Hello everybody! I've been lurking here for about 2 months, this forum is a wonderful resource and I figured I would get my feet wet with the community. I'm planning on becoming Elite once it is a little easier on me financially. I'm an industrial electrician by trade, Navy Nuclear Electrician for 8 years and working a Steel Mill right now.

I came into trading when my younger brother mentioned "trying to lose all my money with options in the stock market" and it started me on a super deep rabbit hole. I researched, read, papertraded, and then Lost a bunch of money during the October Downturn. Well, not a lot, like $250, but it was 50% of my account so it felt big at the time.

I'm currently saving 'risk capital' and I've joined TheoTrade (mainly for options education, heard good things and seem to get good results on paper) since it made more sense to learn through proper education than trying to fish through YouTube videos and sharks. I'd be curious if anybody has heard anything about them, searching the review forum didn't bring anything up, or if anybody knows/follows Tony Rago. I'm currently using his system which is more or less a support/resistance table on the /NQ since Options seem trickier than I like with my account size. I'm trying to learn price action and studying how the NQ bounces at certain levels hoping to become profitable enough to expedite my retirement.

Anyways, that's a snippet about me, I look forward to meeting and interacting with everyone here!

Just want to mention, if you don't have enough for a stock margin account, I'd suggest staying away from all options for now. They are still far riskier than futures imo. Another resource you can check to vett out vendors and scams is https://www.tradingschools.org where their search bar can be useful. gl

Thanks for the tips! That website was the first place I looked and there wasn't anything there and I couldn't find any other red flags either. I use them more for market education than anything right now, I have found some serious value so I don't mind the investment. I don't know how long I'll stay with them though.

I do have a margin account and am able to trade everything but naked options, I just jumped into live trading too soon because everything I had looked up made it seem like selling options was a sure thing and as long as you cut a few losers early you beat the zero sum game. I've since learned that's about as far from the truth as possible, and that the efficiency of the market makes it difficult to trade options with a delta neutral mindset. I do agree with you that they are far riskier than futures for a lot of reasons, which is why all of my focus is on that and papertrading to learn a system.