to set automatic stops, which I know you're not a big of, but I want to get into a method of basically setting stops right when I set up the trade so that if I do have to fly somewhere, I don't have to be with a computer.  Time wise, not at all. I started with my watchlist, you'll see two watchlists on the left, I started with mine and then I put yours in as well. I like yours better. Now I'm also just scanning through companies that I know there's no premium to paid on them. I don't even go to them, I just go to the next one. It almost seems like I'm trading the same stocks over and over again. [inaudible 00:11:32] less and less time. Allen Sama:        Yeah, that happens. You develop some favorites and you like the way they're acting, you like the news that's coming out. Some of them might be on your list. You might trade them over and over again for two, three years. Eventually stuff will change, the stock will change, it'll change is behavior. Maybe a new competitor will pop up, or new CEO or whatever. Then it'll drop from your list. You're be like, "I don't want to trade that one any more. It's not acting the same way." That's why we focus on that watchlist and say, "These are the same companies I want to watch every month." Then you get a second feel, like a sixth sense that it's not acting properly. Let's not trade it this month. Let's just relax and watch it, and then we'll maybe look at it again next month. Dan Hayden:      Absolutely. I hope more and more people start getting active in your site with interactions because I've learned of companies that I've never even heard of before that have very good premiums. It's been interesting picking up a stock here or a stock there that you can start to track as well. Allen Sama:        That's why one of the reasons we have everybody put the homework inside the group itself, because that helps other people. Anytime somebody puts in a homework assignment and says, "Okay, these are the trades I've found that I really like." Other people could look at those and be like, "Whoa, that's a really good trade. I think I'm going to do that one." Dan Hayden:      Exactly. [inaudible 00:13:03]. Allen Sama:        There was a couple that I found from somebody that put them in and I'm like, "Oh, wow. I didn't even know this one particular stock was paying that much right now." I was like, "Wow." Dan Hayden:      Exactly. Some with very rich premiums. That's what we're all looking for. I like it when people, when they communicate. I think people shouldn't be ashamed or nervous about asking questions because everybody is starting out at different levels so that when experienced people can support the young people, or the new people just starting out, it makes for great interaction and a great learning experience in your group. Allen Sama:        What strategies have you decided to focus on? Dan Hayden:      I have been doing some naked puts, some selling. Then I started with covered calls only because I have a couple of stocks that I have a lot of shares in and I said, "Okay, I want to build up some income," but I haven't focused on that too much. Most of it has been vertical spreads and selling puts.  If you're on right now, I guess I'm a simple guy, I got to make it really easy for myself. What I'll show everybody is basically I'll go through here on the left-hand side, and I'll start with my watchlist and the charts. You'll see here that I have the three simple moving averages, the 20, 50 and 200. You can see that I ... You want to go with the market. If the market's up ... Allen Sama:        On the screen you're showing your Thinkorswim paper trading account, right? Dan Hayden:      Correct. Yes. Allen Sama:        Yeah, okay. Dan Hayden:      Like I said, I think I started with 250 and right now net liquidating would be 484. Clearly it's been pretty nice. I wish this was really money, but this has been really fun. As you've told me is to develop the confidence to basically start cash trading at the right time, because you did, you were very pointed to me, how long did it take me to learn my trade? Because I wanted to go right in, "Okay, hey. I've been pretty successful. Can I go right into cash now?" You said, "Give it some time, get more comfortable." It's true. Hey listen, we're going to lose some money, but if we win more than we lose, we're going to be way better off. I'll just scroll through and see which ones are either above the 20, 50 and 200, or below the 20, 50, 200. For example, ADM I'll say no because it's right in the middle and it's just not one to be traded. AGN looks like it's down, so that's something where you could actually do a call. This is Allergan and I think Allergan pays a good premium. What I do is I come right over to ... For people who are watching this, what I'll do is I set up basically almost three screens going at once. You can do this, and I know Allen, you did this on one of your calls, but you can do this by detaching this layout right there. I detached two layouts. All this is to do is just to make it simple and quick, so that I can scroll through, select ones. Then you see down here on the bottom left and if I'm scrolling all over the place, I apologize, but I have on my scratch pad basically the numbers that I want for my verticals in order to know that I'm at the 10% level. Right away, as easy as it sounds I always like, "Okay, I got to look. Is this 10%? Is this 10%?" As Allergen showed, it's down. I would look and say, "Okay, let me look at some calls." I'd go to a delta of typically we're working around the 10%, so I looked between seven and 14. Maybe got to the 14, which is 140. I go over to this page and look at the 140, it's /135. Okay and it says it's not available. I don't know why it wouldn't be, but maybe it's just uploading. Not available. Let's go to the next one. I would scroll down all of these. This one looks good too because it's above the three moving averages. However, it looks like it's dipping down a little bit for AIG. Got Applied Materials.  