Options for the Beginner And Beyond: Unlock the Opportunities And Minimize the Risks

Brief, carefully paced lessons on options and trading strategies using verbal definitions and many trading examples for clarification. Each lesson builds on the one preceding it and explains options in plain English, from start to finish. Step-by-step coverage of controlling risk, protecting your investments — even advanced strategies other introductory books ignore!

Introduction:

This book is intended for people who are just starting to learn about options as well as for those who want to advance their basic knowledge to a higher level. Much of the material in this book has previously appeared in a series of articles written for The Options Professor, a monthly online newsletter about options trading, published by Independent Investor, Inc., Bloomfield, Connecticut. Some of the material was originally developed by the author for a course on options pricing theory taught at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

Section I includes Chapters 1 through 9. These chapters contain fundamental information about options, mainly intended for the beginner. Those who have some experience with options may still find it worth-while to skim through Section I to fill some gaps in their knowledge.

Section II includes Chapters 10 through 25. Each chapter in this section is devoted to a strategy that goes beyond the basic trade of owning a call or a put option. Some chapters are an advanced continuation of the strategy introduced in the preceding chapter. The advanced chapters are marked with an asterisk and can be passed over by beginners during their first reading of this book.

Section III includes Chapters 26 through 30. Each chapter in this section covers a topic that is intended for people with options experience who want to develop a broader background. All of these chapters are marked with an asterisk, so this whole section can be passed over by beginners during their first reading of this book.

The method of exposition in this book is primarily through example. The options concepts in each chapter are introduced and discussed in the form of example trades. Many of the examples are illustrated with risk graphs, which serve to reinforce the concepts of each strategy. All of the trades presented in the book are taken from real situations, although the prices may have been altered slightly to simplify the presentation. In most of the examples, the real stock symbol has been replaced by the mythical XYZ or ZYX, so that the reader can focus on the discussion without any distraction related to an experience with the actual stock. In some examples, the real stock symbols have been used because it seemed particularly important to the discussion.

Contents: