Interview Central: Chris Borgmeyer, Part II

Chris Borgmeyer is a Senior Analyst and Manager of News, Data and Fundamental Analysis at Briefing.com, which offers real-time news and analysis of the markets. Chris manages Briefing.com’s Live InPlay Service. This provides live trading opportunities that help traders stay on top of news, rumors, developing trends, mergers and events that move the markets.  In addition, Chris was an option Market Maker on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

I really enjoyed my recent talk with Chris, especially about how he manages risk as well as getting a feel for how he approaches the markets. This is the second part of that interview.

Optionetics: What are some of the key rules or factors that your trading systems evaluate it before selecting any potential trading opportunity?

Chris: Key factors I generally consider: 

1) What is the catalyst and what is the market expecting?
2) What is the risk/reward?
3) What is the best/worse case scenario?

Optionetics: What are your favorite markets that you like to trade and track with your analysis tools?

Chris:  I focus primarily on analyzing and trading equities and equity options.  While this is the primary focus, it is important to monitor the bond, commodity and currency markets for fluctuations that affect the equity markets, since they are all interrelated...  With equities in particular, we highlight unusual options activity to gain insight into the underlying sentiment that may not be identifiable when looking at the stock alone.

Optionetics: What is your most memorable trade?

Chris: Unfortunately, the most memorable trade for me is a loser – it was GOOG’s first earnings report as a public company.  I was trading options and had a position that I thought was pretty safe.  The stock was up over 50% heading into its first report, and it still managed to surprise to the upside, pushing it up another 20% or so the day following the report.  I hadn’t planned on the stock making the magnitude of a move that it did, and with that kind of move, what starts out as a safe position can get dangerous.  The best thing I did was to take my losses by flattening out the position by the end of the day.  This prevented additional losses the following day when the stock traded up another $15 on top of the post-earnings move.

Optionetics: With all the different technical as well as fundamental analysis tools out there how does a new trader avoid information overload or "analysis paralysis"?

Chris:  There is an endless amount of information out there, so it’s important to distill all that down to something that’s manageable and digestible.  This is what we try to do at Briefing.com – we filter out all the noise and give traders the information and analysis behind what’s really moving the market.  A new trader should stick with the tools/analysis that make sense to him/her – if something seems too complicated, it probably is just that – try keep it simple.

Optionetics: Thanks, John, for speaking about your trading approach with our Optionetics reading audience.

To read previous installments of this interview, please click here.

Jeff Neal 
Senior Writer, Options Strategist & Profit Strategies Radio Show Market Correspondent
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