In trading lingo, to "scratch" a trade means to get out where you got in - without a loss or a gain - when things aren't working out as expected.

Instead of risking cash to lower your breakeven, you're "paying" by giving up profit potential on your stock, no matter how high it goes. That's why the trade Scratcher gives you is premium-free, and often even yields a credit.

Since your results are based on live market data, you’re welcome to try the tool (for free) at different times/days to see when you get better results, e.g. during market hours when there's more action and liquidity.

Only some - but most often you'll get a much better (lower) breakeven with a different, but similar, option strategy. If you wish, after calculating your best breakeven (for free), you may "reverse engineer" the strategy by going through option strikes to see if there is a Covered Call that gets you the breakeven that Scratcher calculated.

Scratcher is intended to help you exit stocks you regret entering by providing the lowest possible breakeven price. However, there's nothing stopping you from entering a different price into the application. Scratcher will list ways to exit at whichever Effective Sale Price you specify, whether that's your actual Buy Price or your desired Effective Sale Price.

Please see the last question. You're free to enter any Effective Sale Price you wish although the platform is intended to help you break even using your actual Buy Price.

Nope, this is real. Remember you don't break even today. You break even if the stock remains at or above this breakeven price on the corresponding expiration date. If this sounds too good to be true, please see the "catch" in the first question of this FAQ. While it might seem unreasonably great to be able to breakeven on a stock that's so far below your purchase price merely by holding it, you are "paying" for this privilege by giving up the potential for profit (a concession that shouldn't be undervalued).

Yes, but confirm with your broker that you can trade option spreads and covered calls in this account. As always, option trades to exit Stock X must be made in the same account that holds Stock X.

No, because option contracts are 100 shares each. Please do not round up and claim you own 100 shares unless you choose to buy 1 extra share prior to using Scratcher to search for exits for that stock. Don't forget to adjust your breakeven price by factoring in all purchases.

Yes, but only for help exiting 100 shares. We cannot help you breakeven on the 1 share above that. It's your decision on how to handle that.

Twice at most - once to enter and possibly once to exit. Don't worry - as always detailed instructions will be emailed.

Yes, before you submit an order to trade, you may send a screenshot to help@stockscratcher.com with your Email and Order ID, and we will happily confirm you are making a trade consistent with your requested Exit Strategy.

We absolutely do not. We do not predict nor speculate when or where any security is going and never will. All decisions to enter, exit, hold, spin, roll, torpedo, thrash, ignore, split, etc. a stock are solely yours. We merely provide a strategy based on actual market data that says "IF A happens, THEN B will happen", e.g. "IF your stock is above $80, THEN you will get your $100 back." There is no claim about whether or not, or with what probability, your stock will reach $80.

We can definitely help. Here are just a few of the many ways a custom solution can benefit you. Please email us for more details.

We needed a strategy to exit losing stocks within our portfolio, and after a decade-and-a-half of trading derivatives, we stumbled on a formula to do so. After further refining and working out all the corner cases, we wanted everyone to have access to this robust search tool to do the same. It can be psychologically difficult to exit stocks at a loss, even when we know it's the right thing to do. We truly believe the best products are the ones invented through necessity and where the founders/creators are the initial and most enthusiastic users.

As you guessed, we have other products in the pipeline, some to help you manage existing positions in your portfolio, and others to help you initiate new ones. Nothing we offer will ever make predictive claims nor serve as investment advice. You choose what and when to buy, sell, hold, etc. - we merely do the math for you and search for ways to execute your wishes. We'll also add advanced features to Scratcher's Exit Strategy to give you more flexibility. Lastly, we're working on an e-book to open-source our algorithm and allow users to tweak it for their investing or trading needs.