Happy New Year, Beasties! Welcome to 2026! 🎉
In this special New Year’s Day episode, Monkey (Krzysztof) and Badger (Luke) kick off the year with a massive reveal. While Badger was navigating the chaos of London at 4am, Monkey was deep in the lab engineering a game-changing tool for the community.
Welcome to “The Laws of the Options Jungle.” 🌿
For too long, retail investors have been told that options are just dangerous gambling tickets for the reckless. Today, Monkey flips the script entirely. He unveils a new educational blueprint designed to teach the “Wall Street Wildlife way” of using options: stop being the gambler and start being the insurance company.
Badger steps up as the “guinea pig” for a live demo of this new framework. Together, they break down why the market is neutral, how to master your own psychology, and why even long-term investors need these tools in their arsenal.
In this episode, we cover:
🦁 The Reveal: Monkey debuts his secret project: a comprehensive, safety-first options course built specifically for the Wall Street Wildlife community.
⚖️ The First Law: “The jungle is neutral. It feeds the prepared and eats the impulsive.” We explain what this means for your money.
🧠 Psychology First: Why monitoring greed and avoiding revenge trading are your primary defense against the market.
🛡️ Options as Insurance: Using puts and calls to be the “House” rather than the player.
📐 The Mechanics: We peel back the curtain on the Black-Scholes-Merton model and Implied Volatility (IV) without the headache.
📢 Patreon Exclusive: We are opening a limited beta run of this course for our Dolphin Tier and above members. We are looking for ~20 dedicated beasties to join the first cohort, provide feedback, and help us iterate.
👉 Join the Tribe & Apply for the Beta here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e113-laws-of-why-147220247
Segments:
00:00 Intro & New Year’s Banter
02:15 “Time is the Only Currency”
05:18 Introducing the Options Course
08:54 Who is This Course For?
10:22 Luke’s Experience: Gambling vs. Strategy
13:54 Live Demo: The Blueprint Website
21:58 The Laws of the Jungle: Monitor Greed
26:17 How to “Be The House” (Insurance)
28:48 No Revenge Trading & Framing Risk
35:11 Portfolio Size: How Much Do You Need?
37:32 The Greeks & Implied Volatility
42:14 Can Beginners Use Options?
44:55 How to Join the Beta Cohort
[00:00:05] Luke: Welcome to the Deep Investing Jungle with Luke, the badger, Hallard, and Krzysztof the monkey. This week. A special episode to kick off the start of the year. Krzysztof, what have you got for.
[00:00:16] Krzysztof: Badge. I have a happy new year. W warm wishes to you, buddy. It’s January 1st. We’re in 2026. We’re living in the future. your pal monkey here, uh, went to bed yesterday at about nine 30 in the pm uh, you, I imagine, uh, stayed out till four in the morning, dancing in some, uh, disco club in the deep heart of London Underground, and you’re probably just, uh, rolling outta bed.
[00:00:50] Luke: Pretty much.
[00:00:52] Krzysztof: Yeah, it’s true, true.
[00:00:53] Luke: Yeah, true. I said like in global time. You were in bed before me. Even though you’re six hours earlier. Yes, correct.
[00:01:01] Krzysztof: So this officially, I think makes me, uh, old. orangutan, like I’m, or Babo? I don’t know. I mean, I’m, I’m officially like no fun, right? Can, can it be said monkey is no longer any fun whatsoever. So if you want your fun, you gotta go. You gotta go to Badger Badger. Set.
[00:01:23] Luke: You look at, look at Krzysztof, right? He’s still doing this Vegas promotion relentlessly. How much fun you’re gonna have hang in with him when he goes to bed at 9:00 PM That ain’t happening when we go to Vegas. He’s saving his, he’s saving his awakeness for Las Vegas. That’s what he’s doing.
[00:01:38] Krzysztof: Oh, oh my God. May that be true. Uh.
[00:01:45] Luke: You know, but you’ve, you’ve got good reason to be in bed early ’cause you’ve been burning the Uh.
the oil and the brain oil. ’cause you’ve been building something for a little while now. And today you’re gonna give me a taster of welcome to the options jungle.
[00:02:03] Krzysztof: Yes, uh, this is true. Before we get there, badge, uh, before revealing the sweet toys I’ve been working on, uh, you had something you wanted to talk about upfront.
[00:02:15] Luke: Do I wanna, I’d like to quote something from, do you remember our friend Edgy European, DGI at the, dividend podcast, edgy and Derek? Uh.
