Welcome to my Option Alpha review!
Option Alpha is owned and operated by Kirk Du Plessis. It is an options trading site that offer options trading strategies and alerts to premium subscribers.
Option Alpha is more of a spread type of options trading.
I am immediately unsure of the options trading Strategy that Option Alpha teaches, because I prefer strategies that are based on the price direction.
One such service, that is currently my FAVORITE options trading educational and alerts service is called Bullseye trades by multi-millionaire trader – Jeff Bishop
Check out Jeff’s FREE WEBINAR that discusses his popular service in full!!
Disclaimer: If you click through any of the links on this page and purchase something, I may get an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.
Given the price, quality of alerts and the simple strategy of Bullseye trades – Option Alpha has A LOT to live up to!
Let’s get started with the Option Alpha review.
Option Alpha Owner Kirk Du Plessis
Kirk Du Plessis started out as an investment banker at Deutsche Bank. That is a pretty prestigious and impressive resume right there! He worked in that niche for many years – that gives him some credibility in my eyes.
Years later, Kirk Du Plessis (that is an interesting name for sure!) started working on Wall Street trading stocks and options.
He was pretty darn successful and started to document his trades on his own blog. This eventually led to him starting Option Alpha as a premium subscription service.
Option Alpha Review: Track Record
One of the most important things that matter when choosing an options trading service is their track record. Nobody wants to learn from someone that has a poor record!
I like how the Option Alpha team is pretty open about their successful track record. Of course, like any of these stock/options alerts service, you just have to take their word for it.
You can find the Option Alpha track record on their website. Kirk has made thousands of trades, but what is quite odd is that he trades with a very small account.
He only claims to make a few tens of thousands of dollars a year trading his options strategy! This is extremely low for someone that runs a service like this one.
While this is a little worrying, it does show transparency, honesty and it is a refreshing change from all the gurus out there that advertise how they make a million dollars a year.
They must be doing something right because the Option Alpha community has hundreds of thousands of members!
You can watch a video that Kirk has put together to show you his track record AND he shows you an example of his live trading.
Side Note: Jeff Bishop teaches you all the basics of his million dollar a year options trading strategy in his FREE EBOOK!!!
Ironically, Jeff also has a service called Total Alpha similar to Kirk’s Option Alpha! However, Jeff Bishop’s Total Alpha has much bigger winning trades than Kirk’s and Jeff makes A LOT more money.
How Much Does Option Alpha Cost?
Option Alpha has a free membership that gives you some basic options trading education. It is a pretty comprehensive free membership that allows you access to video lessons, podcasts, training guides and trade examples.
The Option Alpha platform sells licenses for a few different proprietary scanners and other software to help with your trading.
Here are the two tiers for the monthly Option Alpha subscriptions. You can read all the details on their website.
- Option Alpha Pro ($99 per month)
- Option Alpha Elite ($299 per month)
They also offer lifetime memberships as well. These prices seem pretty much in line with all of these types of programs.
Option Alpha Trading Strategies
Kirk is almost always short premium – basically an income trading strategy. This is not exactly the normal way to trade options that everyone else is focusing on.
To me, it is not a strategy that I personally would use. The potential for large losses and small wins goes against everything that I have learned as a trader.
Kirk swears by this strategy though and shows numerous previous trades on the Option Alpha website that shows this success he has had with this strategy.
Here is a short video that gives you an introduction into this kind of options trading strategy.
Option Alpha Review: Daily Commentary
Kirk’s daily commentary is very similar to the other services out there – nothing special. He gives some basic info while explaining the technical chart.
Option Alpha Testimonials
Kirk has a plethora of positive testimonials for his service. Here is a video that shows you many of the reviews for the Option Alpha program.
Alternatives To Option Alpha
If you are looking for a great alternative to Option Alpha, I would seriously consider Jeff Bishop’s Total Alpha (I know sounds like the same product lol!).
Here is an example trade that Jeff recently executed. I am showing you this trade because it is a trade that is price direction neutral.
It relies on the use of an ‘Iron Condor’ strategy – you can read more about that here – but suffice to say it is a complicated options strategy.
The trade that I want to show you was an options strategy on BKNG.
Jeff Bishop made $20K on these options in just a few weeks despite BKNG shares closed that 15-day stretch less than 1% changed from where they started.
Here is a breakdown of exactly how Jeff Bishop did this – without the stock even moving anywhere!!
