I have challenged myself to generate a side income with somewhat low effort. This is my attempt at it. And while I am still bleeding losses, I am convinced it will turn around at some point, because I am very much aware of all the mistakes I have made so far to get into these losses and all I need to do is to fix them (which is hard, admittedly).

Options Day Trading

Expenses include trading losses, fees for the X10 Day Trading group, and trading tools like TradingView.

I've always been intrigued by day trading. My first contact point was with crypto around 2017/18. I made a 3x on about 13 Litecoins, which amounted to a total of ~$5,000 at the time, and got super pumped. Later I realized I had to pay taxes for that sell, so real $ money wise I still lost.

Anyway, for a few months, it has been a magical experience. Interesting to learn as a skill, nerve-wracking, uplifting, and devastating as an activity, all at once. But I did make a rational decision to stop (because, at the time, I was making just about the same as if I would hold, but generally under excessive stress and time investment). Day trading wasn't for me, I concluded.

In 2021 I stumbled on an account on Instagram: "Wolf of Dubai". Danny, as is his real name, started day trading, moved from Germany to Dubai, and is now making millions. Soon after my discovery, he released an options trading course: "X10 day trading". I am usually not easily convinced to buy any program, but I did in this case. He seemed trustworthy and genuine to me. And so I became one of the first members of Dannys' group.

Let me go quickly over the course. In the beginning, it was somewhat the main product anyway, or at least that was my impression. The group signals seemed more like a bonus (although they were why I bought in). The video material will guide you through options trading essentials to prepare you for making your own first options trade. Danny would often deviate to a wide range of topics. Long-term investment, specific stocks like Tesla or SPCE, psychological lessons, statistics, finding value, and a dozen more things. There is actually a lot of video material.

It's not particularly bad, but since I was already very interested and even actively engaging in investment (not day trading!), most of it seemed obvious, like common sense, or was already known by me. Personally, I would say the lessons are shallow. But they also acted as a valid primer and mechanical preparation for the actual day trading.

If you are considering buying x10 day trading for the sake of the video course, I strongly advise you not to. Going down the "stock investment" rabbit hole on YouTube will save you a few grands and educate you at least as well.

The main traded symbol in the group is $SPY. That's an exchange-traded fund that effectively represents the S&P 500. There is an additional upsell for random stocks (I don't know the current price).

Further, Options are the only instruments used to trade.

My personal journey and experience so far

The purchase of "x10 day trading" also grants access to the signal group on Discord, and that's really where the music is playing.

At first, I didn't trade or engage in the group. I played around with the broker (my choice is IBKR, which Danny also uses and recommends) and paper-traded. You could say I was mentally preparing.

However, on my to-do list, there was a task glooming, "Make first real trade with X10 masterclass", and the deadline was approaching. So I charged up my account with $2,300, opened Discord, and started observing the messages and stock charts for a few hours. Finally, when I felt aligned with a signal call, I pressed the buttons.

I barely knew what I was doing. The mechanics of pressing buttons were slow despite Danny having explained the usage a little bit in his course and me practicing the interface in the paper trading account. But finally, the message popped up: Contracts bought. Done.

I anxiously kept looking at the chart, not missing a single tick. It went in the wrong direction. I was losing money in real time! But I was already in, and I had to follow the trade down to a tee to know if this was a legit way to make money.

So I waited, still glued to my screen. I don't remember how much it had gone down precisely, probably quite much, but at some point, it turned. And boy, how it turned! Shortly after, there was a nice profit. Danny called the exit, and I had made a little more than $200 in 10-15 minutes. Only lately have I realized that I had negligently mismanaged my positions. If the trade had not recovered, I would have lost much more. In any case, I was relieved. Ecstatic. On top of the world. I would be a millionaire in no time, just like I had been promised!

I don't recall every other trade, how it went, and how much it made or lost me, but my success journey should only go on for a short time. After all, my first month ended negatively. I lost more than $1k (in hindsight, I can't fathom how it was just that little).

Meanwhile, there were a lot of people in the group sharing their trades. Often wins. One guy in particular, let's call him "Topas", was sharing how he was making multiple grands a day. In fact, he appeared to be trading mostly by himself, only occasionally joining in on group signals. $5k here, $12k there. Danny would put those messages up on his Instagram, and I felt foolish for losing money simultaneously.

After a few months, I stopped. It wasn't sustainable, and I had to change something. So I took a break from day trading - again. I went after other projects I was caught in, researched a little, and started capturing critical thoughts and ideas in written form. After some time and changes, while watching all the huge wins by the community, I started preparing to recoil. Then I had my first (respectably) profitable month: Starting with a fresh $2,000, I made a whopping $1117, slightly more than 50%!

The following month went downhill again, so I lost everything and more. How was that possible with such a headstart and professional guidance?

