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For 25 years, this strategy was locked behind million-dollar trading accounts. Three years ago, that changed. Most traders still have no idea.

Let me tell you something about the trading world that nobody talks about: there are two different games being played. The retail game and the professional game. And until recently, you weren't even allowed to play the professional one.

I've been on both sides of this wall. Twenty-five years running education at TD Ameritrade and thinkorswim, watching millions of retail traders trade the scraps while the real money was made elsewhere.

You weren't even invited to the party

When I started placing Christmas tree spreads back in the '00s, you needed serious capital. 

We're talking accounts with hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions. The margin requirements alone would crush a regular trader.

The exchanges didn't care about retail. The brokers didn't care about retail. This was institutional money only.

So what did retail get? Buy and hold. Mutual funds. "Diversify and pray." The financial equivalent of being told to sit at the kids' table while the adults handled the real business.

I watched this for decades. Retail traders grinding it out with covered calls and cash-secured puts while guys like me were harvesting skew for consistent profits. It wasn't fair, but that's how the game was rigged.

Then the MES showed up

Three years ago, everything shifted. The micro futures changed the game completely.

The MES - that's forward slash MES if you're looking it up - suddenly made professional strategies accessible with normal account sizes. Same mathematical edge, fraction of the capital.

But here's the thing: most retail traders still don't know. They're still playing the old game, trading individual stocks and basic spreads, while this edge sits there waiting.

Here's what we actually do all day

While retail traders are analyzing charts and following moving averages, I'm looking at something completely different: skew.

Right now, as I'm writing this, puts are trading for almost double what calls cost at the same distance from the money. That's not market sentiment - that's mathematical edge.

The professionals have known this forever. When skew gets wide, you harvest it. You don't predict direction. You don't try to time entries. You harvest the differential.

I can show you trades from this year alone - $629 in five days, $818 in a month, $660 during a completely flat summer. Not because I'm smarter than the market, but because I'm playing a different game.

The real numbers that matter

You want to know what separates professional strategies from retail ones? Consistency and capital efficiency.

I haven't taken a losing Christmas tree trade since 2016. Not one. Through COVID, through multiple crashes, through whatever they called the mess in April. The strategy works because the math works.

Meanwhile, retail traders are celebrating 60% win rates like it's some kind of achievement. Sixty percent? I've got a 100% win rate over nine years because I'm not gambling on direction.

Why your broker won't tell you about this

Here's something that'll make you mad: your broker probably knows about these strategies. They just don't want to deal with the education overhead.

It's easier to let you trade stocks and basic options. Less support calls. Less complexity. Keep the retail money in the simple products while the institutions harvest the real edge.

Fidelity won't even let you do this trade. Too much liability, too much explaining. Easier to keep you buying ETFs.

But thinkorswim? Tasty? Interactive Brokers? They'll approve you tomorrow if you know what to ask for.

I watched this happen for 15 years

I spent 15 years at TD Ameritrade with 768 people under my series 24. We saw everything retail traders did. Every mistake, every pattern, every way they found to lose money.

You know what we never taught them? This. Because it was too "advanced." Too "risky." Too likely to generate complaint calls when people didn't understand the risk graph.

So retail got fed a steady diet of covered calls and protective puts while the real money was made harvesting volatility differentials.

Something that'll blow your mind

Want to know something that'll really blow your mind? You can trade this strategy in an IRA.

That's right. The same strategy that was locked behind institutional accounts for decades can now be traded in your retirement account. The margin requirements are reasonable, the risk is defined, and the edge is mathematical.

But nobody tells retail traders this. They're too busy selling them target-date funds and telling them to dollar-cost average into index funds.

Here's what this actually means

The wall between retail and professional trading isn't gone, but there's finally a door in it. Most people just don't know where to find it.

While retail traders are still arguing about whether the market's going up or down, professionals are making money either way. Not because we're geniuses, but because we have access to strategies that actually work.

The door's open. Most people are still standing outside arguing about whether they should walk through it.

But if you want to see exactly how this works - the real trades, the actual strategy, me building Christmas trees live - I put together a complete breakdown. You'll see the fills, the risk graphs, the math that makes this possible.

Don't spend another year playing the retail game while the real money gets made elsewhere.

Your choice. But the video won't be up forever.

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