Options Animal Review: is it worth it?

A rare Options Animal review...

If you've been searching the web for options trading education you may have seen a website call www.optionsanimal.com

I was contacted by one of their associates to see if I would be willing to do a review on their educational platform.

They are a fairly new company, as far as their web presence, and they wanted feedback from other traders on what they could do better and also let the public know the most pressing questions...

• Who are you?
• Do you know what you're talking about?
• And is options animal one big scam?

And this will be a "real" review. Not like those other thrown together garbage reviews you read online where it sounds like the writer is "in bed" with the company.

As most of you know, I try to keep my priorities in alignment. I try to make sure family time is high up on the list and anything that takes me away from my family comes at a premium.

In light of that, they agreed to pay me a small fee to do a review; enough to take my wife out to a nice dinner. The money means nothing to me as I'm a flow-through corporation; my money flows through me and goes straight to my wife ha ha ha…

Anyway, back to business...

My Initial Research...

I rarely do reviews and I certainly stay away from doing reviews on people who teach trading.

This industry is filled with way too many people who just don't have your best interest at heart. I refuse to even be remotely associated with any of the scam companies out there.

I explained this to OptionsAnimal and also explained that I would be surveying my readers to see if they had any bad experiences with this company.

I surveyed over a thousand people and based on their feedback I decided to do the review. I'll place their feedback in this review. 

Background on the Founder...

I had a chance to speak with Greg Jensen, the founder of options animal on the phone before I did my review.

Greg started trading in the mid-90s after graduating from college. As he started having some success he eventually moved to full-time trading and during this time period people kept asking him if he would help them learn options trading.

Since he had a passion for educating others, he started working for a company who taught trading to individual investors. Fast forward a few years and Greg's educational partner was in jail from shady business practices and Greg was left holding a bag full of passion and still wanting to reach out to traders.

From this experience he created optionsanimal.com, where they would be educators who are also traders. Traders first; educators second.

**Trader Travis's interpretation: he wanted to be involved with a business where the primary focus was educating you instead of the primary focus being taking advantage of you.** 

Before You Join...

Your first introduction to options animal will probably be in the form of one of their free options trading classes. They host several free trading webinars each week giving examples of the trades they make and also giving you more information on their options trading training.

I didn't see any prices on their website for their trading classes, so I signed up for one of their free trading webinars. It was informative and gave you a good chance to see how they trade individually and also how they adjust their trades.

As a matter-of-fact, Greg stated that "how to adjust trades" and flowing with the market instead of being a victim to it, is one of their core strengths.

They also go through the website to show you how everything works. Towards the end of the webinar the gentleman explained they create custom packages for you based on your own trading needs. Thus, why there are no prices listed on the website.

Complaints...

As I was doing my own research on options animal the number one complaint I heard was they were too pushy in their sales process. It's impossible to validate other people's experiences, but I attempted to recreate it and I had no issues.

I joined their free options trading classes via webinar and it was the normal...we teach you content, and then offer our services.

They ask for phone number at the end of the webinar and tell you to call in the next 30 minutes to get a discount and the second year of learning at no extra charge. They say it's only available for the next 30 minutes so maybe people felt pressured.

I even called their customer support and pretended I was someone else. I was on hold for 3 minutes and 30 seconds waiting for someone to talk to me about the pricing.

Without going into a long drawn out spiel on pricing just know you'll invest between $500 - $9,000. Yes I know that's a wide range so contact them so they can explain why. And if you don't know $5,000+ is industry standard.

Trading changes your life and sets you free financially so I'll pay that all day any day.

So I did not have any bad experiences or get the impression that they were trying to scam me, but then again maybe I've been doing this so long I'm immune..who knows.

Money Back Guarantee...

They offer a performance guarantee that if you don't make money after graduation then you'll get a refund of the tuition paid minus a $500 admin fee. And oh, be prepared to sign a 2 page performance guarantee agreement.

Options Trading Training...