This is how I would scroll, as you've educated me in looking for those that are either above or the below moving averages. Altria is a good one. I'm trying to think of some of the goods ones that I like. I can go here. Broadcom, AVGO, that's one that I have traded almost every month and is a pretty good one, so let's go to it. Allen Sama:        In terms of the credit spreads or the layup spreads, do you follow the rules as laid out in the course or have you modified them? Dan Hayden:      No, I pretty much follow your rules. I probably have gotten a little sloppy this month because for example, I was gone this week traveling and I wasn't on top of it as much as possible. I'll travel with my iPad and leave my computer at home, and my computer basically is the best one. iPads I have trouble basically executing the trade with Thinkorswim. Allen Sama:        Oh, it's not the same thing? I know I do it on my phone, so I use their app on my phone. I've never done it on an iPad before. Dan Hayden:      Yeah. I can't get used to the phone app either, but either one, I'm more comfortable with the MacBook. I'm just going to bring up Broadcom to see where we are at right now. Right now it's right in the middle of these three, so I would stay away from a trade right now. Allen Sama:        About how many trades do you put on at a time? Dan Hayden:      It all depends. It all depends on what's telling me to trade. Right now I have, there's a put. The puts are on Altria and AT&T, two high dividend players. If I own them, I'm good. If just take the premium in, I'm good and then I'll do it again next month. But right now I have NVDIA, Intuitive Surgical, Campbell, Arcadia, Pacific and Broadcom.  You can see here, profit and loss. These are things about setting up automatic sells when they hit a certain point. Allen Sama:        Let's say you got about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Nine trades on. Dan Hayden:      Yup. One, two, three, four, nine. Allen Sama:        In addition to your covered calls. Dan Hayden:      Covered calls, I've stopped doing those. I used to do the covered calls on these stocks right here, but I was ... The covered calls to me, I'll get into those later. With Alexion, I have 1,000 shares of that. That's the one I really wanted to stay focused in on. But I've put that on the side burner. I'm just doing the puts in the vertical spreads. Allen Sama:        The thing is, with the different strategies, you can take and see what the market is giving you, and you can manipulate. If you're in a bull market, naked puts, they do awesome, put spreads do awesome. Covered calls, if you're not in the stock, if you don't own the stock and you just want to get out every time, then they work really well. In a sideways market, I love covered calls. Dan Hayden:      Which right now, would you consider us being in a sideway market? We're up one day, down the next, up one day. I would think ... Allen Sama:        We're still in a pretty good bull market in a sense where we're a 1% or 2% away from the all-time highs. I would say we're still bullish, especially if the fed does cut rates again. We have all this other news going on, all the noise that goes on in the market. But for the last, I don't know how many years, the bull market has been there because the fed had rates so low. I think that if they start cutting rates again, that's just going to signal to the market again that [inaudible 00:21:15] just take it up higher even more.  In my opinion, yeah, it's a pretty good bull market. Yeah, you can still make money with non-directional trades, but overall I think we're ... I like this type of market where it's going higher, but it's doing it slowing. We're not like shooting, shooting up higher. Not too much volatility for our premium to be good. We can make our 10% on our spreads and not have to worry about too much movement. Dan Hayden:      That might be help too, is to say, in a bull market, a slow rising bull market, it's best to trade the puts, covered calls. What would be the best vehicles in select markets, that might be helpful too. For me, whatever spits out as I scroll though, and I try to scroll through on Monday morning to determine what I'm purchasing for that next ... What don't we try 25 to 35 days as the best timeframe? Or a little bit longer. For example, Allen, SPX right now, it's above the three moving averages. Technically this looks like it could be a trade. This is the vertical. Allen Sama:        I've noticed that [inaudible 00:22:36] here, when you're looking for trades you're looking at the monthly ones. But on some of your trades that you already have on, you've done the weeklys. Dan Hayden:      Yeah. I try to do it, I think you said the sweet spot is 30 to 40 days out, so I'll try to go 30 to 40 days out. I think those were set last week. That's typically why. Right here, I would look at this 35. If I'm wrong, you let me know. With SPX above the three moving averages, I look at the 35 and look over here on the puts. I would look at is the delta around ... What do you like? You like deltas around 20? Allen Sama:        It depends on how many days. I would like to get it as low as possible, but if I'm going in there about 30 days or less, then the delta increases probably about 20. If I'm at 35, I might try to get a 15. But really, we're trying to make 10%, so I'd like to get as far away from the money but still be able to have a potential 10%. The delta in that case, I use it more as a guideline, not as a hard and fast rule that this is the delta I'm going [inaudible 00:23:45]. Dan Hayden:      Just to give anybody ideas, I have it set up so you have the singles on one page, so I can automatically go to what I was looking at, which was the SPX. I'll go down and I'll look for between a 10 anda 20 delta that brings in good returns. I would go down here, let's say, to a 15 delta, 35 days out. It's somewhere around 27.20. Then on this next page, I already have the verticals pulled up, so I can automatically look and say for the 15 deltas, 27.70, I can almost right away go to 27.20, so 27.20. I am doing 27.20, 27.25, which would be right here. I wish I could show you exactly what the bid-ask spread was, but it could be because of the bandwidth, but I'd be looking at this area. You've got plenty of open interest. It's the SPX, so you can expect that.  I would be looking in this area between a 10 delta and a 15 delta. Then I'd automatically go over to my, this is up here, so I automatically go over to my scratch pad to make sure that whatever I am trading, I'm making 10% on that money. Allen Sama:        That's why I think you need the computer instead of the iPad, because you have so many screens open. Dan Hayden:      That's probably it. But as you get going, I'll minimize these screens for the verticals, and I'll minimize the screen for the singles so that I'm actually overlaying each one. Right away I can go from one to the other, to the other and say, "Yup, that's a trade." If not, then I go right back over here, click this and go to the next stock.  