Mindful Trader is a one-person swing trade picking service that posts large-cap stock and options trades built from algorithmic, backtested rules, priced at $47 per month or $397 per year. It fits patient swing traders who want a defined, low-effort plan and can sit through steep drawdowns, ideally with around $10,000 on hand to follow every position at full size. It is the wrong choice for anyone chasing real-time push alerts, intraday action, futures, or small-cap momentum.
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What the Service Actually Is
The service is run by a single trader named Eric, who built, coded, and tested the strategies himself and handles customer support directly. Every trade he posts is one he is taking in his own account at the same time, which ties his results to what subscribers see. The picks are swing trades, held about a week on average, and they are generated by fixed rules rather than discretion or gut feel.
Volume is deliberately thin. On a typical day, 1 to 3 picks appear, and there are stretches where an entire week passes without a single trade because nothing matched the strategy. That restraint is the point. The service only fires when a setup carries the statistical edge it was built around, which means subscribers are not paying for constant activity.
Following the picks is meant to take very little time. A trader who only wants to copy the trades might spend 5 to 10 minutes a day on the whole thing, since each position is set once and then left alone until it resolves.
What a Pick Contains
Each pick is plain and specific. It names the exact ticker, the price Eric paid, the profit target, the stoploss, and the point at which the trade closes on time if neither price level is reached. Exits are handled with OCO orders, so the target and the stop sit in the market together and one cancels the other. For platforms without OCO support, the service documents a manual workaround using a stoploss plus a price alert, though it concedes that route is less precise.
The tradeable universe is narrow on purpose. Picks cover large companies only, generally $10 billion in market cap and up, drawn from the S&P 500 and similar names. Penny stocks and thin small caps are excluded. That choice solves a real problem with many alert services: in illiquid stocks, a flood of subscribers piling into the same ticker moves the price before most of them can fill. In a name like Apple or Tesla, subscriber volume is a rounding error, so the posted entry price stays realistic.
The Options Side
About half of the stocks in the rotation have options, and Eric trades and posts those too. The options picks come from the same backtested stock strategy rather than a separate options system, with a profit target and a time limit set at entry. He risks roughly 5% of account value per options trade.
One detail matters more than the rest here. The options he buys sit about a week from expiration, when premiums are cheapest. Near-dated contracts magnify the upside when the underlying stock cooperates, often two to three times the profit of the stock version for the same move. They also decay fast and swing hard, so the same structure that creates the outsized win is what produces the brutal losing streaks. Traders who want longer-dated options will not find them here.
Education and Daily Commentary
The subscription is not only a pick feed. It includes tutorials that teach the exact stock and options strategies in enough detail for a subscriber to run them independently, plus a daily email with commentary on the market and the open positions. No prior trading experience is assumed. For a smaller account that cannot follow every pick, the teaching is the part that holds value on its own, since the rules outlast any single month of access.
How Picks Are Delivered
This is the single most important mechanic to understand before paying, and it is where the service diverges sharply from most alert products. There are no text alerts and no email alerts when a trade goes live. Picks are posted to a “Live Positions” page inside the member area, and the subscriber is responsible for checking it.
New trades usually appear within an hour of the open, around 6:30am Pacific. A subscriber who wants to be notified has to build that themselves, typically with a third-party website monitor. The service points to one such tool, Wachete, at about $10 per month, and mentions a free Chrome extension as another option. Both are optional, and neither is affiliated with Mindful Trader.
Eric gives two reasons for the no-alert design. The first is that his own study suggests reacting within seconds does not change the outcome much on week-long swing trades, so a buzzing phone would manufacture false urgency. The second is a compliance point: because he holds every position he posts, firing timed alerts to thousands of subscribers could resemble an attempt to move the market, and he avoids it on principle. The logic is sound. It still means a working trader has to fold a manual check, or a paid monitor, into the daily routine, and anyone expecting a notification on every trade should look elsewhere.
Pricing
One subscription unlocks everything: stock picks, options picks, the tutorials, the position-sizing calculator, and the commentary emails. There is no tiered upsell. The only decision is monthly versus annual, and the annual plan costs less than twelve monthly payments.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Effective annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $47 | Billed monthly | $564 |
| Yearly | $397 | Billed annually | $397 |
Paying annually saves $167 against the monthly rate, a discount of roughly 30%. At $47 to start, the entry cost is low enough that a single profitable swing can cover several months of access, which is part of how the service is positioned.
Rules and Restrictions Worth Knowing
A few mechanics materially change what the service is worth to a given trader, and they are easy to miss in the marketing.
The account-size question is the big one. Any balance can use the tutorials or cherry-pick the cheaper trades, but following every pick at Eric’s sizing realistically takes at least $10,000. Below that, a subscriber is selectively trading whichever picks have a low enough share or contract price, which shifts the return profile away from the one shown in the backtests.
Platform choice is open. Any broker works, and the picks are broker-agnostic. Eric uses thinkorswim through Schwab because it lets stocks and options trade in one account on the same funds, which matters for the compounding the strategy relies on, and he provides an importable grid layout for subscribers who copy his setup. The account is free, US stock trades carry no commission, but the service is blunt that the options commissions are not attractive. For an active options trader, that running cost is worth pricing in.