Frankly, I fucked up a lot myself. Probably everything. There is nobody to blame but me. I didn't know what I was doing.

For example, it turns out I had not even understood the broker interface: It would show you positions and realized + unrealized profit/loss. But it would use all my trades throughout the day for that. So if I had made a winning trade and would later repurchase the same contract, I would think my current trade was already going positive (yes, seconds in, but also price on some contracts moves so fast I didn't get suspicious immediately) while it was merely eating away previous gains.

I also did not understand the price dynamics of contracts (despite perfectly understanding their mechanics in theory). I was dangerously ignorant of what it meant in practical trading and the specific numbers along a timeline.

I traded by myself while being among friends, utterly distracted. Still, my self-esteem was boosted by long-gone early successes. And I also thought I looked cool, being the guy in the group of friends making easy money on the fly from the beach - yes, I traded literally on the beach with a terrible internet connection, and it didn't go well. When all these things came together, I finally made my worst month while charging my account with more funds to compensate for the losses.

Only recently, when I started writing this article, I uncovered that trading fees were significant (often totaling hundreds per month). That's not something you can easily change, or you will have to exchange the fees for a higher spread, but I find it imperative to be at least aware of it.

To this day, I'm still doing things that I know are wrong (and likely still some of which I am unaware are wrong). Why? I don't know. Maybe because of some hope to get finally lucky. Perhaps I'm just in emotional pain (because, looking objectively at my finances, those losses don't bother me). Or maybe I resigned internally, am addicted, or am just dumb. Who knows.

What makes the X10 day trading group stand out

Dannys' group is in such a way unique that he has put several professional and, more importantly, successful traders together into a team (with proof of record, e.g., 90% wins in trade history). At the time of writing, 4 people (including Danny) alert the members about potential trades.

Everybody has their own trading style: They have their own preferences and independent view of the current market. Some prefer technical analysis and some trade events. They choose different options and are more or less active at various times of the day.

In a way, they complement each other perfectly. As Danny described himself in a Discord message, they are a little like a football (or, for Europeans: soccer) team: Some players take a break for a few days, but you still have enough players to win the game. Depending on your position, where they are, and who you like more, you can pass your ball to whoever you choose.

Even if you are a pro trader, sometimes you want to follow a trade of a fellow professional who you can trust with your money.

I realized the power of that in particular when Chis, one of the traders, posted a trade. It was a regular trade, and it made everybody in the group 20% or more (some people exited at 20% when Chis called the exit, and others decided to take a risk and made significantly more). In any case, a few minutes after the trade was officially closed, Danny revealed that he had also joined it (and made the risk-averse 20%, or in absolute numbers, $3k). That's what I call harmonious complementing.

Having multiple traders giving signals increases the number of alerts and their versatility, so you can pick the traders and trades you are most comfortable with. You can try various strategies, learn different things as you follow along, and hopefully take a compound advantage of the system.

On that occasion, I want to address the following concern: Is it actually possible to follow the signals by the numbers? Suppose the trade makes only a 10% gain, and you had a 2% worse entry and exit price minus order fees. Is it even worth it?

First of all, the contracts usually (!) move by the second. You will rarely get the exact same prices that the trader had. 

: That impacts the trade little as long as you get 

 prices and follow the rules. Sometimes you even get an (immensely) cheaper deal because the trade first goes the opposite. Some trades are based on money flow, move a little slower, and are held longer, so it typically works out here.

That said, you should be willing to dedicate a few blocks of your time to trading and carefully pay attention to the group. That way, you will catch on the alerts timely and prepared. A few seconds of missing out may not invalidate the trade. At the same time, a few minutes *usually* will (sometimes a few minutes will give you a considerable discount). Trading while being at a party (or on the beach, lmao) may not work out for most of us.

But other than that, there is no black-and-white answer. You need to try it out yourself and find what works for you. If you join, you will notice some traders make a lot of super short-term scalp or trend trades. They will then incrementally sell as the trade goes more positive (e.g., "sell 1/4 of the position at 10% gain"), but what if you have only a single position and want to reduce risk? Then, in fact, the alerts of that particular trader may not be the best for you.

But that's the beauty: You can observe the signals that come in, prepare for them, be attentive, and jump in when you feel comfortable. See how it goes, repeat what works, and change what doesn't. Even if you don't get the exact same trades at the same time they are alerted, it is certainly possible to find the trades that work.

The following is a compilation of trades.

On December 13th 2022 the CPI report for November was released. On the 15th the FED had a public meeting releasing their ongoing plans, largely based on the CPI report. We followed a strangle trade by Wolf of Dubai. 

