Where it all started..

I started trading the currencies and later progressed to the futures. All Engineers (I guess) are very proficient at using spreadsheets - we very quickly build a spreadsheet to simulate "..just a few pips a day..", and then you start doubling up as your account size grow. You very quickly realize just how profitable a business trading can be. And then you commit into your first trading account..

I started with $3,000. Nowadays I see the guys starting with just $500. My days, a "pip" in the market was $10. It is amazing how fast the market can move 30 pips - wiping 10% off your trading account. Of course in your analysis you always won. It is only in reality that you actually lose. And then you try to adapt to those psychological stresses..

$300!! That is a LOT of money (well in my country it is, where the exchange rate is 14 to the dollar). I cannot afford to take a $300 knock! Not to talk about a $500 knock! The result is, when you enter, you have to keep really close stops. Funny thing, is when you look back you realise you were right most of the time. Almost every trade you were right! But you got stopped out before the market took off, because you had to trail such a close stop!! You carefully protected your funds, you simply could not allow the market a bit more freedom to move, for fear that maybe this one time you are not right, and the $300 loss can very quickly turn into a $900 loss!

Options..

Then… I discovered Options! (Through Trading Educators I was introduced to Alan Parry, much to my suprise Alan was based in Cape Town, South Africa, and I took an Options Trading course from the master). An Option has a very handy thing called Delta, which you can control. Thus entering the same trade, but with an Option with a Delta of 0.20, that same $300 loss is now only a $60 loss! Suddenly you can afford to give the market more room, you can ride out the dip in prices before the actual move. Now, when you were right (which was most of the time remember) you could survive the dip before the market started moving, and still be in the market to profit when you were proven right. Now you only took a loss when you were really wrong, and even then that loss is still less than $300!

And so came Options Explorer...

Options Explorer were born from out of these experiences. There are so many options trading strategies that allows you to carefully control the risk in a trade! It allows you to step away from the market action - the price movement..- to observe from a distance. You are no longer trading the pips, your eyes glued to your computer screen. No, you strategically trade the market, you trade patterns, you trade seasonality, the Law of Charts if you like. You enter the market and step away - your risk parameter is far away - it will take the market days to get there, you have a lot of time to realise you are wrong, and get out, still with only a small loss.

This is what Options Explorer does! It allows you to zoom out in time. It allows you to step away. It allows you to carefully plan your trades, to manage your risk. It allows you to create a relaxing business, a profitable business. It answers the question "what is the right way.."

Do I still trade futures? Yes I do! There are many combinations where I may use futures in combinations with options! I trade them on Crude Oil, where the point size is $1,000 per point, and the daily move may easily be 2 or 3 points in a day - I trade it without hesitation - because I can MANAGE THE RISK! Options Explorer provides me with the strategies and with the tools to employ to visualize the risk and to manage the risk, allowing me to trade in this market profitably!

My trading has evolved from the early currency trading days - I still do trade the currencies, more than ever before, but much different than those early days, because I am in control of the risk! Options Explorer puts ME in CONTROL!

Options Explorer is a team effort from myself an Alan Parry. Much of what I know about options were taught to me by Alan. I started creating tools to make my trading live easier and to automate much of the tasks. I then combined it with originally the Matrix and later the Matrix Plus - Alan Parry's brainchild, under his guidance - to bring to you the current software application. As time goes by, and our trading evolves, so does OptionsExplorer. There are continuously new tools, new analyses, new risk-managing ideas.