I first cut my teeth as a high-volume, intra-day stock trader.
My earliest trading lessons came from staring at charts, watching price levels, and learning (often the hard way) how momentum behaves. I became obsessed with breakouts, pullbacks, volume surges—anything that would give me an edge on timing a move.
Sometimes that edge consisted of consuming multiple cans of Yoohoo!
(I know, gross.)
Anyway, back then it was simple: find an intraday trend, hop on, and manage risk. That foundation still informs everything I do.
Eventually, that trend-following mindset led me into commodities. I loved the purity of it. There’s something clean and honest about commodity trends—they either work or they don’t, and often they run much farther than you’d expect. Studying seasonality, macro cycles, and supply/demand dynamics helped me spot inflection points in a way that complimented the chart work I’d learned from stocks.
But there were dry spells, too—periods where the trends would stall or chop. That’s when I started exploring premium selling strategies in options.
One of my trading buddies turned me on to this idea with a strange name called an "Iron Condor." I could get paid when a stock does nothing? Wow!!
If the market wasn’t going to move much, I might as well get paid while it churned, right? I learned how to sell spreads, structure income trades, and let time decay work for me.
Eventually, that led me down the path to what I do a lot of now: defined-risk directional options trading.
It’s the perfect intersection of everything I’ve learned—stock-level precision, trend awareness from commodities, and risk control from selling premium. With defined-risk trades, I can play the setup and protect the downside, which keeps me in the game longer and helps me sleep at night.
Each market taught me something valuable.
And interestingly, each one helped me understand the others better.
Here’s what I mean:
1. Stock Trading Sharpens Options Timing
Knowing how to read charts, momentum, and price levels helps tremendously with options entries. When you’ve traded stocks long enough, you can feel when a move is coiling. That’s when the options bets make sense—because you’ve got a pulse on the timing.
2. Options Open Interest Reveals Stock Inflection Points
And vice versa—watching open interest levels in the options market can reveal key areas of stock price gravity. Where are the magnets? Where are the walls? If you know where the big players are positioned, you gain insight into where price might pause, reverse, or accelerate.
3. Expiration Dates Are Volatility Triggers
OPEX is more than a footnote—it’s often the event. When options positions expire, dealers have to unwind or re-hedge, which can cause sharp reversals or acceleration. Stock and futures traders who ignore the options calendar miss out on a major source of market movement.
4. Commodities Seasonality Informs Stock Earnings
Trends in the futures market often lead related stocks. If oil tends to top in summer, maybe energy stocks see peak earnings a quarter later. Corn up big in Q1? Agricultural stocks might benefit down the line. These macro rhythms create an anticipatory edge in equities.
5. Risk Lessons Travel Across Markets
The discipline I learned from selling options premium—structure, risk-limits, and exit plans—made me a better trader across the board. The tactical patience I picked up from commodities made me more deliberate with equities. Every lesson transfers.
If I’d stayed in just one lane, I might still be banging my head against the same problems.
But by branching out, experimenting, and cross-training my trading mind, I picked up tools, strategies, and instincts I never would’ve found otherwise.
Trading is a multi-lingual skill. The more fluently you speak each market’s language, the more context you gain—and the more opportunity you see.
So trade them all. Learn their personalities. Let one teach you about the other. Or if you already have traded them all, go back into your mental archives and try to remember certain unique things to each experience that might help you in what you're doing now.
You’ll be surprised how often the dots connect.
Sean McLaughlin | Chief Options Strategist, All Star Charts
