A Curated Platform of Equity & Options Market Intelligence
Select Page

About

Joe Kunkle,
Doylestown PA

I am the founder of OptionsHawk.com and run a subscription service providing premium market analysis and institutional quality research. I also lead research efforts and portfolio construction at Relativity Capital, managing funds for high net worth individuals.

I grew up in the Poconos and spent 10+ years in Boston during my early adult life. I started my business in 2010 with a laptop, external monitor, recycled desk, and aluminum chair. My quick rise to success and in popularity with my work now often published in the WSJ, Reuters and other media outlets truly shows that hard-work combined with a passion for what you do can really open up a lot of opportunities, and I have been able to make a name for myself in the industry without doing any advertising, mass emailing, or other tactics I consider annoying, my business has purely grown via word of mouth and social media.

Education

Graduated Bentley University in 2005 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Finance. Graduated Boston University in 2007 with a Master’s of Science in Investment Management. Passed Level 1 of the CFA in December 2006, and then realized the CFA program is more for educators, and has little real-world value. I am a sponge for information and have read many trading books, always looking to continue the eternal learning process, and also enjoy creating financial products.

Career

I most recently worked as an Equity Analyst for Thomson-Reuters on a new venture titled Thomson Squawk-Box. I provided a wide array of live market analysis which included but was not limited to swing trades, long-term trades, monitoring of the options market, option trading strategies, sector analysis, conference call coverage, earnings previews, trading tools, intraday trades, and other trading strategies. More recently I created the Trader’s Hub, an interactive chat room via Reuters Messaging, where I provided live daily market coverage and trade ideas to the top traders at more than 50 institutions and hedge funds. I left that venture in 2010 and started OptionsHawk where I can now make all my own decisions to create the best full-scale product for traders. I have created a lot of proprietary trading tools for subscribers that take away the time-consuming research for idea-generation, and allow them to focus 100% of their attention on trading and managing risk.

Trading Style

I have been trading for 20 years and have studied a variety of trading techniques and strategies. I combine many trading philosophies with technical analysis, fundamental analysis, macro-economic analysis into every trade. My specialty is tracking large institutional trades in the options market to see where the smart money is positioned, and incorporate the other techniques to select high probability trades with positive reward/risk ratios. I trade equities and options, and often utilize event-driven strategies to position ahead of the news, both directional and volatility-based trading strategies.

My fundamental analysis incorporates the usual key metrics such as Price/Earnings, Price/Sales, Price/Book, and Price/FCF with a focus on companies that are beating earnings expectations and have forward EPS growth projections that exceed that of the industry and market averages. I also spend a lot of time developing industry-specific metrics that can better value companies, and understand the stages in a company’s growth cycle for when metrics apply to the various methods of valuing a company. I specialize and finding small cap companies on the verge of being noticed, focusing on secular growth trends and using a top-down approach to find the companies that will become the winners for emerging investment themes.

As for technical analysis I use a variety of techniques, but favor trading triangles/flags and basic trend line support and resistance in channels and breakdown/breakout patterns, with a focus on volume and price-action responses to positive/negative news. I am a trend trader and will not fight a trend, because that is a losing strategy. I also utilize volume profile to identify opportunistic breakout triggers into volume pockets.