[00:02:24] Krzysztof: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:02:25] Luke: He posted a really nice, uh, message on their own community Discord. I just wanna give a shout out. I just wanna quote one thing ’cause I think it’s really nice. Um, and they’re like, dividend guys healthy, wealthy year ahead.
But one thing he said that stuck with me, time is the only currency we have. I think that’s quite impactful. you and I talk about, you know, money being a tool and, you know, creating financial independence. But it’s just a route to give you time so you can use your time in the most valuable way you see fit.
Whether that’s like to be able to go to bed at 9:00 PM every night and get up at 9:00 AM and you know, like sleep your life away if that’s what you wanna do. Like money is unlocked up for you. If it’s to travel to the mountains and like leap off snow drifts every day, like money unlocks those things, you can use your time in the way you want.
And if it’s to. Join like 10 plus hours of deep options training to learn how to become like an options animal, like investing can buy you the time to do that.
[00:03:33] Krzysztof: It’s all about time, which is funny since it doesn’t actually exist on the level of fundamental physics. My five year journey into, you know, the, the pits of the quantum realms and special relativity and general relativity, it’s kind of, it’s kind of wild when you begin to understand that it’s a time is an emergent property.
Um, but nonetheless, where we primates live. I think most people go directionally wrong or right when they have the correct understanding of times fundamental importance, and I think you and I are are mission statement here at Wall Street Wildlife is to make everybody’s journey in the investing world more fulfilling on a, on a, on a deep level.
Rather than a merely functional instrumental level, which of course, that also needs to happen. But, um, in a, in a sense, it’s about the journey, not necessarily the destination, though our returns justify the destination. Um, real quick, shout out to, uh, maybe we’ll do our, our, uh, what’s it called, resolutions episode next week .
[00:04:49] Luke: And actually let’s just contextualize where we are because we have already recorded our predictions for 2026, but our editors like it’s a big complex episode. It’s a long one. And so they need a couple of extra days to wrangle that. So we’re putting this one out. As episode one 13, I think. Uh, and I’ll be editing this and getting it out like tomorrow to our Patreons and onto the YouTubes this Sunday, and then you’ll get our predictions next week.
But they’ll already be like a week old at that point.
[00:05:18] Krzysztof: Cool. All right. Badge. So I have something of a, of a gift for you and for our Patreon community. So let me, let me set the stage a little bit. it’s become clear to me that there are many ways to being a successful investor. You are a paragon of genuine long-term investing principles, what that means and how to actually live by them.
people listening to our show now for several years know that that is also my base. And also I’ve been exploring and learning the, shorter timeframes. As well, which have their own rules and own pitfalls. And own strengths. However, that said, it became very clear to me, badge that there’s a whole skillset that can either accelerate your progress or fundamentally destroy your progress that lives across the time dimensions.
And that is the toolkit I call options. And you see options being used in all the ways in terms of time, short term traders, swing traders, medium term traders, and long term investors. Successful ones all use options on the highest levels. It occurred to me very clearly that this is a world that is because of its complexities.
Is up to now not really well taught and not really well understood by the majority of people. And so I took it as one of my first tasks my to-do li I put it, I bumped it to the top of my to-do list and over the past couple months I basically began building what I thought would be an options course.
Done the Wall Street Wildlife Way. Meaning starting from the principles, the meta abstract ideas that you need to understand fully before you start getting into the technicalities. And so in that spirit, I created a blueprint website in which I already organized it and, uh, filled it with the principles and the ideas that I would like to teach.
First are Patreons before taking it out into the wider world after iterating, um, after iterating it with the people we already trust and who trust us. You, my friend, are not only a badger, but you’re also a Guinea pig. At least today you are. And so for full disclosure folks, Badger has not seen. Any of what monkey has been working on here, this is the first time his eyes will be, uh, seeing what you’re seeing in this video.
And our goal here really is to record badgers, um, initial reactions and questions and critiques and give me feedback, whatever feedback that I might have overlooked or obviously, or things I’ve done well or whatever. And then we’re gonna send this out to you so you could, you know, help us make this the best potential options course in the jungle.
[00:08:54] Luke: And Christoph, who is this for? Who are you building this for?
[00:08:58] Krzysztof: Okay, great. I think everyone, uh, with a big asterisk, if you do not understand the principles, I’m gonna walk you through in a second. Then it doesn’t matter if you’re advanced, medium, or beginner, your options will become your enemy. And without the proper principles, advanced longtime traders have blown up their accounts, so nobody is safe.
