When the fall rolls around and the days cool off, the spirit of competition heats up. Every autumn, millions of people sign up and participate in fantasy football. According to ESPN, about 40 million people in the United States play fantasy football. Entering one of these highly competitive leagues entails a time-sensitive draft, money pools, and careful analysis of what’s going on in the NFL every week.

Like options traders, fantasy football managers can risk a lot. They put hours into making the right picks on draft day, predicting the outcome of a particular player, and making last minute adjustments to win every week. One bad trade can ruin your season and devalue an entire roster, quickly knocking you out of the competition.

There are lots of overlapping attributes that options traders and fantasy managers share. Below we discuss some of the major ones.

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Staying diligent with research

Knowledge is the key to a successful fantasy team and options trading strategy. Fantasy managers and traders alike need to know which players to draft, how long to hold, and when it is the right time to consider a trade. Both types of managers must be proactive about keeping current records of the markets so they can make informed decisions within a short window of time.

Both also require you to keep up with the news on a daily basis. The NFL and the stock market are high volatility areas where every moving part matters. In options trading, the more speculative the trade, the more attentive you need to be with the underlying stock. News from earnings calls, product launches, or regulatory pressure can cause dramatic swings in company stock prices.

Resilience

The trading floor draws many parallels to the football field. Taking a hit is par for the course but winners have to get back up on their feet without fear. No trader or fantasy manager is ever going to be right 100% of the time and the key is to learn from your losses. The hits you take in both fields make you wiser, stronger, and better.

Both are great at managing and mitigating risk

Fantasy managers must learn how to manage and mitigate their risk over time. This learning curve can be difficult and extremely risky. Just like options traders, you have to be comfortable with making consequential decisions and acting quickly before you miss a crucial opportunity.

If one of your players has a BYE week or gets injured suddenly, you need to figure out an alternate strategy almost immediately to minimize the potential for a loss that week. Given the limited amount of space for players on the bench, managers will curate their fantasy roster to fill empty spots any given week and mitigate their potential loss. This is essentially hedging a trade.

Every team has a bench filled with second string players who will start in the event of an injury or BYE week. By doing so, fantasy managers are offsetting the risk that any individual player might pose by replacing them with someone who is likely to stay healthy in their absence. When one player goes out, another goes in to mitigate the loss on the original draft pick that week.

Likewise, a skilled options trader can hedge their investments with a multi-leg options strategy (or simply “defined outcomes” on Olive) and closely monitor the movement of the underlying stock to make game-time decisions that maximize profit or mitigate loss.

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They both require you to stay composed under pressure

You can’t let the pressure overcome you when you’re trading or managing a fantasy team. Unpredictable things happen frequently with both, but staying level headed and figuring out the right solution within a short period of time makes all the difference.

Making a rash or ill-advised trade in a moment of panic can increase the severity of the situation. Remaining calm and giving yourself the right amount of time to make an educated decision is the key to success in both disciplines.

Strategy

Picking the right players and the right options to trade requires years of experience to do well. The sum total of your fantasy roster is what keeps a team competitive every week, just like an investment portfolio. Winning strategies for both fantasy football and options trading are developed over time.

Similar to portfolio managers, fantasy football managers rely on the sum of their players to stay competitive within the league. A loose end can quickly crush their total average and result in damaging losses.

You must be active

Fantasy managers and options traders need to be on top of their portfolios at all times. They both require frequent monitoring and quick decision making. It is almost impossible to be a passive fantasy manager. Fantasy traders rarely get away with a non-injury season on their roster, and have to be ready to trade players out in a flash.
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Staying diligent about your team and paying attention to the status of your players is a daily responsibility. Like options trading, frequently monitoring your investment portfolio is paramount to your success. Olive takes some of the guesswork out of the monitoring process by showing the potential value of your investment right out to contract maturity in addition to the value in the moment so you can make smarter and more informed decisions.

Try trading with Olive  

Olive keeps investors in the game by providing users with downside cushion or accelerated upside to make better trades.

If you’re a skilled fantasy football manager looking to apply your analytical talents elsewhere, consider using Olive to make options work for you. Applying your skills to options trading can open up new doors and financial possibilities so you can be at the top of the investment league.
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Olive is the first options trading platform that opens up the floor to a whole new demographic of users.
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