• Searching �Options Trading System� as an exact phrase in Google you will receive over 40,000 search results - a big number to start sifting through...
• Figuring out if an online service is not a scam.
• Correctly evaluating an online trading system.

The options market provides great leverage and as a result this market is one of the most popular among speculative investors. Not surprisingly many online services were developed around options trading by offering advice - automatic trading systems, options signals, auto trading buy/sell alerts, trading newsletters, options market overview, etc...

The typical question each online options trader searching for a trading system faces is how to choose the right system from such vast number of services available.

We have summarized four simple questions that should be answered before subscribing and dedicating your money to a particular online options trading system. These will help you narrow your search:

1. How much does it cost?
   
   We do not recommend wasting time on the free services, unless used for educational purposes only. If the service is free, you may ask why it's free. Especially if the service provides options trading signals / advice ... who sponsors this service? Who profits on providing you with free trading advice?
    
2. Is an online options trading system auto-tradable?
   
   As a rule an online broker does some background research on the company that provides options trading system for auto-trading. If the trading system you choose is not on the list of the major online brokers you should question WHY? Is it because online brokers refuse to auto-trade signals that are not clear, or because they received complaints from the traders that the service trade history does not match the real signals, or perhaps refuse to do so because the alerts are not executable, or they found something questionable in the company background, or the system provider has a bad reputation... Many traders would say: �The online brokers already conducted their research and if there is no broker who trusts them, I would not risk trusting my money with this trading system.� There is no reason to analyze or evaluate a service that is suspicious from the get go.
   
   By going directly to the online broker you will always find a list of online services approved for auto-trading. We would recommend sticking with this list first rather than analyzing 40,000 results from the Google search.
    
3. Is the history of the past trades available for performance analysis?
   
   A history of the past trades should be easily accessible for review and analysis. If it's not then again the same question arises, WHY? There is no 100% successful trading system and you will always see negative and positive trades, however some trading system providers prefer to hide the history behind several doors or present it in a format that is not suitable for analysis and tells basically nothing - WHY? Is there something to hide?
   
   Without access to a trading history it becomes very difficult to evaluate any trading system correctly. It is simply impossible to answer the general questions, such as how long the system stays in the position, what is the average price of the used options, what options expiration is used, how many trades were opened at the time, what min amount could be invested, what is the system's performance, how many trades per month does the system generate, what are the commissions and much more�
   
   The history of the past options trades should be accessible and easily located on the home page. The options trading history should be represented in a format suitable for analysis. It could become especially useful if the service already provides statistics based on the history as well as calculated semiannual and annual returns in addition to the list of the past options signals.
    
4. Are options trading systems monitored by an independent third party?
   
   You may find several well known online independent third party services that provide you with detailed historical track record of the different online options trading systems and advisory services. You may simply go and compare their results with the results represented by the system providers. You may find that some of these services not only track the trades but may provide you with detailed statistic numbers for each particular trading system. It may save you time on additional system research. Once an online trading system provider makes an agreement with third party monitoring services, it becomes almost impossible to manipulate and change the history, hide lost trades, polish results... Again, if you do not find the name of the online advisory service you are interested in on the list, you may ask � WHY?

Those are four basic questions that should be answered before subscribing to any online options advisory trading service or options trading system. It does not mean that if you find an online options advisory service that satisfies all these four points you can jump into the options system right away and start to move all your savings toward it. These four questions are only the first steps to help you narrow your search to 30-50 online services. After that you still have to continue your evaluation and research of the service you choose.