Uh, let’s just make that clear. If you misuse the principles, if you don’t follow the principles, nobody is safe. However. I, I argue, and this is maybe the, the slightly controversial point, I also argue that even beginners ought to have a basic understanding of what options are and how they work, so that when they feel ready, especially with some of the strategies are very beginner friendly, they can, in a sense, expedite the way they invest without.
doing anything dangerous because options can also be, are there to actually decrease risk rather than amplify it. So TLDR is, options are for everybody, but you have to learn the princip.
[00:10:22] Luke: And lemme tell you where I am in my, like, options journey. ’cause I think I’m a good Guinea pig for this. I treat them as a bit of a joke to be honest. I’ve got like a sub portfolio of options and I, I buy, put some calls and. I don’t really understand what most of the numbers I’m looking at are telling me.
Um, and I buy like a couple of thousand bucks exposure in something and I’ve got lucky a couple of times actually. Like, uh, upstart I think. And now you, you kind of persuaded me to buy an OS option that’s like up from like a thousand dollars. It was about $5,000 a few weeks ago. Um. And I’ve lost money.
Like I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve had several options go to zero, notably when I’m buying puts, and I’m aware there’s this other side of the thing where you could sell options. But if my mouse cursor drifts over to that side of like, the options chain, um, like I feel like my finger twitching, like I’m gonna get burned by the mouse.
Don’t press those buttons. So. Uh, I do, I don’t really under, I understand in principle what they are, but I don’t understand how to use these things. I don’t understand if I’m making a wise trade, and I don’t really know what I’m looking for. But I know, I know enough to know that it’s dangerous if misused.
So I think that makes me a good candidate for your, the Guinea pig on your course.
[00:11:45] Krzysztof: Yeah, it makes you an excellent candidate, and I’m actually going to call it right here, badge Live. That. When you go through this course with me and you realize that the, uh, strategies available to you are way, way, uh, wider than you thought, and that they are actually some of them risk protective strategies, the gains on your portfolio this year are going to increase because you will learn that, um.
You will learn, basically learn how to amplify your gains without amplifying risk, which is so, um, I can’t wait for you to, to expand your, your toolkit. So let me pause here and, uh, gather my thoughts. The last, the main thing I wanna say in terms of pitch before turning, before turning on the screen share.
Is that I’m starting from the same place as we did when we made the 10 laws of the investing jungle. I have made every one of the mistakes using options that have cost me dearly because I mean, it’s, it’s the same idea, right? And the market is such a complex system. And, and you’re dealing with the most advanced players and you trick yourself into thinking that just because you got lucky once that you’re actually good.
And then you have to learn the hard way that you violated this, this, and this principle. So believe me when I tell you, I understand the risk of these things better than anyone, and I also understand how to use them properly. Having burned myself enough times over the many, many years, um, so. Uh, it’s a kind of, trust me, I know what I’m talking about because I’ve put my hand on the stove repeatedly.
[00:13:42] Luke: Great.
[00:13:44] Krzysztof: Okay. Shall we turn on the screen share and, uh, allow me to show you what I’ve built?
[00:13:52] Luke: Yeah, let’s do it.
[00:13:54] Krzysztof: Cool. All right, so get yourselves on the YouTubes ’cause this, this really is a live product demo. You need to see what monkey’s been up to. And by the way, this is still a blueprint. You know, the, this is going to, I’m still going to iterate this many times over. This is not what the final product will look like, but I think it’s good enough now to have you critique and walk through it.
So, on the landing page you see, welcome to the options jungle. And if you click start the ritual, you begin with the question, where’s the prey going? And this is the fundamental, uh, a place where all options activity has to start.
And this is where already many people go wrong. All that options do is take your thesis. On the underlying stock and help you in the sense magnify that thesis, whether you think the stock will go up, whether you think the stock will go down, or whether you think the stock is, call it fairly priced if you do not understand the fundamental stock that you own.
You’re already lost and you need to slow down or get off the options train. Yes, there are ways that call it the professional traders use options without needing to know anything about the stock, but that’s not what I’m teaching here. I’m teaching this. We are teaching this as a corollary, a one two partnership between the stock, that’s the underlying and the option strategy.
So you gotta stop already. If you do cannot answer this question. What do you think your stock is going to do? What is your thesis about the stock? And of course, immediately, you know, I could hear myself saying. Well, but stocks in the short term, you don’t know if they’re gonna go up or down. There’s all kinds of in, you know, like timeframes are involved.