If you have a big screen and you're at a desk, this is easy to do. Allen Sama:        Yeah, [inaudible 00:25:47]. Dan Hayden:      But I'm lazy so I carry around a laptop and don't want to hook it into an office. I typically sit on my front porch, and make the trades and make my notes. Allen Sama:        That sounds pretty sweet, man. Making money on the porch. Dan Hayden:      I overlook one of the Finger Lakes, so you got to take advantage of that too. Allen Sama:        Okay, so you told me that your goal was to make about a couple thousand dollars a month. Dan Hayden:      Correct. Allen Sama:        Do you think you've been doing this for what about six, five months now? Dan Hayden:      Correct, yes. Allen Sama:        Do you think you have the confidence to start going real money? Dan Hayden:      I do. I do. I have confidence and I have confidence in the selection criteria. I asked you, I said, "This is way too simple. This doesn't make sense." You can get pushed up and above, but you use your rules to get in and get out. You can minimize the losses because in this crazy market, anything can happen. Macroeconomically anything can happen that can impact these markets quickly. We can get pulled around. I've seen in. Where I get in, it makes sense. [inaudible 00:27:04] trading below or above the three moving averages, and then all of a sudden the market goes crazy and does something opposite. I've seen it right at the beginning of this year. That's the only thing that I have to build more confidence on, and I'm working with the Thinkorswim platform is that when I do make the trades, I am going to start setting stop orders so that if it hits a particular level of a loss, I'm out. If it hits a particular level of a gain, for example, at five cents, 10 cents, I'm just out. I move out, Thinkorswim has a pretty good commission rate so it's not costing me a lot to get out. At five cents I think it's free, and then I move on to the next trade.  Yeah, the confidence is there. Do I get nervous that I don't want to lose money? Absolutely. But you got to expect that if you have good rules, any money that you do lose should and could be minimized. That's the one thing that I have to integrate into my trading because hey listen, I had the time to be at the computer every single day for an hour, and check on my trades. But as recently, I really haven't because I've been flying around and meeting up with these companies. That's why I want to get good with setting up automatic stops. Allen Sama:        It's about an hour that you said, you spend about an hour looking at your trades when you can? Dan Hayden:      Yeah. It doesn't have to be every day, but probably an hour throughout the week. Especially if there's some newsworthy events happening, you want to be on there definitely during that day. But it's probably an hour a couple of times a week. That's only, that's like managing seven trades or so, something like that. It's not a lot of trades, not a lot of time, but typical to when you pick up this laptop or computer, I get carried away and I start looking for some other good dividend playing stocks [inaudible 00:29:08], because I love the scans.  Here's one that I did looking for dividends, high dividend plays and what I could maybe sell puts on. I'll do certain other things while I am looking at the trades that I have already open to try to create other opportunity. Allen Sama:        [inaudible 00:29:30] you just love this stuff. You're just into it. Dan Hayden:      I do. I do love it. Allen Sama:        If you didn't get sidetracked, it would be so easy. Just log in, check it out and I'm out. Dan Hayden:      Absolutely. People go on Facebook and all this stuff. It's great to keep up with that at stuff, but I enjoy looking at the stocks, the stock market and just trying to pull a little bit from the market into my accounts. Allen Sama:        Yup, yup, yup. Okay, you've been ... All right, what else? I had a couple questions for you in my mind. They just slipped. Dan Hayden:      See because you're probably looking at your screens right now. Allen Sama:        No, I'm looking at yours. I'm at home. I didn't even make it to the office today, so I'm just looking at the laptop. All I see is your stuff.   Wait it's funny though, you don't usually Analyze tab. I use that one almost exclusively. Dan Hayden:      Yeah. Before I got with your service, I used to use it all the time because I used to do these butterflies, and things that I picked up from all of these services that were trying to get your money. So I did use this a lot to analyze broken wing butterflies, and we used to do iron condors with butterflies in the middle to bring the iron condor up higher. I'm not the smartest guy at this, but I was learning more and more about this as I started to throw on another trade, either to save things or to increase my profit. Maybe it's something I should be using more. Do you use it just to see about your profitability, and when it does break even and start losing? Allen Sama:        I like putting the lines on the chart, but you know how it says they are add simulated trades? Dan Hayden:      Yup. Allen Sama:        I'll just look at that one and that pops up the option chain as well. I'll go down to a specific delta. You know how you were looking at should I do this one, or should I do this spread, or should I do this spread? Dan Hayden:      Yup. Allen Sama:        Then I'll just pop it up, I'll just pick one, do it as a vertical and then it'll have the numbers down at the bottom. So it'll be like, "Okay, so the 100, 105, he's giving me 50 cents and then the 105, 110 is giving me 25 cents." I can have two or three perspective trades on the screen. Then I'll just leave it there. Sometimes I'll do a trade and there is certain stocks, like I know IBM. It doesn't have a lot of premium, but it's a very slow moving stock. I like to trade it, but you have to get in really early. Sometimes you have to get in 40 days or 45 days to be able to get decent premium amount. Dan Hayden:      [inaudible 00:32:04] decent premium? Allen Sama:        Yeah, in order to get a decent return.  I'll go and I'll check it, and sometimes I'll leave it there. Or some other stock that maybe on the chart looks really good, but it's gone up too much or gone down too much. Right now, I'll put in a trade. I'm like, "Oh man, I really want to do this trade but it's only giving me 9%. Oh, gee. Okay." I'll just leave it there in the analyze tab, and then maybe two or three days later or a week from now, I'll come back and I'll look at it again when I'm going through my list, and I'll be like, "Oh okay, this one now, it's giving me 10 and a half percent. Okay, I can do it," because it pulled back or it moved around a little bit. It just stays there. Then if it doesn't work out, then you could just exit out and delete it, so it's not a big deal. Dan Hayden:      Now is that in our trading videos? Do you have a session on that? Allen Sama:        No, I don't think so. That's just something I picked up myself. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, that'd be cool to go in your brain and see how you use that function with the add simulator trades, because when I went into analyze, I would always go to the risk profile. It's interesting how you use the add simulator trade. Allen Sama:        I like the risk profile too, just to tell me what is exactly the probability and then I like to put it on the chart. I like to put my break-even line on the chart and just see it. I know your fooling yourself because you think, "Oh, that's so far away. That's never going to make it." You're fooling yourself, but I just like the way that looked. Dan Hayden:      No, that would be cool for one of your programs just to say something that, "This is how I approach this in monitoring whether I should get into a trade or not get into a trade." Allen Sama:        Yeah, so we can do that. We'll do that. Let's do that on the next coaching call. I'll go in ahead and go through the screen and we'll do several of those. One thing I also wanted to mention, you got your scratch pad. That's really cool. But for me, to keep it simple, if I'm doing a five point spread, I'm looking for 50 cents. If I'm doing a two and a half point spread, I'm looking for 25 cents. Dan Hayden:      Exactly. That's typicalLy how it [inaudible 00:34:14], $1 spread, you're looking at a buck. Allen Sama:        That's a little bit more than 10%, it's like 11% if you get exactly that. You can say, "Okay, I can go down a penny or two. I'm okay with that." Dan Hayden:      Yup. You got some flexibility. Yeah.  You know what else I noticed too, Allen, is when I go to set up a trade and it's a good trade, but it just misses the mark for example if it's a dollar spread and it comes in at 0.08 cents, a lot of times I'll put in 0.09 and leave for the day, and it hits. Throughout the day, something happens. Maybe the stock changes a little, the prices changes a little bit, but I'm like, "I'm close enough where I'm basically at 10%, but I'm going to set the 10% and walk away." I've had more and more stocks, it fills while you're never there with a good premium. Allen Sama:        That's a good tip. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, that's something else that I've done a couple of times.  Hey, this is the time that you experiment a little bit. You don't want to nick your percentages, but you also don't want to miss out on a good trade because there's some weeks where it's tough to find a good trade. Even the consistent one's just not offering a premium for some reason. Allen Sama:        Yeah. It goes through different ups and cycles. When you have earnings, it's harder to find a good trade. Sometimes you have to go to ETFs or something. But what you just mentioned, putting in a trade like, "I really love it and it's really close. Let me try it." It's not going to hurt you. You put that on and sometimes because of the way the option premiums are priced, maybe a large order comes in, or the stock moves and down a little bit, and the premium just move more than they should sometimes and you get filled on those. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, that's been interesting. You made it really practical, how to approach it. Also, I will say that there's one gentleman who put on the site Excel spreadsheets, which I downloaded and they're awesome. He has a really great profitability chart, so you can put the numbers in and it'll calculate it out automatically. I can't remember the name of the gentleman that did it, but really nice addition in your site. Allen Sama:        If somebody was thinking about joining the course, the Passive Trading course, what would you say to them? Dan Hayden:      I would say people can hear what they want to hear, but there's so much pollution out there from these other services. You teach a person to fish so he can feed for a lifetime, and that's what I wanted. I don't want somebody to basically take the steering wheel and drive the car. I want you to teach me how to drive the car so that I don't have to rely on other people. I would absolutely recommend it. There's as much risk as you want in it, but you control your own destiny. That's the best place to be in because I don't want to send my $1,000 to this service and they're the ones picking out the trades, when in all reality you simplified it to such a fashion that you can join this service, but then you can learn it and move on if you want.  Hopefully they stay with you and they believe in you because I believe in you right now. You've simplified something that quite honestly as you first join, can be way overwhelming. But you made it simple, you've allowed for three different ways to have extra streams of income, and you teach us to do it. That's the best thing that you can ask for. Yes, I would definitely recommend people to join. Allen Sama:        That's funny too because you said you've studied iron condors, you've studied broken wing butterflies, which is a pretty advanced trade. But you're like, "I want to go back to this stuff that actually keeps working. I'm not going to go so advanced. I want to try to make it simple so that it doesn't take a lot of time, and you don't ave to monitor it so much and is just a lot less stressful," I think. Dan Hayden:      It absolutely is because the more things you stop placing on, the more you do have to watch the monitor, and the more you have to react and do other things to fix that broken wing butterfly. The only reason, Allen, I got into broken wing butterflies is because I paid a service to basically teach me how to do broken wing butterflies. It's probably a really good service, but quite frankly, it's way too complicated. It's not necessary. A vertical spread, if you get good at it, it can be boring, over and over, and over again. But if it's boring and your account is growing, that's a good thing. Allen Sama:        Yeah. That's how we designed it. We want it to be boring, we want it to be passive so that we can actually go and ... Dan Hayden:      Enjoy life. Allen Sama:        ... spend time doing what we want to do. Yeah. There are people that want to be on the screen all day checking their stock, and checking their trades and what not. There's definitely a place for that.  In the beginning, I tried it that way. To me, the more complicated it got, the more I realized that maybe I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but there is so many extra things that I can miss. I'm like, "I'm just a normal person. This is getting too complicated for me. Let's just tone it down. Let's take something that works, I know it works." What I love with you is you've put in the time, you've put on the trades. How many trades have you put on since you started paper trading? Just ballpark. 100? 200? 500? Dan Hayden:      No. It's not that many. It's probably a little over 100. Allen Sama:        Okay, so 100 over five months. So 20 a month, that's decent. You were practicing, you're gaining confidence, you're learning how you like to set it up with the three screens, and how to monitor it, and set up your charts and all that stuff. That takes a little bit of time, but now I think that you're at the point where, "Hey, I turned 250 into 484." Dan Hayden:      Right. Right Allen Sama:        That's [inaudible 00:40:29] double. That's really good. In five months, holy cow. Now it's time for you to now slowly, slowly transition, I think, into the real money. Maybe you pick one ... Or maybe you start with a small amount of your capital, whatever amount. You start with a little bit. Maybe let's do three spreads and two covered calls a month, or two puts and three spreads, or something like that. Dan Hayden:      Exactly. Allen Sama:        Let it out. Dan Hayden:      With a lot less contracts. Allen Sama:        Oh yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah, [inaudible 00:41:04]. Dan Hayden:      Here I'll do 10 contracts every single time. There, real money, I'll probably do between one and five contracts. Allen Sama:        Whatever the amount you have to work with, [inaudible 00:41:18]. If you have 10,000 to work with, okay, I'll do $1,000 in each one or something like that. Dan Hayden:      Each one, exactly. Proper money management. Yeah, [inaudible 00:41:28]. Allen Sama:        The contracts doesn't really matter, but the fact that you've almost doubled it in five months means if you were working with a $10,000 account, you would have done the same trades. You would have been almost the same thing. The numbers, you just add zeros at the end for more money. That's what I love too that you can start out small, do the same exact trade. You don't need $8,000 to do a trade. [inaudible 00:41:48] trade, just add zeros to it. Dan Hayden:      Yup. I have a Roth account and I keep saying, "I want to grow that Roth account." I think what I've decided is that with the Roth account, I'm going to sell puts. Then if it's executed and I own those shares, I'll sell covered calls really close to the money. Basically just keep transferring the stock. Take big premium by selling very close to the money. If it hits, okay, I'm back into cash. Now I'll sell that put again really close to the money, take a good premium. If it hits, I own the stock and now I'll sell covered calls. I just want to grow that Roth IRA money so that there's a significant amount there that's all tax free.  I've segmented it there, and then start with my cash account in selling verticals. Verticals is what ... That's the primary breadwinner I should say. Then I have an account that has a company with a significant amount of shares, and I'm just going to sell covered calls on that one. It's like three different accounts with three different principles. Allen Sama:        The company that you just spoke about, I believe you told us what it was earlier. Why are you in that one? I'm just curious. Dan Hayden:      I worked for them, so I accumulated shares over the years. Allen Sama:        Okay, that makes sense. Are you allowed to sell those if you had to? Dan Hayden:      Yeah, because I don't work for them any longer. Allen Sama:        I see. Okay, cool. Dan Hayden:      Part of me thinks about selling them, part to them thinks about just taking an income each months. It's a volatile stock, that's the problem. It can be tough trading, but if you take chunks and you sell covered calls at different levels, like one close to the money where I might lose this, but okay, so I just cashed in on 250 shares, I sell a little bit further out so that I still own those shares, and then 250 I sell a little higher. I don't bring as much premium in, but I know I'm keeping the shares. Allen Sama:        That's the thing if you work for a company, you have a little bit of a inside track to see how the company is doing. Are they hiring more people? Are they letting people off? If they're letting a lot of people off, okay there's something going on. If they're hiring more people, if they're expanding, if they're spending more money on marketing. You hear all that news that as a trader ourselves, we might not be privy to all of that unless we really dig into the information. Dan Hayden:      Correct. Allen Sama:        To be able to trade a stock that you own because you work there, I think that's a big leg up. Dan Hayden:      Yeah. Allen Sama:        Even now I'm sure you still have friends and people that work there that you know. You can stay on top of that information. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, in some instances. But then again, it goes to show that the market will do what the market wants to do because I've been around where we've had awesome quarters and we got hit by the market. We lose. Nothing's a sure thing. I remember those days where we'd have a blowout quarter and we were down 10 points. It made no sense at all. Yeah, it's good to be affiliated with it, but it's also they can throw you curve balls and make it very frustrating too. [inaudible 00:45:17] go in thinking about vertical spreads straight up and then whatever else you start accumulating through your puts, sell covered calls on, have a method to start creating your stream of income in three different ways. The way you trained us, I think is a beautiful way to begin growing your stock accounts and making money passively. Allen Sama:        Yeah, and thank you for saying that. One of my goals is the stocks that I buy, I want to get them for free. I want to get so much money back from them that I didn't pay for them. I got my money back. Then you're playing with the house money, and whatever happens happens. I'm okay because I got my money back. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, that's exactly it. That's why I think young people should be doing this as quickly as possible because they have the ability to do that, and doing it over and over again, taking in the premium which reduces the cost of the stock. Then you're saying, "Hey, it doesn't really matter because I bought this at this, I've taken this much in, and basically I own the stock for free." Allen Sama:        Then it doesn't matter if it goes down, it goes up. You're getting a dividend, you're like, "Okay, I'm happy." Dan Hayden:      Exactly. Yeah. Yup, absolutely. You still have the shares, so do whatever you want with the shares. Allen Sama:        What would you say is the biggest thing that led to your success? Dan Hayden:      Well success is ... Allen Sama:        Well I know you're being humble but seriously, but seriously, to double [inaudible 00:46:43], to double your money in five months, I've never done that. You're doing something different, you're doing something special. What do you think caused it? Dan Hayden:      For me, it was just finding out ... I needed a method to ... I just wanted a recipe. Give me something that is easy, that I can select stocks that makes sense, and then doing it.  