Customer Reviews

Making 36%: Duffer's Guide to Breaking Par in the Market Every Year, in Good Years and Bad

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First off, the fact that this book is linked with golf is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Worse yet, since virtually every other page has a pithy golf-related quote or two taking up an entire page unto itself, it turns out that the golf theme simply enables the author to double the amount of pages without adding anything of substance. Substance is where this booklet really fails to deliver. The actual 36% Solution comprises less than 20% of the text while the rest of it is totally generic beginners investment advice. The booklet is little more than an ad for the author's website in which he offers various options related pay subscription services. There is no long term (by that I mean ten year or more) track record for the Solution and for a good reason. Like many option strategies that involve selling puts and calls, they work well when there is little movement in the underlying stock or index, but will likely suffer huge drawdowns or total wipeouts when there is a massive short term "black swan" type of move in the market. The book is not totally worthless and there may be a place for investing in calendar spreads as a small piece of a diversified investment portfolio. If you expect this booklet to provide you with a reliable fail-safe method of earning 36% a year in all types of market, forget it.

Update July, 2008: As suggested above, the large moves of the past 8 months or so have now totally devastated the 36% portfolios outlined in this booklet with massive losses to the point where the author has now discontinued offering them in his trading program. In addition, the commissions involved were an additional huge headwind. In short, an investment disaster. Avoid at all costs for your financial health!

Update December 2008: The disastrous results of the author's portfolios continues. He now comes up with new portfolios after older versions crash and burn. Each time there is a justification for why the old system failed but the new system will succeed by addressing the poor design of prior versions. The latest development that has caused the portfolios to plummet in value is the decreasing of the VIX. Okay, so last year and early this year the increase in the VIX crushed the portfolios. Modified versions didn't deal very well when the VIX stayed elevated and the latest versions crash when the VIX decreases. It seem the more things change, the more they remain the same. Steer clear!!

I was not very impressed with much more than the title. Fortunately, I only paid $1 for the book. The strategy used is covered in a few pages in many other books on options.

Although it isn't standalone, the book was well worth reading. I believe options are preferable to owning naked stock in the respect that your risk is defined from the start. You definitely have to use restraint in position size and not be greedy.

I have been trading options for years with success and failures. I have just begun with Terry's method and expect to be up considerably more than 36% on an annual basis come ten more trading days until expiration. I will add another review in several months.
Dr. Dan D