Essential Option Strategies: Understanding the Market and Avoiding Common Pitfalls - Hardcover

by J. J. Kinahan (Author)

Learn the ins-and-outs of options trading with clear, practical guidance

Essential Option Strategies is an introductory guide to options trading, designed to help new options traders better understand the market and the potential opportunities that exist. This book is designed to bring you up to speed with current practices and help you implement your own option trading strategies. You'll create a plan, track indicators, and understand underlying instruments, then apply that central investing knowledge directly to the options market. The discussion on pricing determinants and probabilities uses an intuitive approach to complex calculations, providing clear examples with no advanced math required, and extensive explanation of spreads, butterflies, and condors brings advanced strategies down to earth. Easy-reference appendices clarify the Greek terms and technical analysis charts, while focused discussion and expert insight throughout provide a highly informative crash course on options trading.

Options trading has undergone a rapid evolution beyond stocks and commodities into asset classes including fixed-income, precious metals, energy, and more. This book helps you build a solid foundation in the fundamentals, giving you a knowledge base that applies no matter how the instruments change. This book is designed to help you:

• Understand the options market inside and out
• Avoid common mistakes
• Learn some basic positions, and trades
• Read charts and interpret probabilities

Once the domain of the elites, the options market has been thrown wide open thanks to real-time price quotes, through brokerages, and the free flow of information online. The process of buying and selling options contracts is faster and more efficient than ever, and Wall Street is facing stiff competition from independent analysts and financial websites. As much as the market has changed, the fundamentals are the same--and Essential Option Strategies aims to provide expert guidance throughout the learning process.

Front Jacket

Option trading was once a face-to-face market based on hard-to-obtain research only accessible to the privileged few. Now, with real-time quotes, digital trading platforms, and the abundance of information and data available, the option market is more accessible than ever before, and Essential Option Strategies is the quickest and easiest way to learn about the option trading market and handle yourself like a pro.

The author's learning system quickly brings you up to speed on the latest practices, and walks you through the steps for creating your personal strategy and applying it in a real portfolio. From developing a plan and tracking indicators to making decisions based on underlying instruments, JJ Kinahan provides you with the knowledge necessary for navigating each step and includes illustrative examples to prepare you for real-world situations. He has dedicated much of his career to educating individual investors on how to take control of their personal wealth, and he shares everything you need to practice the same fundamental strategies professional investors use every day. His wisdom is grounded in solid, long-term investing principles, and this guide is his handcrafted tool for:

• Confidently executing strategies such as spread trading--including long verticals, short verticals, and calendars--as well as two advanced tactics, butterflies and condors
• Gaining a practical understanding of pricing determinants and probabilities without using advanced math
• Having the answers you need at your fingertips in convenient appendices covering the Greeks, the basics of technical analysis, stock charts, and volatility studies

There's no way to gain greater clarity on the condition of your personal wealth than to manage it yourself, and Essential Option Strategies shows you how to apply these strategies in your own portfolio.

Author Biography

JJ Kinahan is Chief Strategist and Managing Director for TD Ameritrade. A thirty-year trading veteran and a Forbes contributor, he began his career as a Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) market maker trading in the S&P 100 (OEX) and S&P 500 (SPX) pits. After leaving the floor, he joined thinkorswim, later purchased by TD Ameritrade, where he led initiatives on trading tools and education for retail clients.