It was basically providing the methodology, which I have because of these three simple moving averages, and then executing. That's it. It's not rocket science. This is paper traded, so you might get a little bit over ambitious with one trade over the other because it's not your money, but just to me, the most important thing was developing that method, having confidence in knowing if it's above or below that three moving averages, and the stock's trading up, and so is the marketplace trading up, it's a good sign that this is going to be a good stock to trade. Now let's look at what the returns can be, let's look at the verticals, let's look at the individuals to find the right delta. Having that method to basically weed out what you should be trading. Allen Sama:        Yeah, a lot of people, when they first hear about it they're like, "It can't be this easy." Then you said the same thing. Dan Hayden:      I did. Yup, I wrote to you and I said, "There's got to be something else I have to throw in."  You see my screen, this is from the old days where I'd be looking at volatility, standard deviations, [inaudible 00:48:19]. I tried to come up with the best technical analysis and seeing if the stock anticipated to go up, down, what. You don't need this. This was the olden days where I had all this stuff at the bottom and I've just never turned it off. You could take out all that noise, and basically just look at the charts and have confidence in what you do. You're going to have curveballs thrown at you every so often, but be ready for those curve balls, and get out with minimum losses and you'll come out way ahead. Allen Sama:        I think that's where asset allocation comes into play, especially with the different strategies. If you're only doing spreads and you're only doing put spreads because the market's going up, but then it drops, you're behind an 8-ball, you're in trouble. But if you're doing a little bit in the puts, a little bit in the calls, a little bit in the spreads, a little bit in something else, then you can weather the storm. It's not one trade will be doing good, the other trade will be not so good. The way we talk about it is, every month has the potential possibility of being a very good month. If you have a good month, and a good month, and a good month, and a good month, but then you have a bad month, which is going to happen, if you do it right then the good months will overcome the bad months. Dan Hayden:      Absolutely. Yup, yup. Allen Sama:        In the long-run, if you look at it a year, two years, three years down the road, you'll be like, "Okay, I'm up a lot. This really [inaudible 00:49:50]." Dan Hayden:      Exactly. [inaudible 00:49:51]. Allen Sama:        Some people look at it and say, "I tried it for a month and I lost money on two of my six trades, so this sucks." I was like, "Well, that's the way it works." Dan Hayden:      Exactly. Even the professionals lose. You just have to know how to minimize those losses, and that's the biggest thing. That's something that I have to do. You can see some of these losses that I have to be more proactive in setting up my losses when I set up my trades. The minute that trade hits, I got to go in and say, "Okay, I got to get out when it's profit of this or a loss of that." That's all in your ... I don't have my notes with me, but it's all in your notes for these losses.  I brought up this screen here that shows my puts. I have Altria, and I'm okay. I'm okay if own this. My fear when I put a put on, like you just talked about earlier, is suppose something happens macroeconomically between they decide not to lower rates, Iran does something, China does something and it drops heavy like Altria goes below that 47.50 put. Well now I just bought it at 47.50, but it's at 45. That's a hurt. The only thing you can do to get away from that because you're fully exposed when you do this, is just to start selling calls close to the money to say, "I either get out of the Altria and take a minimal loss, or I'm good because I believe it's going to be coming back, and plus I'm making my dividends."                                 We talked about fear, how as a trader, you're fearful of losing money. Well I'm fearful of having to buy Altria if the market drops hard, or AT&T, the market drops hards, and I'm buying it higher than the market's actually at. That's a fear that I have. But if you stay on the sidelines, you don't do it, you don't get your dividends, you don't get the opportunity to buy these stocks at a discounted rate. Allen Sama:        That's why we do the paper trading too, because actually do it for a few months and you'll get a better idea of how many times did I have to buy the stock? I did it five times, I never even came close. Maybe this fear is a little bit unwarranted. So maybe if I do it with real money, and I do it for a year, two years, three years, maybe I'll get the stock once or twice.                                 That's why with the paper trading, I'll advise everybody like, "Get in trouble. Put some trades on that you wouldn't to get in trouble with it, and so that you can see, how do I navigate my way out of trouble?" Dan Hayden:      How does it respond, exactly. Yup, yup. Allen Sama:        With Altria and AT&T, okay, maybe I'll sell at the money put. Dan Hayden:      Yup, just to see what happens. Allen Sama:        Just to see, okay, I have to buy the put at this price. What do I do now? Oh, I bought this stock. Okay, how do I get out of that? Dan Hayden:      The worst time to trade is when you're in fear, you have something going against you and you're nervous. That's the worst time to place that reactive trade. Allen Sama:        Exactly, exactly. A lot of this stuff is we're dealing with stocks as well, so if you own the stock, there's a great chance the thing will rally in the next 10 years. Anyway, if you're only trading options then you lose, and the month expires, then that's it. That loss is yours, you got to eat it. You got to make it up next month, the next month. But with the stock, you can always come back.                                 