Trade Like Chuck by Chuck Hughes Review

Chuck’s GROW presentation depicts an options strategy with an impossible outcome and thus is fraudulent if used to promote his advisory service.

Scroll forward to where he says “The upside down way we combine a deep-in-the-money CALL with an at-the-money PUT to create incredible GROW trades that simply can not lose is something even experienced option traders have never seen before.”  He then displays his market neutral calculator with the data Stock: CL  Stock Price: 77.72  Call Strike: 70  Call Price: 1.885  Put Strike: 77.5  Put Price: 1.615 His calculator shows a profit for all movements of the reference stock from +20% to -60%.

It is not possible to buy a call strike 70 for 1.885 because it already has an intrinsic value of 7.72.  Add to that time value and implied volatility and the price would have to be considerably more. The calculator may be good but it will give incorrect results if fed unrealistic data.  Later on he gives another example.

Stock: CL Price: 72.5 Call Strike: 50 Call Price: 17 Put Strike: 72.50 Put Price: 1.42

If CL were trading at 72.5 it would not be possible to buy a strike 50 call at 17. The price
would have to be higher than 22.5, considerably higher if there were a long time to maturity. Chuck’s calculators are simple and can easily be duplicated with a spreadsheet. They do not involve complicated option valuation formulas and are available not only to subscribers but to anyone on the internet. They are incomplete in that they do not consider time to maturity or implied volatility. Chuck does not seem to realize that there is such a thing as implied volatility. He bundles it with time decay whereas the two are independent and can move in opposite directions. These two examples represent put-call straddles, which are not Chuck’s principal strategy. His principal strategy is the debit call spread in bull markets and the debit put spread in bear markets. Chuck created these examples as examples of hedging a previously profitable call purchase with a put and the put and call were not bought at the same time. Someone on Chuck’s staff has used these examples to make it appear that Chuck can magically create a straddle that cannot lose. No one can do that.

While Chuck’s strategy calculator may not lie, people can, and they can do so not only by
claiming things that are not true but by concealing important facts. That is the case here. I
have studied Chuck’s strategies in detail and apart from a few omissions and misconceptions I think they are quite good. I do know that the GROW strategy is not Chuck’s principal strategy. It is one he seldom uses and then only to hedge a call position that already is profitable. Although he sometimes buys calls, his principal strategy is to use debit put or call spreads, depending on the direction of the market. The two examples represent straddles that would be impossible if the put and call were bought at the same time. In reality the calls were bought first and the puts were bought later once the calls proved profitable, but the presentation does not say so and the reader is left to believe that Chuck has a magical way of creating straddles that cannot fail.

I have lifetime subscriptions to Chuck Hughes “INNER CIRCLE” and “WEEKLY OPTION ADVISORY” from which I receive recommendations weekly and which I follow as recommended except for recommendations that require me to buy stock or ETF shares since I don’t have enough capitol to follow those recommendations. I stopped doing my own trades and have only followed the Chuck Hughes options recommendations. The results have been amazing in 2019 through 12/02/2019. Fidelity says my combined trading accounts have realized over 50% gain through 10/31/2019. My only complaint is the frequent sales calls trying to sell other services which is a complaint I have had for other investment services companies. For me Chuck Hughes has not been a fraud.

All I can say is thank God for website reviews like this!

I have read investment newsletters for 30 years, and from 1980 through 2018, was licensed to sell investments, did ok, when I gave up my Series 6, 7, and 23, maybe some others, was earning (well, getting) about $40,000 annually from what the industry calls “trails”. I can only suggest, not recommend, one publisher, Stansberry. There is no free lunch, you must learn, you must study, you must paper trade, and once you have settled on a strategy, execute. Please don’t pay for anything until you are a successful trader, then be very picky……….

The majority of the investment mailers I would say 90% are scams. If these people are such good traders why are they going through the trouble creating so called training material and charging exorbitant fees, I am sorry they are philanthropist they seriously want to make you POOR.
For some reason most of these mailers are operated by LINCOLN INSTITUTE and these people are very nasty. I ones forked out $3000 with the promise of trading along side the experts but no such thing. After filing a report to BBB in their city I finally got my money back. It was so long ago but I believe they are in Salt Lake so check the BBB their for LINCOLN INSTITUTE. They make $M from scamming people I can’t believe they are not shut down.

If it sounds to good to be true, it is.

Stay clear as once you order the “free” book you get charged $37 per month under the Market Watch newsletter which name is very close to business operated by the Wall Street Journal. These people are difficult to contact to cancel the fee and the whole system is geared to get more money . Stay away, run and tell your friends

My 83 y.o. brother saw the commercials and being a retired Air force person himself , he bought the whole deal , hook line and sinker. $7,000 dollars later he lost another $3000 in Chucks trading scam. Then they wanted another $7000 for another year so I guess they could lose more money. NO they do not refund your money like they say in the literature . My brother bought into the INNER CIRCLE. Which is meaningless double talk. He believed he was now special. But rather he was a sucker!! Where is the Securities and Exchange Commision when you need them ?

Preface & Context: I once was a registered financial advisor and counselor. I also have studied and traded markets for over 6 years. I’m not a newby when it comes to trading, but I’m not a rookie either. I search for legitimate, decent, worthwhile trading education services that can actually provide something useful, that don’t cost you both arms and legs.

TradeLikeChuck – the Book

On the plus side: You can sign up to receive their book and DVD. I found the book down to earth, an easy read, and actually good for newbies. It also has sound principles for those with moderately more experience and who maybe need to re-ground themselves in some solid practices. The book was forthcoming about MOST chart settings. They were good about explaining setups and precise points of entering and exiting trades. The multiple charts utilize multiple time frames to identify trend and increase likelihood of success. The controlling of risked capital (i.e. “getting out” of trades if they go against you) were wise and in common with some other trading education philosophies. They provide a formula to narrow down your selections of buying (or selling) options, that again would also reduce one’s risk. Overall, I was “reminded” of several principles that–when I implemented them–gave me more positive trades.
On the down side: Their Keltner Channel settings in the book were incomplete and therefore left me guessing about the other settings needed to fully define the Keltner Channel. My default settings did not match theirs. So I had to play around a lot with settings and finally got them to almost identially match. But then in a subsequent webinar broadcast, they were misaligned. I don’t think this aspect (by itself) is a make-or-break decision, as default settings on your platform are maybe ok. But it does raise a little doubt when the claims in a book cannot be easily reproduced to validate them.
TradeLikeChuck – the free webinar

My impression turned a bit more sour after attending 3-4 of their 1 hour free webinars. They are all similar. I never got any live questions answered via chat. They spend 25 minutes promoting why they are king of trading above all others. That only left 30 minutes to dive into more details, about the book and actual education. Not much new, but it is a different teaching approach for those who learn better from a presentation than just reading a book.
TradeLikeChuck – their attempt to sell their trading services

Following the webinar, they offer to give you an on the phone counseling session. MAKE NO MISTAKE, THIS IS WHERE THINGS GO TERRIBLY AWRY. It is just a high pressure, “interactive” sales pitch to sell you on why you should spend $8000-$15000 for their personal coaching services.

Understand that I thrive on pulling the rug out from under used car sales approaches. And because I’m not new to this world, I can unravel their pitches pretty easily. I explained up front that I was only interested in chat room services, maybe trade alerts, and an ongoing connection to them during trading hours to provide some guardrails while I’m trading. This didn’t fit into their attempted pitch, and the presenter became very stubborn. Interesting how his initial interest statement of “How can we help?” went sideways when what I wanted did not fit what they offered.

They tried to counter with, “Well you can’t get any good advice unless you pay lots for the experience, and our teachers are the best.”
WRONG. You can find other sources for reasonable fees. I have done so.
They used arguments like “Well obviously you need help in your trading or you wouldn’t have called us”.
WRONG. I just want to make some improvements. I’m not looking for an entire brainwash.
Here is THE BIGGEST PROBLEM with many (not all) trading education services: They claim they want to help and teach you. But if you say “Here are my terms”, or “Here is what I want”, then they just badger you on how you must buy their high-dollar education. Their whole pitch is based on you not knowing what you need, and they are trying to convince you that THEIR system is the only system worth pursing. Hogwash!

Here is the HIDDEN TRUTH to such services: Do the math. Say $10,000 per customer to the company. It only takes 10 customers forking over this fee to yield them $100K. That’s a pretty darn nice salary for someone to sit on their butt and teach you how to trade. It doesn’t take long before those services are making a half million per year just from teaching. But if those teachers were really making the Million a year that so many claim, then why would they bother taking time to teach you–or me–what they do? Answer? They only do this if they NEED the money and believe they can get it from you, the desperate student wanting to make their supposed Million. Basic logic suggests they are not making all the money they claim in trading (at least not consistently). Otherwise, why bother teaching at all? Many will claim they want to share their secrets. But a cost of $10K is not sharing anything.
CONCLUSION

Chuck himself might do fine trading. But Chuck is not the teacher. In fact–the way they present the webinars an sales pitches–they could have no ties with Chuck whatsoever and still have teachers claiming to Trade Like Chuck.

So get the book and video? Yes

Even attend a free webinar? Sure

But pursue their overpriced service and trust your money to someone over the internet? NO.

You should NEVER fork over that kind of money for internet training unless you can go find them in person and punch their lights out when they shaft you. Buyer beware!

Do any of you idiots actually trade?

