Building Wealth Doc's note: When folks think of investing, they often think buying stocks or bonds. But today, I want to tell you about an investment strategy that doesn't require buying anything. It's not something complicated, difficult to understand, or risky. Instead, it's a way to earn safe, steady income every month. In fact, I've used it for decades, since my time at Goldman Sachs.
So today, I want to share an excerpt from Retirement Trader, my newsletter which currently boasts a 94%-win rate with this strategy, to help you see how you can use this moneymaking tool in your own portfolio...
In my Retirement Trader advisory, we use an investment strategy to help you earn income. Like any investment, you put up some of your capital and intend to earn a return.
Unlike most other strategies, though, we "sell" options to earn an income payment up front. In every issue with a new trade, we give readers two ways to make what is essentially the same trade. You can either sell put options or trade covered calls.
Today, we'll keep it simple. So just know that the capital we put up is either used to buy shares up front (as we do for covered calls) or held to cover the obligation that comes with selling puts.
So, what kind of capital do you need to put up? What kind of return can you expect? And how do you keep your capital safe?
That's what we'll talk about here...
When you enter a "covered call" trade, you will need to purchase 100 shares of the given stock. So the capital requirement will be pretty straightforward... It's the cost of 100 shares of stock. Take the stock price and multiply it by 100.
For a stock that trades at $20, that will be $2,000. For a stock that trades at $200, that will be $20,000.
We work to find stocks with low prices, but sometimes we'll recommend trades on higher-priced stocks. (We don't want to keep potentially profitable trades from those who may have larger accounts.)
For a "put sell" trade, you don't need to buy shares up front, but you have a "potential obligation" to buy 100 shares. That means you get to keep that money in your account, but you may need to use it to buy shares in the future. It's still your money for now, but it's what we consider "capital at risk."
On that capital at risk, we expect to earn 3% to 6% on our trades. That does not sound like much, but it adds up big over time...
The power of the Retirement Trader strategy comes not from making one single trade... It comes from making repeated trades, over and over again, and collecting income each time. Over 13 years, we've done it more than 600 times.
Here's how that may work for you...
Let's say we make a trade that takes $10,000 in capital and you earn 3%. That means you collect $300.
If our 94% historical win rate is any guide, the trade is likely a winner and you get to keep your $10,000 and the $300 income payment.
The key is that our Retirement Trader trades are designed to last two months. You collect your money, wait two months, and then close the trade. (At times, we also might "roll" a trade, meaning we keep it going.) But when you close a trade, you can use your $10,000 to put into another trade.
Over the course of a year, you can do this trade six times. That means you can collect about $1,800 on your $10,000... a return of 18%. Plus you'll earn dividends on most of the stocks along the way.
You can't get that anywhere else.
If you want to sell puts, the returns are the same. You don't have to buy shares for $10,000. You can keep the money in cash. But you do have the same amount of capital at risk. You'll earn 3% or so on your capital at risk in either case.
To show you exactly how this works, I invited a camera crew to film me as I sat down with a golf pro who had never traded options before.
I walked him through everything he needed to know – step by step – to help him instantly collect thousands of dollars in income.
If you haven't watched my real-money demo, click here to see it for yourself.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
August 7, 2023