Is there anything else you want to share? Dan Hayden:      No, I greatly appreciate what you're doing in helping others. I really have learned a lot from you. I do, I do I have the confidence again in getting into option trading and having a good plan for doing that option trading. So thank you. Allen Sama:        Great, great. Yeah, I'm excited to see how you take it and how far you go from here because you got the foundations down, you got some basics, and now it's time to start doing it. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, well it's funny too because now that I'm working with this company in doing consulting with them, I have income coming in so it's like, "Okay, well I don't have to bring in income with the option trading as much." That psyche comes into play where, "Okay, when I wasn't working I said Okay, I got to make sure that start bringing in X number of dollars a month." That's why I'm not, I shouldn't say as serious because I do look at the charts and all that stuff. I track it probably a couple times a week, but in January, February, March, when I wasn't working for any other company, I was looking at it, looking at opportunities every day, and I was very, very religious about it.                                 It is that psyche, but all I can recommend to everybody is even if you have a full-time job just flat out, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour if you can just to monitor the trades that you have on, but also to look at new opportunities elsewhere. But get dedicated almost like I have a system now by scanning, by reviewing the chart, by reviewing the delta and by reviewing the return. I have a method, and that way have a method each night, each day to give yourself a couple of minutes to look at the trades and to scan so that it becomes second nature. That's the best thing to do. Allen Sama:        Yeah, definitely. Like you said with the mindset, when you don't have any income coming in and you have to make your nut, maybe $5,000, $10,000 a month, that's when the stress really this you from the trading. It's like, "Oh my God, this trade has to work. It has to work." That's when you mess up.                                 When you have even a little bit of income coming in and you're not totally dependent on your trades, then it allows you to actually trade better. Dan Hayden:      That's exactly right. Allen Sama:        That's very helpful especially when people are getting started.                                 I've seen some people where they jump the gun too fast and they, "I want to be a full-time trader," and they jump to fast into it, and they're like, "I have to make money every month." We had one student who did that and the stress just got to him. He placed trades that he shouldn't have and then he lost. On a mental standpoint it just sends you for a tailspin. Dan Hayden:      Did he need that money or was this supplementing his income? Allen Sama:        No, he had quit his job to trade full-time. He over traded I believe, and then he lost some money. Now you have to cut back on your lifestyle when that happens. It's not something that ... He has the skills. He'll be back, I'm sure he'll be back. But it hurts in your mind. You feel really down about it.                                 That's why I love it that you're starting and you're saying, "Hey, my goal is to make $2,000 a month." Well okay, if I can make 3%, 5% a month doing something pretty safe, $2,000 a month, I don't need to have a big ton of money. I can put little bit of money, make my goal, and then once you get to that goal it's $2,000 and you say, "Okay, no my goal is 3,000. Now my goal is 4,000."                                 Then eventually you can actually go and say, "All right. I don't need the consulting anymore. I'll just do this." If you love it, you go do the consulting too. It's up to you, your choice. Dan Hayden:      This isn't something where your going to make a ton of money tomorrow. It's not the day trading, it's not that heavy, it's not that risky type of a trade. This is something where you get good at it and you bringing in a little bit each month. Then like you just said, you bring a little bit each month, you get good at what you're doing, and then you get the confidence to say, "Okay, I'm going to now trade two contracts. I'm going to trade three contracts."                                 Because if you quit your job and you're getting stressed out because you're losing money, then you must be risking too much because you shouldn't be risking too much. You should have proper money management. This is my own opinion, but you shouldn't have that stress, just like you shouldn't be like, "Hey, I am so good at this because I've had all these ... "                                 I don't consider myself good, I consider myself that I've got a new training system so I consider myself a little bit more confident. But I'm not good in any means. But you shouldn't take chances. This isn't gambling. This is proper investing and trying to create a passive income. That's all it is, is a passive income. Allen Sama:        As you venture more into the real money world, you know that I'm always here. You can email me, we could do the coaching calls, or the Facebook group, or the community, whatever. You know that there is some support there as well. Dan Hayden:      Absolutely. Yeah, no. You've gotten back to me, you've slapped me on the hand a couple times. Even going onto your site, I wish there was a little bit more interaction between the members because that's where I learned and I picked up that Excel spreadsheet from your one member. I love reading it because it's like, "Okay, I want to learn more. I always want to keep learning."                                 But yeah, I felt, "Hey, I've got these trades. I've really done pretty well. Should I start doing cash trades now?" You said, "How long did it take you to learn your skill? Your lifelong skill?" We said, "30 years." You say, "Well, it's going to take you a little bit longer to get comfortable with it with the practice trading." Allen Sama:        Yeah, [inaudible 00:59:35]. Dan Hayden:      Yeah, yeah. The support's there, and you do get right back to it relatively quickly. I think it's on our side now where we have to start interacting a little bit more, coming up with, "Hey, this was successful to me, this is what I was looking for, this is what I got, this didn't work out for me, what should I have done differently?" Things like that. Allen Sama:        We're working on that. Right now, the course itself, we've only marketed it to our own list, so we haven't really gone to the public with it. We haven't let a lot of people in. We only open it up once a month for a few people, a handful of people, and then we shut it down again because I'm working with people, and we're working it out. But once we do expand it a little bit more, I'm working on a couple projects coming up that we'll definitely open up the course and we'll have a lot more people in. Once we do, then that interaction will grow.                                 