Two smaller points remove common friction. No pattern day trader account is required, since the trades last about a week and rarely count as day trades. The service also works inside an IRA.
Cancellation is straightforward in spirit. The fee recurs, and a subscriber can stop future billing at any time by contacting Eric to unsubscribe. The site does not advertise a money-back guarantee, so the practical safeguard is the low monthly price and the freedom to leave rather than a refund.
Position Sizing and the Risk Dial
Sizing is tied to the whole account balance using a compound approach, and the member area includes a calculator that converts a balance into the exact share or contract count Eric would trade. The default risk is about 1% of the account per stock trade and about 5% per options trade. The important part is that this is a dial, not a fixed setting. Cutting the position size in half roughly halves both the returns and the drawdowns, so a cautious subscriber can run the same picks at a fraction of the risk and a fraction of the reward.
Performance: Reading the Numbers Honestly
The headline figure is large and needs context. In a 20-year backtest using Eric’s preferred sizing, the Main Account, which is mostly stocks with some options mixed in, showed a typical annual return around 141%. The options-focused account showed an even higher return with an even higher drawdown.
Two things keep that number honest. First, it is a backtest, a simulation of the rules applied to historical prices, not a record of live trades, and the site states this plainly. The backtest also assumes no stock commissions and uses margin as needed without charging a historical margin cost, though Eric notes his live margin cost ran under 0.5% of his balance in the first three months. Second, the returns arrive attached to real pain. A typical year in the Main Account backtest carried a 24% drawdown, with a worst year near 40%.
Set against the S&P 500, the trade-off is at least coherent. The index has returned roughly 10% a year with a typical annual drawdown near 10% and a worst-case drop around 49%. The backtested Main Account risked more in a normal year but less at its worst extreme, in exchange for a return many times higher. Whether that holds up in live trading is the open question no backtest can answer, and the 24%-plus typical drawdown is the part that decides whether a subscriber actually stays in the seat long enough to find out.
Bottom Line
Mindful Trader is a credible, unusually transparent swing service for the specific trader it is built for: someone patient, rules-oriented, and able to watch an account fall 20% or more in a normal year without abandoning the plan. The flat $47 price, the strategy tutorials, and the large-cap focus make it a reasonable place to learn a quantitative approach even for a subscriber who never funds a five-figure account. The candor about drawdowns and the hypothetical nature of the headline number is rare in this category and builds trust.
The friction is real, though, and most of it traces back to the delivery model and the risk profile.
Pros
- Rules-based swing approach that takes roughly 5 to 10 minutes a day to follow, with a preset entry, target, stoploss, and time exit on every pick.
- One flat fee covers stock picks, options picks, the full strategy tutorials, and a position-sizing calculator, with no tiered upsells.
- Large-cap-only universe ($10 billion and up) keeps slippage and alert front-running low, so posted entry prices stay realistic.
- The backtest is large and the drawdowns are disclosed rather than buried, including a direct comparison to the S&P 500.
- Works with any broker and inside an IRA, requires no pattern day trader account, and starts at $47 per month.
Cons
- No real-time alerts of any kind. Picks sit on a member page that the subscriber must monitor manually or pay around $10 a month to a third-party tool to watch.
- The headline 141% return is a hypothetical backtest, paired with a 24% typical and roughly 40% maximum annual drawdown that many traders would not tolerate.
- Following every pick at full sizing realistically needs about $10,000, leaving smaller accounts to cherry-pick.
- The options leg depends on contracts about a week from expiration, which decay quickly and amplify losing streaks.
- It is a single-person operation, so the depth of coverage, support, and continuity all rest on one individual.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Mindful Trader cost?
Mindful Trader costs $47 per month or $397 per year, with the annual plan saving about $167, roughly 30%. One subscription covers stock picks, options picks, the strategy tutorials, the position-sizing calculator, and daily commentary, with no tiered upsells. The site does not advertise a money-back guarantee, so the low monthly price and the freedom to cancel are the main safeguards.
Is Mindful Trader worth it?
It fits patient swing traders who want a defined, rules-based plan and can sit through steep drawdowns, ideally with around $10,000 to follow every pick at full size. The candor about risk is unusual: the backtested figures come with a 24% typical and roughly 40% maximum annual drawdown, disclosed rather than buried. It is the wrong fit for anyone wanting real-time alerts, intraday action, futures, or small-cap momentum.
Does Mindful Trader send real-time trade alerts?
No, there are no text or email alerts when a trade goes live; picks are posted to a Live Positions page inside the member area that the subscriber must check, usually within an hour of the open. Following along often means setting up a third-party page monitor, which the service notes costs about $10 per month. The creator argues that reacting within seconds does not change the outcome much on week-long swing trades.
What returns does Mindful Trader claim?
A 20-year backtest using the creator’s preferred sizing showed a typical annual return around 141% for the mostly-stock Main Account, with the options-focused account higher still. Those are backtested simulations, not a record of live trades, and the site states this plainly. The returns come attached to large drawdowns, around 24% in a typical year and near 40% at the worst, which is the part that decides whether a subscriber stays in the seat.