I picked up on this Chuck Hughes thing and ordered their book. I guess I got a little ahead of myself. Before the book came I decided to look at some reviews and found the bad reviews were like a bad rash. When I got the book I never opened it and sent it right back to them. I then called them and told them to refund my money or I would dispute the charges on my card. Since I didn’t open the package and sent it back they had to refund my money. They still call me trying to get me in their scam, but I told them I’m not interested so now they send brochures in the mail which goes into the round file. Bad reviews from so many people can’t be wrong. I paper traded options for over a year and seen how easy it was to lose your money. It’s worse than buying stocks. Trading options would be fun if you are worth billions and don’t give a crap if you lose. A better way of amusement would be to hang out in Casinos frittering your money away.

Thank you all for sharing and caring.

You know it’s a scam when they tell you ” well don’t you have a credit card you can charge the 6K to? ” Not to mention it represents 25% of my trading account !! Don’t fall for this SCAM !!

I bought the book. It’s not bad. I sat through the introductory seminar and it was well delivered. At that point, they seemed legit. Knowing what I know about some people and companies in the trading education industry, I’m aware of plenty of scam artists overcharging for their goods and services and literally taking people’s last dime with a smile on their faces. This is what this company turned out to be. I was literally bullied by their sales staff and they got especially hostile when they sent me to the “sales director” and I did not make the decision they wanted, which was to spend at least $5500 for their “Inner Circle” privileges. Whenever these outfits start talking about an inner circle, RUN! I spoke to a qualifying sales representative then after she sized me up, I spoke to a “director of sales” and when I indicated I was not planning to buy anything today they started getting very salty with me. I returned the salt and closed down the conversation after I determined they were just like the rest of the charlatans out there. I could not believe the qualifying salesperson called me back just after hanging up with the director and she scolded me for not acting in the way they wanted me to. She came for me, raising her voice and chastising me for not being decisive and not being serious. I told her I was very serious about not wanting to give them $5500 after that harassment. I cannot believe they are in business. If they are getting people to give up their credit cards just like that for a big fat nothing burger (charging $5500 for buy signals???? really???). Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. Bye Felicia!

Very negative comments, indeed. Has anyone read his e-book “Chuck Hughes Optioneering” ? It is free of charge as a download. While I haven’t done much research on it, it seems to have lots of good information in its 72 pages. Would appreciate feedback from anyone in this community who has traded some of his strategies.

does anyone have anything good to say about Chuck? Did anyone really get rich?

I subscribed to Trade Like Chuck. They made it sound like I would have all kinds of excellent training in Options Trading and help. I paid $6,000! Afterward, I began to realize that it was probably a scam. I requested my money back but they stated that they had a signed contract and would not be refunding my money because I had the missed the date by which I had to request the refund (I was in the hospital).

The “training” consisted of some poorly prepared videos that were too fuzzy to really see when expanded to full screen. I tried a number of their “resources” and found many of them to be simple repeats of the mediocre videos I had already watched. I tried calling all of the numbers I could find in the materials and most of the calls were not answered and messages left were not responded to.

I complained to my credit card company and they reversed the charge temporarily while they investigated. Since then, they have reinstituted the charge because the company (Lincoln Financial) claimed that I had not tried to access the training.

I tried “paper trading” their recommendations from the few weekly emails I had received and had poor results. Now the company no longer sends me anything except an occasional attempt to sell me more. And I am out $6,000!

Tomorrow, I am going to report them to the police department to see what they can do.

Ruagolfr above is right about
charging Shipping and Handling $19.98
He has nothing to loose even if after refunding very low % of refund may be 0.05 % or less refund claim People donot have a time to hassele for refund any way
Bad publicity stunt
My personal experiance is Invest in BRK.B share and power of compounding return on investment @21% growth $10,000 keep it for 20 years will be worth $1,000,000 (Million)

cd AND BOOK NOT FREE—IT’S A $20 SHIPPING AND HANDLING SCAM…TELL CHUCK TO GET A REAL JOB !!!!!

During his commercial on FOXNEWS, I was wondering why he needs to “give away” anything.
I came this close [ ] to getting this book. Then, as I always do, I searched for scamming. Lo, and behold, there they were. Thank you very much for this article, as it saved me a from a lot of headaches.
Just take a vacation, enjoy your wealth, and leave us alone.

Thank you so very much for posting this very important information on a potential SCAM !!
I truly love reviews prior to a purchase. That to me is a investment in itself. Don’t spend !!
Invest with a well known investment company such as Fidelity. Research, research, research….!!

The name should be trade like F__K

They are taking money out of my checking account I am trying to stop it. DONT ORDER THE BOOK. IT IS A SCAM! It was on fox business channel and it took for granted that it was reputable. It’s not!

If he is making so much money from investments (he claims $50k per month in retirement), why the hell would he publish a book that won’t generate anywhere near that amount per month? #fishy

Just saw the ad on TV and decided to look online for overall reviews as I have learned to do when considering any purchase, so thank you for your honest appraisal. I already doubted that this was a legitimate business and will definitely steer clear.