And yes, that’s getting into the, the, the nuances and all of that is important, but fundamentally, let’s try to keep it very simple, right? If I own, for example, eos, my answer here. Is in this case, given everything that I know about the company, that I think it’s going to go up in 26 because X, Y, and ZI don’t think it’s gonna go down.
I don’t think it’s gonna go sideways. Is it possible that it does those things? Of course, it, it’s, it’s possible. But for the purpose of this demo, let’s actually, to be fair, let’s also think in timeframes that are, let’s say, a year or more. So let’s, uh, immediately forget about any short term stuff. So where do I click as an EOS holder?
I think it’s going to go up. I have my thesis, uh, and I click up.
So now, right, I have a choice point. Do I really want to use options in a way that are safer and limit my risks, or because I have a specific catalyst in mind? Let’s say the quarter one earnings report that’s gonna announce a partnership with Google, and then ai, whatever data, build out whatever I want. Danger. Let’s play it. Safe badge. Actually, how do you wanna play it? Let me turn it over to you.
[00:17:32] Luke: Let’s, let’s play it safe. I, I’d like to play it safe. I’m learning about this stuff.
[00:17:36] Krzysztof: Okay. We’re playing it safe, we get. This strategy, the bull call back spread. you have your thesis and you have your, you know, which direction you wanna go, and it gives you an, you know, a strategy.
when I clicked on the actual strategy was the long call. I had a thesis. I, you know, and then it, it took me to this, to this strategy. Anyway, that’s the homepage, right? And you could play around, you could play around with that. Um, saying, Okay, uh, I think my stock, let’s say it’s.
Uh, something like Johnson and Johnson, right? I think the stock’s gonna trade more or less within a relatively safe range. I quick, sideways, I wanna play it safe and it’s gonna give me another strategy to think about. This homepage
it might introduce people to different ways of different strategies as a teaching tool. But it’s not really the way I’m gonna teach the course, it’s just the homepage. So you click on the short straddle there and it shows you the mechanics of that particular strategy, and you get to think whether that’s appropriate for what you think will happen.
So anyway, that’s the homepage. but in the course that I’m eventually going to teach about this. Which will be available to our Patreons first in a limited cohort. I think badge. We, we were talking, we want to, we’ll probably limit it to about the first 20 of our Dolphin tier Patreons. Um, we’ll schedule a date that works for most people and then once we have that date, I, the date set, I will teach this course the way I would teach it to the wider world and we’ll.
Get feedback from everyone, and then I’ll iterate and make the course even better. Then do it a second time and the third time before launching the product out and beyond the jungle. Right? That’s our plan,
[00:19:30] Luke: Sounds good, and if you’re hearing this and you are checking out the YouTube and you’re interested in seeing it, it is not too late to come and join the Patreon and get into like that first or second cohort if you want to be part of shaping the course that Krzysztof is building
[00:19:46] Krzysztof: And where should our YouTubers find us?
[00:19:50] Luke: at wallstreetwildlife.com, which points at Al Patreon. And if you join at the Dolphin or above tier, as well as getting a whole host of other fancy benefits like the podcast early with no advertising and, uh, access to our Dolphin Trading channel, where Krzysztof and I reveal our real trades in real time, usually actually before we actually hit the trade button.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff in the Dolphin Trade Channel almost every day where Krzysztof is. Opining on options that he’s buying and selling and, uh, how he’s navigating that and how he’s thinking about it. So there’s value there anyway. And then here’s a nice add-on for our dolphins.
[00:20:33] Krzysztof: Awesome. And I think our. Plan is, uh, later on, once this is live, that we’re going to create a advance call, uh, another tier, the jungle cat tier. Well, we already have the jungle cat tier, but the options stuff will live on that tier. So this stuff now, during this iteration phase, we wanted to make available to all our current Patreons, uh, as a thank you and as a value add.
And then later it’s gonna sort of morph up the, the hierarchy because this is, um. More it, it, I guess it is more advanced level stuff, and it’s not necessarily going to be for everybody, but the advanced level folks should have access to it and, and sort of like we do with all our tiers, self-select where you fit on our, on our hierarchy from the sloths to the, to the dolphins to up .
Okay. So anyway, so leaving the, the initial page, we’re gonna get to the fundamentals. And this is really where I’m going to spend the most of the time at the beginning because if you do not learn these, you will be toast. The jungle badge is neutral. It feeds the prepared and eats the impulsive. And this is, isn’t this so true to just investing in, in general?