Danny made $130k himself on this trade. And this is what the members posted after the trade was closed:

Now let's examine what this group means in terms of return. First, there are arbitrate ways and numbers. For example, many traders track the performance of their calls (sometimes daily). Danny is tracking the overall group performance monthly in a spreadsheet. Let's take a look at it:

A few members have also created spreadsheets to get slightly more realistic expectations. For example, what if you get worse entry prices than the signal traders?

Here a member of the community analyzed all the trades of a particular signal trader for the whole month of November:

And here is the sheet in more detail (I've redacted the name of the trader). 

Essentially, it says if you would have followed every trade of that particular trader in the month, but had gotten a 25% worse entry, you would have made 2,144% of gains (e.g. you would have made $2,144 if you started with $1,000).

If you would have gotten a 50% worse entry, you would have made 653% of gains.

Now, there are a few details which are still not realistic. For example, I would not ever enter a trade if I was missing the entry by 50%. Even at 25% of gain I'd probably not take it any more (because on average, my personal expectation is that a trade makes me 20%, so the chance a trade is so good that it makes a total of 50% + 20% = 70% or 25% + 20% = 45% is significantly lower). 

This is both good and bad: On one side, there is a significant risk in this, on the other side you have to make the deliberate choice to enter a trade after such a gap, and can simply only take the trades where you are able to catch the entry at +/- 10% max.

Further, the broker commission is missing entirely, and believe it or not, this can be a hefty cut.

I have created another spreadsheet based on the above and plugged actual numbers in. It shows two strategies:

You put your whole net account into each and every trade, including the previous gains and losses.

You put a static amount of $1,000 into each and every trade.

I can think of 100 reasons why you would not be able to turn a $1,000 into more than $2,2 million in one month following this strategy and even with better entries than the assumed 25% premium. But on paper, this is undeniably what you would make if you were able to pull it off and would have put 100% of your net value into every trade.

Here are just a hand full of those reasons:

Sometimes there were parallel trades. Obviously, you can't put your whole portfolio into multiple trades at the same time.

Commission fees are not factored in. They are significant.

Would you really have had the mental strength to put a million into a single trade?

Your average buying and selling price might start slipping, so the price dynamics may shift into unknown once you reach numbers with millions.

The trader who made these trades often sells in tranches, sometimes it's unclear when to sell and how much.

In fact, here is a fellow community member sharing his net worth progress on his broker. There are no numbers, but you can see where it is going:

That being said, I think the second scenario is much more realistic and achievable: You put $1,000 into every trade, at the end you end up making a little more than $21k. You still need to figure out the details, and how to battle every single factor that is playing against you.

Finally, let's have a look at the total performance so far. Up until September 2022 he was tracking every single trade. I guess since 3 more traders joined it became unmanageable to keep tracking the performance, as there are simply too many trades made. However, I have the feeling that the overall performance further improved. In any case, below is a screenshot of the full trade history from the inception of the group until September.

In there you can see that the total performance at the time was sitting at 1070% (yes, that means you would have turned $1000 into almost $11,000), with an average performance of 11% per trade. With 97 total trades, of which 71 were positive, slightly more than 73% of all trades made money (the document has a mistake there saying only 63% were profitable).

You can also find my actual personal performance further below. 

At the time of writing the price is set to a flat $7,000. Danny has practiced rigorous monthly price increases for the last half of the year (where every price increase is an additional $1,000).

If that is too steep for you, there is an option to split the price into monthly payments. There is a 3-months and a 4-months payment plan. In the best case, you have more money available to put into the trading and can start making money immediately which hopefully is enough to pay the monthly fee for the coming months.

Since I know what to expect and what I will get, I can say the price is still justified, and I would still buy in myself if I hadn't joined already. It's slowly starting to move into a range where I'd turn it down, but mainly because I wouldn't have any money left to trade for some time if I bought it at a much higher price than now. For now, and maybe for 3-4 more price increases, I would happily join with no concerns or regrets.

Yes, I have lost money, even though my objective is to make money. However, from being in the group and thinking critically, I infer making a lot of money is possible, if not at some point probable. The chatter on Discord is proof. I understand the trades, see how many are profitable, and can certify that it is mechanically possible to follow the signals - even when contract prices move quickly.

While some aspects of my experience do not sound particularly enticing to join "X10 Day Trading" (or any trading group), the following conclusion shouldn't come as a surprise:

I firmly and wholeheartedly recommend you to become a member. You will learn a lot about the market and even about life. You will add a new, invaluable skill to your toolbelt. And you will have solid and fair chances to make a lot of money, on average more than I've seen with other approaches which may look safer or more reliable.

Admittedly, I think you need to put some work into it, install some rules, earn some experience, stay disciplined, and control your fear and greed. But that might come easier to you than to me.

Options Day Trading

X10 Day Trading Masterclass review

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