Currently I'm working ... Right now my major project is I'm working on a book called Passive Trading. Once we get that book into people's hands, they'll see like, "Hey. Wow, this is awesome. I never knew I could do this." [inaudible 01:00:36] in there from students who are doing really, really well. I think that will help as well. Dan Hayden:      That's awesome. Allen Sama:        When we get more people in the group then yeah, it'll definitely pick up. But I appreciate you posting in there and doing stuff. Even on the call, I appreciate you coming on a call, and sharing all your knowledge and experience. Dan Hayden:      Like I said, knowledge and success, it's ... These net liquidating trades, and overall profit or loss, I can't figure them all out because there's other trades that came into play with it as well. I'm probably 10 grand a month or something like that in the profit. That's pretty good since I started. Allen Sama:        Yeah. You started five months ago, so yeah, that's pretty good. Dan Hayden:      It's exceeded what my initial goals were. If I can now taper it down a little bit with my cash because I'm not going to be as aggressive and all that stuff, especially to start out with, but yeah, it's been a lot of fun to learn and that's the best thing about it is that I'm not having somebody else have to tell me what to do. I'm learning it and I'm appreciative of that. Thank you. Allen Sama:        Yeah, man. You could do this for the rest of your life as long as we get older and we slow down a little bit, and our arms don't ... When your back hurts and this hurts, and that hurts, working a job or doing all that traveling might not be an option. But sitting on your porch, like you said, with your laptop, yeah, you'll be able to do that for a while. Dan Hayden:      Absolutely. If I can get good at this and then teach my kids how to do it ... Allen Sama:        Oh, game changer. Dan Hayden:      A game changer is right. Allen Sama:        That's one of the things I want to do as well. Dan Hayden:      [inaudible 01:02:14] because you're taking something that's complicating, making it simple, and teaching others to do that. That's great. Good for you. Allen Sama:        Because this stuff has been around for a long time. But with the advent of the internet, and the brokers, and now everything's at our fingers. Anybody can do this from anywhere around the world, so it's really opened it up for us as individual investors. I think for our kids, it's just going to get even better.                                 We're limited to a little bit of the U.S. stock system. I think when our kids are older or whatever, they'll be trading around the world, they'll be trading on the moon. It's going to be crazy. Dan Hayden:      It's true. No, it's true. Anything's possible. It's amazing because if you're ... The times that I've gotten into trouble is the times that I haven't got out of trades because, "Oh, it's going to turn around. It certainly can't keep going." It's going down two or three days in a row. You think it's going to turn around, but if you play by the rules, you have your rules, that's where you don't get into trouble and you're out.                                 You said, "Hey, I'll take this little hit. I've made a little loss, but I'll make it back." Or, "I made it on the front side." Almost like your puts. You've owned these stocks and you've gotten so much premium that you own it for free. How much damage can be done?                                 There's no need to take risks, to take chances. If you follow the rules, when to get in, when to get out, it's all good. You're going to have minimal losses and maximum gains. Allen Sama:        Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yup. You just play it month by month, year after year. The returns, they take care of themselves pretty much. Dan Hayden:      Yup, and you get so bored that you just say, "Well, here's Monday again. I got to go make some money." Allen Sama:        Well that's the biggest thing. That's one of the biggest risks is that you get bored and then you don't pay attention. I've noticed that when I first started out. I'll put on my trades and I'd be like, "Uh, nothing's happening. All right." Then, "Oh, nothing's happening." Then I'll just forget to check them, and then, "Oh, something did happen and I didn't ... Ah, don't worry about it. It'll be fine." That's when you get in trouble, when you get too bored. Dan Hayden:      That's where I am right now because as I'm traveling with this other consulting, you're bored because, "Well, I've made this much money. If they go wrong, I'll just set up new trades because it's paper money." But I got to get more disciplined in my paper exiting so that ... To me, that's the last part of my training right now, is just setting up the trades as I enter the trades to get out. Allen Sama:        Well you have Thinkorswim, so they have something called OCO orders. Dan Hayden:      Correct, one cancels the other. Allen Sama:        Yeah, most brokers have something like that. If you call them up and I'm sure they'll walk you through how to set it up or they might even have the videos on their website. Dan Hayden:      They do have videos. Yeah, they do have videos. Allen Sama:        They show you how to do that. If that's what you're looking for, there is a way to do it.                                 Or if you want, you can just have them alert you on your phone. Dan Hayden:      Yes, you talked about that last week, which is awesome. You can have them text or ... Allen Sama:        There's ways to run it if you want to find it that way. Then it's totally automatic. Put the trade on and then just put the orders in, "Okay, I'm done. I don't have to do anything at all." Dan Hayden:      Yeah. Yeah. I lost, but I only lost a couple hundred dollars. Yeah I gained and I made $500, whatever it is. Yeah, that to me, that's relaxation because you don't have to, in that heat of the moment when, "Oh my gosh, it really turned against me. Now I'm down $300. What do I do?" That's the wrong time to be making a decision. Yeah, if the decisions can be already made for me, all the better. -------------- For more information on the program Dan is part of and how you can join go to PassiveTrading.com And also visit us at OptionGenius.com -- LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/ WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP:  https://optiongenius.com/alliance Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.