[00:21:58] Luke: Yeah, Warren Buffet quote like, or maybe, maybe another guy. It’s like the market is this tool that transfers wealth from the inpatient to the patient. it’s kind of, you’ve got like a you know, another version of that right here.
[00:22:11] Krzysztof: Right. So Right. Many of these lessons applied just as much. I mean, they’re tied. They’re tied together. And so, uh, interesting you said patience because that is rule number 13. Down here, but um, there are things that are specific to options that don’t necessarily apply to stocks in general.
[00:22:37] Luke: When we talk about most of the time on the podcast or not on the page fund, we’re talking about like equities, stocks. You buy something, you’re then in every possible way, a an owner of a tiny portion of that company. And you could hold that forever, essentially, you know, until you die or until the company eventually like collapses under its own weight and falls.
And, um, that’s, that’s like. That’s the main way to be an investor and you options it it like they’re not, I know you, I knew you sort of said up front, this course is for anybody who wants to learn about this stuff, but you don’t have to use options at all. Like it is, this is like a complexity add-on. Look, what we talk about on the podcast is really oriented around when we talk about buying and selling stocks and valuing companies, a lot of our ethos at Wall Street Wildlife is about.
The importance of understanding your own emotions and managing yourself, and in many ways it might, if you’re new to the pod, um, this might seem a bit counterintuitive, like I legitimately believe with 25 years of investing experience now my ability to manage my own emotions is actually more key to my success as an investor and consistently beating the market over 25 years.
The emotional side is, is more key to that. Then the actual ability to pick stocks and value companies and do analysis. ’cause if you can’t manage yourself, you could be the greatest stock picker in the world and you’re still gonna screw up because like greed and fear are.
gonna make you do dumb things with those otherwise high quality companies.
And I contextualize that for
[00:24:21] Krzysztof: So, yeah, exactly. So badge. So that’s why rule number one that that we talk about is monitor greed. And when I click on this, whether we see here, monitor your greed level carefully and honestly. Emotional discipline is the first line of defense. If you feel euphoric, it’s likely time to sell. Um, and then I’m gonna expound in the real, you know, in the course all the other ways that greed, you have to start there.
And that’s because options are by design nine, uh, instruments that make it extraordinarily easy. To fall into the trap of greed because they, they, um, call it amplify the things you already own. So if you use it as an instrument of, let’s say leverage, you are increasing your risk times, let’s say 10. Um, however, there are also ways which are really important, and this is what’s overlooked by most investors.
They are also instruments in which you are decreasing your risk, uh, in which case you’re using an option, literally because you are trying to limit your greed. A very, very easy example to, to explain this, which has to do with, um, this other principal be the house. It makes sense. And uh, and I’ll click on this later probably, but it makes sense, right?
That if, let, let’s use a casino as the metaphor. If you go into a casino as the, uh, player, you are increasing the minute you step onto that floor right? You’re increasing your risk and the odds of your pockets being lighter are higher than before you stepped onto the floor. Correct.
[00:26:16] Luke: Right. Absolutely.
[00:26:17] Krzysztof: Whereas if you’re the house.
The more people that step onto the floor, the less risk you have because you are, the house always has an edge. Right. Another metaphor for this is I, as an owner of my own house, could legally choose not to buy insurance. Correct.
[00:26:41] Luke: like if you’ve got a, if you’ve got like a home loan, you probably legally have to have insurance. But let’s say you didn’t have a home loan. You owned the house outright, then yeah, you could forego insurance.
[00:26:51] Krzysztof: Exactly right. And so, um, when you buy insurance, I’m actually decreasing my risk. I’m paying somebody something, right? I expect that to expire worthless. But in the meantime, my risk of owning the home has gone down. Options used in this way are almost exactly analogous. You can treat options as hedges and insurance policies, not just leveraged bets to either upside or downside.
And most people do not know this, but that’s the principle you can become. Almost like the insurance seller who, um, I’m sorry. Well, that gets, there’s already two options, um, two paths there. You could be the insurance buyer, which lowers your risk, but there’s also a way to become an insurance seller, which is another way to profit off of the sort of risk mitigating industry that is insurance.
So, um, don’t think, basically, don’t think that. Um, just because it’s an option, it’s mere only amplifying greed. There’s all ways in which it’s decreasing greed, but your point stands badge. If you cannot monitor your own behavioral psychologies, options will school you in the worst way. So we’re gonna spend a lot of time actually talking about this.