You'll have no shortage of trading information as they offer over 30-40 live classes a week. The classes are in several different formats including on demand pre-recorded learning and live learning. And the training materials are also archived so you can watch and listen to them later.

Since there are several different instructors, you can listen to classes based on a particular instructor. If you happen to like one instructor over the rest then you can only listen to the classes that he or she facilitates.

In the actual learning models you have 2 options. You can learn by watching the pre-recorded classes or you can register for the live version of the training and there are test at the end of each module to reinforce the learning material.

Learning Modules...

I'm going to do optionsanimal a huge injustice right here as there is no way I can adequately cover just how much they offer. They seem to be a solid company with solid educational material, but it was just too much of it there for me to review it all.

They have eight different learning levels and each level has roughly 6-10 lessons in it. There was literally hundreds of hours of education (this includes the archived training).

So no matter how much you spend you should get your money's worth. It's also laid out so that learning is not such a daunting process.

Here is a "brief" overview:

Lessons 1-3 are a good in depth overview of trading and covered the more basic strategies. Here are some of the topics you will learn:

Stock market basics, fundamental analysis, technical indicators and stock chart reading, technical and sentimental analysis, evaluating economic events, defining options the greeks and volatility, basic spread trades, the protective put, covered call trades, collar trades, and applying the straddle/strangle.

Lessons 4-8 is where you're learning is upgraded. Here are some of the topics you will learn:

Call spread trades, applying the bull call spread, applying the bear call spread, applying the call calendar, put spread trades, applying the bull put spread, applying the bear put, applying the put calendar spread, the protective call, portfolio management, technical analysis workshop, practical application workshops, adjusting your losing trades to make a profit (bold), adjusting the collar trade, bull puts, bull calls, calendars-straggles and strangles, ratio spreads, winged spreads, double diagonals, synthetic collars, and the exploding collar.

Again, this was a brief overview. I've seen snippets of most of the trainings. So rest assured it's all there laid out with explanations and real trade examples.

Additional Offerings...

They have several other additional offerings you might like. They have a section of the site where they share their personal trades with you and they also have a community forum. And they have live student summits a few times year where everyone goes to meet each other and learn in a live real time setting.

Summits provide an opportunity for current students and graduates to expand their investing expertise in a relaxed atmosphere. Each Summit has its own trading strategy focus and unique agenda, all events offer a well-planned mix of instruction, fun and entertainment. Their next one is in Hawaii (yeah I'm jealous).

Building Wealth with Options...

I'm a regular guy who grew up extremely poor and I have discovered that yes you can make money trading options and there is nothing that is scammy about options trading.

What I have found is that those who feel it is "too good to be true" are always those who have

• Never traded options and just repeat what they have heard or...
• Traded options and failed...

You owe it to yourself to learn how to trade options successfully in some way shape or form. As I've said before and I will continue to say: I don't care WHO you learn from, but I do care that you LEARN.

Find someone you trust and that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside and pay them to teach you.

Yes I said pay them. You learn better when your hard earned cash is on the line. And I can prove it: have you read all those free 100 page Ebooks you've downloaded online?

No, you downloaded just like me and you never quite get around to reading them.

They're free so you having nothing to lose by not reading them. You know they were free and will always be there so they always fall on the list as low priorities.

Makes sense doesn't it?

That was my biggest break through when I finally coughed up money to learn. I realized that I actually put the material into action and actually achieved real results.

Imagine that concept: take action, get results…compared to take no action, get no results.

I can't advise you on whether you should join optionsanimal or not, but I checked them out and they seem to be okay. If you find out otherwise please let me know.

Go to http://www.optionsanimal.com/ to learn more.

**Note** I have zero experience with being a member of their community so if you have any questions about them you can contact them here.

I do not have enough knowledge to answer questions about them. Everything I know I put here in this review.

Wealth Building Resources

Free Video Case Study (Newsletter)

Options Trading Made Simple Book (My Kindle book)

Options Wealth Academy (High End Training Program co-founded by Travis)

Misc. Articles

Learn Stock Options Trading Home Page

Trader Travis's YouTube Channel