Jeff started a Bull call spread on January 3rd on BKNG. He sent out the alert and chart below to subscribers.
The stock had recently topped out around $2,080 for the third time in a few months.
If there had been a trend of higher lows leading into that third challenge of $2,080, accompanied by rising volume on the run up to this level, it might’ve been a beautiful bullish rocket pattern in the making, but this BKNG chart wasn’t nearly that tidy.
So Jeff sold calls at that $2,080 strike in the expectation that this ceiling was going to keep holding through front-month expiration, and bought calls at $2,090 to complete the spread:
But by the following Monday, Jeff was ready to add a couple more legs to this trade and make it a full-fledged iron condor.
BKNG seemed to be facing stubborn overhead resistance, but there were also signs it could hold support in the short term. The stock had just filled its November bear gap and kept running higher, with a successful breakout above — and subsequent successful retest of — the $2,000 area in mid-December.
So here’s what Jeff Bishop alerted to his Total Alpha team on January 6:
Give Yourself the Edge
One reason I love playing iron condors so much is the built-in advantage you get as a seller of options premium.
Options lose time value every day until expiration, and the rate of decay is non-linear — it happens at an accelerating pace. So the closer your expiration date, the more value you’re losing every day.
This is obviously a built-in detriment to the option buyer, and all the more reason that you should buy options only on your highest-conviction ideas for big directional moves.
But as an options seller, time decay works in your favor. No need to fight the system — just sit back and let those contracts depreciate. Then, if and when you need to, you can buy back your spreads at a lower price than you sold them for to unwind the position ahead of expiration.
Confidence in your strategy doesn’t mean you get sloppy, though. That’s rookie stuff.
Jeff had paper profits on the trade as soon as Tuesday, January 7 — but he also had his exit orders locked in already:
That preparation paid off. By the next day, BKNG was already threatening the sold $2,080 call strike.
And by Thursday, January 9, his paper green had turned slightly red as BKNG hit an intraday high of $2,090, and closed squarely between his two call strikes:
For the next two days after that, BKNG closed firmly above his sold $2,080 call strike — and in the third session, the stock traded above that strike again on an intraday basis.
But because Jeff already had his exit order in, he was able to be patient and let it play out to the end.
Sure enough, it wasn’t until the day before January expiration that Booking shares finally moved back down below his sold strike. Here’s what the position looked like on Thursday morning:
Last Friday, when all four legs of the iron condor expired, BKNG closed at $2,054.69 — a gain of about 0.6% from where it opened on Jan. 3, the day Jeff put on the initial bear call spread.
That left him plenty of breathing room between his two sold strikes, so he pocketed the max profit of more than $20,000 on the 15-day hold — and so did the rest of the Total Alpha team:
Yeah, Jeff makes it look easy now — but it took him years of (occasionally painful) trial & error before he got to a point where he could execute trades like this comfortably.
You can learn more about Jeff Bishop’s Total Alpha options alerts service here.
Option Alpha Review: Conclusions
I love how Kirk is so open and honest about his track record. To be able to proudly display a track record that indicates he only makes a small amount of money per year is something that I find endearing.
So many of the gurus out there will market their services about ‘how they made $100,000 in a single trade’ without mentioning that they used a $500,000 position size to make that money!
Unless you can use bigger position sizes than Kirk Du Plessis, you will make a relatively small income, even if you can replicate his trades exactly.
This might be fine for some people though.
The strategy is relatively passive and many people just want to supplement their income.
I guess, my main worry is that there is always slippage between a guru’s performance when you try to replicate their trades. The small profits and large losses might makes this service difficult to piggy back on.
However, if you just want to learn a new options trading strategy that is a bit less common than the typical options trading strategy – this service might interest you!
I think I will stick with other more directional based strategies like RagingBull’s Bullseye Trades and Kyle Dennis’s Dollar Ace.
Kyle’s Dollar Ace strategy is particularly impressive. It relies on spotting unusual options activity that indicates insiders or ‘big money’ is up to something. Kyle has become an expert at spotting these moves and piggy backing on them!
To learn more, just click here and watch the video that Kyle has put together for you.
Good Luck!
Wesley
P.S if stock trading is more your ‘thing’ then don’t miss my favorite stock trading service that has had a ridiculous 100% win rate for me since I joined!!!
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My Option Alpha review revealed that I don’t think this is a strategy for me. It works for Kirk Du Plessis and it MIGHT work for you as well!
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