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

Selling Pressure Still Strong

The past 30 days were really a truly amazing stretch of time in market history. Take a deep breath and congratulate yourself for living through it, particularly if you have been following our advice here to keep 75% of your investable funds in cash and did not see a fifth of your net worth eroded.

It’s Not Over Yet: Eastern Europe and Latin America are Still Out There

Stocks fell hard over the past month, with the U.S. indexes are off around 25%, while London (EWU) is down 30%, China's market (FXI) is off 35% and Latin America (ILF) is down 45%. Yes, that's one month.

Death of the Shadow Banking System

This past weekend I saw an increase in the number of institutional investors or researchers that I consider to be smart making forecasts that the 2008 bear market is either over, or nearly over.

Ordinary Secular Bear Market or a Devastating Bear?

David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors, whom I respect, is one of the veterans making the call that it's time to ease back in stocks. He makes the case that we've just suffered a secular bear market, but government has acted fast enough to avoid a devastating bear.

How Do We Survive This Mess?

Stocks pulled a U-turn on the road to oblivion this week, as the major indexes apparently decided it was not the right day for a total meltdown. Yet breadth was terrible, volume was poor and selling pressure was strong.