Jon Markman

Jon Markman

Jon Markman is the editor of Trader’s Advantage, a daily trading service that leverages his unique swing trading principles and aims to capture profits of 7% to 15% — and often much more with his options trades — in less than 90 days. By combining technical analysis with underlying fundamentals, Jon recommends beaten down stocks on the brink of reversal and powerful momentum stocks breaking out to new highs.

In CounterPoint Options Jon helps options traders lock in consistent profits from the volatility that rocks the market. At its heart is a proprietary trading system, Magnitude, that pinpoints indexes or sectors that have reached a critical inflection point — then translates that signal into profitable trades.

CounterPoint Options keeps volatility options trading very simple, focusing on the most popular, highly traded exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that are headed for a key reversal. Magnitude scans the market and allows subscribers to take advantage of these very liquid trading opportunities.

When CounterPoint Options first launched, it was focused solely on trading the VIX, commonly known as the “fear index.” When traders start buying up put options as “portfolio insurance,” the VIX spikes — a phenomenon that we’ll either trade directly, or use to inform our ETF trades on specific slices of the market. Our agile (and highly lucrative) strategy lets us turn volatility into profits… just like professional traders and hedge funds have been doing for years.

CounterPoint Options helps individual traders make steady, consistent profits from a very methodical approach to growing your portfolio in the midst of a turbulent market.

A pioneer in the development of stock-rating systems and screening software, Jon Markman is co-inventor on two Microsoft patents and author of the best-selling books Swing Trading and Online Investing. He was portfolio manager and senior investment strategist at a multi-strategy hedge fund from 2002 to 2005; managing editor and columnist at CNBC on MSN Money from 1997 to 2002; and an editor, investment columnist and investigative reporter at the Los Angeles Times from 1984 to 1997.

Jon won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Financial Journalism for his columns explaining market chicanery in 2002; Society of Professional Journalists awards for his 2001 reporting on Enron and the post-Sept. 11-investment environment; and was a news editor on the Los Angeles Times staff that won Pulitzer Prizes for spot-news reporting in 1992 and 1994.

A graduate of Duke University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Jon speaks frequently on investment topics at conferences nationwide, as well as on TV and radio.

Recent Articles

It’s Not All Bad News

We've all heard a ton of bad news lately from the U.S. economy and overseas unrest. But there is plenty of good news to consider as well.

Earnings Estimates Too High?

Why would anyone be the slightest bit bullish in this yucky environment? With a nod to a famous luxury liner named after Queen Elizabeth, it's a little something you might call QE 2. The letters stand for "quantitative easing," the strategy now being deployed by the Federal Reserve to attack the credit crisis after everything other tactic has failed.

Week’s Big Winners Include Homebuilders and Banks

Stocks swirled early this week within a pleasantly narrow range for once. It was exactly what you would expect on following expiration week and before a holiday -- a lot of drift and light volume. 

If You Own Retailers, Be Wary

Stocks have suffered through an epic November even after the recent surge, and the index roll call this year still has the capacity to shock: The Dow is down 39%, the S&P 500 is down 45%, the Nasdaq is down 48% and the Russell 2000 is down 47%.

How Much Worse Will the Unemployment Picture Get?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly unemployment report came out last week, and as you probably know it wasn't real pretty. How much worse will things get, and how long will it take to get there?