The Strategy Wall Street Kept From You

Don Kaufman here. 

For 25 years, this strategy was locked behind million-dollar trading accounts. Three years ago, that changed. Most traders still have no idea.

Let me tell you something about the trading world that nobody talks about: there are two different games being played. The retail game and the professional game. And until recently, you weren't even allowed to play the professional one.

I've been on both sides of this wall. Twenty-five years running education at TD Ameritrade and thinkorswim, watching millions of retail traders trade the scraps while the real money was made elsewhere.

You weren't even invited to the party

When I started placing Christmas tree spreads back in the '00s, you needed serious capital. 

We're talking accounts with hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions. The margin requirements alone would crush a regular trader.

The exchanges didn't care about retail. The brokers didn't care about retail. This was institutional money only.

So what did retail get? Buy and hold. Mutual funds. "Diversify and pray." The financial equivalent of being told to sit at the kids' table while the adults handled the real business.

I watched this for decades. Retail traders grinding it out with covered calls and cash-secured puts while guys like me were harvesting skew for consistent profits. It wasn't fair, but that's how the game was rigged.

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