Um,
[00:28:25] Luke: So give us, give us a taste of one or two other of your. Options and rules of the jungle,
[00:28:32] Krzysztof: Sure. Um, let’s, let’s do, uh, let’s do patience is along those same lines as, as greed. let’s do
[00:28:48] Luke: I’m quite intrigued by no revenge.
[00:28:52] Krzysztof: no revenge. Uh.
You will never be a hundred percent right, but don’t compound mistakes by chasing or revenge trading. Accept the loss as a tuition fee and clear your mind. This is also similar to regular, uh, just buying the regular shares of a stock, chasing after losses, doubling down, um, where you think you’re buying lower, at better values, but all you’re doing.
Is being upset that your stock lost value, except that in the options world, things happen much faster. So the gambling instinct is higher, if that makes sense. Because like at the poker table, it’s like hand after hand after hand and you can go on, tilt much more quickly, get upset, um, whereas long-term investors in stocks.
I think in terms of years and options, often people think in months, so it’s easier to fall prey to that particular mindset. Um, let me, let me click on this. Use protection, and this is, this is what I was talking about earlier. You can use puts as insurance and portfolio protection instruments. A small premium can save your entire portfolio during the crash.
So when later in the course I get to the anchors of the different strategies, this is what I’ll be focusing in a lot of ways I think I I with so without repeating myself badge, what gives options a bad name is that the degeneracy angle of them is usually about simply buying calls. But there are all the other strategies like selling calls or selling puts or buying puts matched with equity already in your portfolio that literally are there to decrease risk rather than amplify it.
And that will be, especially for someone like you. An incredibly powerful tool once you begin to learn when to use one of these options. And in what context? Um, maybe, uh, maybe I’ll click on one more here, which would be, which has to do with frame risk. Read this one for us.
[00:31:37] Luke: Risk management frame is crucial. Options can both increase or decrease risk depending on how they’re structured. Define max loss before entry.
[00:31:48] Krzysztof: So what many people don’t really understand either is that there are many options, strategies, that as soon as you buy it, you already know the minimum and the maximum that you can make. So that’s, that’s quite different really from, um, regular stock investing, right? I mean, outside of like chaos where the stock literally plummets to zero, which happens very, very rarely, right?
Um, in any month or any year of investing, your stock could go up hundreds, thousands of percent, but it could also crash to 70%, 80%, 90%. And we’re even talking about major companies like. A, you know, name any company that hasn’t gone through something like a 40% drawdown. Right?
[00:32:38] Luke: well like Amazon multiple times. Right. Like 80% draw downs in. If you’ve been to Amazon shareholder Netflix as well. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:32:45] Krzysztof: Right. Exactly. But what options when you skillfully allow you to do is very clearly tell you when you buy instrument X, the most you will lose is let’s say 10%. And you could also. Um, call it hedge and cap your upside as well. But regardless of which stream you take, you have this very clear frame that says, because of my thesis, because of the instrument I’m using, no matter the outcome, it won’t be more than minus 10 and it won’t be, let’s say more than 25%.
So they are very stable building blocks that you get to. Use over and over and over again, and it will never blow up your account as long as your structure is in place. So I think that’s really crucial to understand. And so obviously there’s a bunch of more, bunch more laws, which I will go through in greater detail sequentially, and I’ll field questions and think about edge use cases.
But this is where I started.
[00:33:52] Luke: This is great. I like it. It’s a good build on the disciplines that we’re building as stock investors, equity investors. talks to the mindset I had like 20 minutes ago that this stuff is. Like dangerous. It’s for like math whizzes or gamblers. Um, and it’s not for serious investors.
You know, you’ve addressed those points really well.
[00:34:14] Krzysztof: Awesome. I think as you say that, you know, one of the benefits, one of the ways that we’ll benefit by teaching this course to our Patreons is unlike, let’s say, reading about this stuff in theory, somewhere on the internet, you and I will both be available as resources for people, not as advisors. But when there’s some question about, I’m thinking about doing X and Y, we could say, we’re not financial advisors.
These decisions are all yours. But here’s how I would understand this problem you’re facing. Here’s a strategy you might want to think about instead, or that looks to me like too risky of a proposition or whatever. And then because we’re a community. W we will learn together doing this stuff. So that’s, that’s a really important thing, especially in your first year learning about this stuff.
So you wouldn’t necessarily be on your own as you learn the principles.
[00:35:11] Luke: Another, another, another foundational question, right? so um, we don’t, we, we try and avoid talking about like real money ’cause it’s nothing else that’s just like a bit crass, right? Um, and the only real money we.
you and I talk about is like our king of the jungle portfolios. And mine is now about. What, something like $8,000 and yours is about $13,000, that ballpark.
Um, how, what sort of, how, how big would your portfolio have to be in real dollars for options to become something that you might seriously consider starting to use?
[00:35:43] Krzysztof: That’s an interesting question. I think it’s, uh, all relative as it always is in terms of your journey of how old you are, where you are in your investing journey, your income level, whether you’re now just l living off your portfolio or it’s wise for you to be a little more aggressive. So the absolute value amount is actually too relative to answer.
But I will give another answer that’s maybe a little more satisfying. Options work in blocks of a hundred shares often. So were you, for example, to want to, uh, take one of these more risk averse strategies where you become the seller, like, uh, of insurance? You would need a minimum of a hundred shares.
Usually to employ one of these strategies, but that means different dollar amounts, right? Um, I did this in my King of the Jungle portfolio once, uh, this past year with my EEO shares. I had 350 shares in the King of the Jungle, and I sold one call option. At a higher strike price that allowed me to collect a hundred percent of that premium when it expired.
But the minimum I had to have was a hundred shares. So if that’s something like Mercado Libre, obviously you would need whatever that would be, $200,000 worth. But if you’re looking at a stock that’s call it $7 a share, um, I think on this right now is around $10 a share in my portfolio. You would need a minimum of a thousand dollars of that stock to use that option skillfully.
[00:37:30] Luke: Yeah, very helpful. Thank you.
[00:37:32] Krzysztof: Cool. Okay. So after we cover the laws of the jungle, I’m, I am going to address a little bit of the mechanics, uh, the, call it, the engine of options. And this has to do with. The, um, Greeks, whether are known as the Greeks, this is what you were talking about, the funny numbers, the, the math, uh, and I’m going to explain how each of these work and why paying attention to them is important.
Uh, especially this one, the iv, which is, uh, if you use options and you don’t understand iv, you will get hosed. So that’s gonna be less in and of itself.
So there’s gonna be a lesson on the Greeks, and then just to show you, some of the complexities with the actual engine inside options. I will explain how some of these options are priced using this model, but the good news is honestly, you do not need to understand this. Most options traders know it exists, but.
It’s it’s sophisticated math that kind of runs on its own. I did wanna be transparent and at least show people like this is how options pricing happens. So it’s for transparency purposes. This will just give our, our folks, uh, a deeper understanding of options pricing. But it’s not, it’s not a requirement. You don’t need a, uh, PhD, PhD in math to go forth. It’s, it is useful. I found like anything with investing that if you understand the first principles stuff, then you’re just less likely to get hosed because.
You’ll understand, in this case, implied volatility much better because you’ll think in terms of rate and time and the other variables in this formula. Okay, so badge. So after graduating from the foundations, I’m gonna talk about the next tier, which has to do with general market conditions. And when to use options and when not to use options. So that has a little bit of the technical analysis stuff that is important to know. Um, but that’s mostly important to know for the shorter timeframes.
But I’ll be teaching this in terms of the longer timeframes. So, uh, it’s useful to know, but not, let’s call it a hundred percent necessary, but. But that will be the next tier. And then I want to give you one example of one of the very basics. You’re gonna click on something like buying the call. And when you do that, this explains to you how the option works, what to expect when you press some of the, some of the levers.
And we’ll walk through, do this when these conditions are met. Don’t do this when these conditions are there. Avoid this if you are. So and so risk intolerant and so on, so forth. And then the rest of the course really will be walking users through the options in increasing levels of basics, in risk and sophistication.
So my hope is that everybody in our Patreon community will at least learn all of the anchors and then those with. A taste for the more intermediate strategies will also hang around for the verticals. And then after that is gonna be like the weeds of all the different options like the iron condor, which monkey used recently to poor, poor effect.
So I, I know better than everyone why or when. To use or not use the iron condor from recent experience. So anyway, um, that’s, that’ll be the, the structure of the course. So the question that we need to answer really, uh, the one that’s left is, who is this for? My pitch? Honestly, I’ll, sorry to be redundant, but I will say that I, I, I generally think options are appropriate for 85% of all investors because they can be. Uh, they could help you minimize risk as well as take on risk.
So as long as you understand the multiple paths, everybody should know, sorry for the pun, their options regarding options. Uh.
[00:42:14] Luke: Let me, let me ask a more challenging question around that though. So, if you are a newer investor and you are still learning about stock fundamentals and you’re learning to read like a balance sheet and how to listen to an earnings call and actually get insights out if you’re at that stage. Is it fair to say this is, you’re probably not ready for this year?
[00:42:37] Krzysztof: No, here’s why. Uh. Yeah, because to go back to my first point, you don’t touch options until you have spent your time understanding the underlying stock that you own. If you are also thinking in terms of options as you study the stock, it will help you focus on your understanding and thesis of your stock much more clearly.
Because you might say, for example, okay, I’m learning about. Um, let’s say I’m learning about lemonade. Okay? I know what it does. I know it’s an insurance AI company and I’m not quite ready for the balance sheet and cash flows. That still feels very heady, but this options thing really makes me. Uh, asks me, do I think this is a stock that’s going to go up slowly?
Do I think it’s gonna go sideways? Do I think maybe it has turbulent waters in, um, coming up that’s gonna focus your thesis statement. You don’t actually have to buy the options to think like an options trader might. So in other words, it will help you understand what you’re buying first. And once you have that understanding.
Then you could legitimately say, okay, I like lemonade. I’m gonna buy, let’s say a hundred shares. Do I actually want to amplify my risk because I’m young enough to do it? In which case strategies X and Y would help me do that? Or do I actually wanna mitigate my risk, take on less risk, in which case options, JK and L would be appropriate for me?
And that. Is not actually that complicated. That’s just thinking like any house owner or any car owner would. So that’s why I say options have a bad name because they’re often misused in that degenerate kind of way. Thought about from fundamentals, 85% of our Patreons really should be interested in taking this course and helping me iterate this offering.
[00:44:55] Luke: Great stuff. Well, I’m looking forward to being your Guinea pig along this journey. Like I, I legitimately will get a lot of benefit from this personally. And maybe I can embody some of the questions that are coming from the community. So, once again, if you want to get involved in this, if you’re not a Patreon, get over to Wall Street wildlife.com and sign up.
Um, we’re gonna make this available to our dolphin and above tier. Um, and, you know, our dolphins get a whole bunch of benefits. Here’s like an add-on benefit. Um, as Krzysztof said, I think we’d like to limit it to no more than 20. People just for the initial run and there’ll be future runs. So if you’re not in that first 20, don’t worry.
And of course it’s gonna get better and refined based on the questions and the kind of snaggles we run into and the learnings we have together as a community, as we learn about this stuff. So, um, so don’t fear if you don’t make that first 20.
[00:45:45] Krzysztof: And I guess, once that’s there, once we have. The people that generally are interested, then we’ll gather dates and meeting times, and then once we have our 20 Guinea pigs on top of you, we will, I’ll iterate and then I will start sending out dates and, and get us going.
[00:46:07] Luke: Great stuff, and it’s the 1st of January 26th. Today, start of a brand new year, I guess we’ll be planning to do the very first sort of kickoff, uh, schedule of the first run of the course in January.
[00:46:20] Krzysztof: Yeah, and I guess the, the one thing I I’ll add is once this video is posted on our Patreon in the comments section. If this is at all appealing to you, just write a comment, you know, uh, just so I have a general sense of whether this is landing with great acclaim or whether there are literal crickets and nobody cares about making more money.
[00:46:46] Luke: Disclaimer, disclaimer, you don’t have to do any of this stuff. I have been a very successful market beating investor for 25 years, and I haven’t got a freaking clue about any of this.
[00:46:58] Krzysztof: Amen. Just, yeah. Okay. This is exciting. We monkey’s gonna help you become a billionaire and, and create your own space. Launch rocket company. Just, just, you wait.
[00:47:09] Luke: Awesome. I look forward to it. Krzysztof, thank you so much for, uh, putting in like a ton of time in the back end of 2025. I know you’ve been, uh, pulling your hair out, preparing this and working on a whole bunch of other value add things for our Patreons. So on behalf of the community, thank you for making the big.
[00:47:27] Krzysztof: Pleasure is all mine. Happy New Year’s to all our Beasties. 2026 is gonna be a hell of a year. We’re so excited that you’re on this journey with US Badge. Uh, how do folks become, uh, beasts?
[00:47:44] Luke: The options. Start here.
