This site is dedicated to providing you, an individual investor, with the information you need to make money with options.

If you want to know who's writing these pages, here's more about me.

• Are you worried that recession is at hand and that the markets may tumble?
Or that the serious decline will continue?


• At the same time, are you afraid to pull your money out of the markets because you are afraid to miss out on substantial profits?



• Would you like to participate in any stock market rally, but avoid losing money in a bear market?

If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then you have much to gain by understanding how options work because they can help you meet your financial goals.

Note to investors/traders who don't know whether to be bullish or bearish, or market neutral:

• Do you want to learn an options strategy that you can apply, even when you you have no idea whether the market is going to advance or decline? If yes, learn about iron condors.



• Do you have an opinion on market direction but don't want to gamble by buying options? If you prefer a strategy with limited risk, you owe it to youreslf to learn about bull spreads and bear spreads.

If either of these situations apply to you, then you'll benefit by learning how options work. You can easily learn to adopt strategies that are profitable under a variety of market conditions. Download a free sampler edition of The Rookies Guide to Options: The Beginners Handbook for Trading Equity Options.

Note to Rookies : If you know next to nothing about options, begin with our description of the basic concepts of options.

We take options education seriously because we have seen too many investors invest money by buying and selling options before they were ready. They make a trade, and uncertain what to do next, ask questions that should have been asked sooner. Many times it's too late, and money has been lost. That situation is avoidable.

To have a better understanding of why we believe investors should be better prepared when using the option markets, and our ideas about how to trade options successfully, read our trading philosophy, which includes advice for option rookies. If you believe these basic premises are sound, then you will find our books helpful in getting you off to the right start when trading options.

It's important to begin your education with a discussion of the most basic characteristics of options, allowing you to comprehend just what options are and what you can do with them. With that basic background information, you can begin trading in a practice account (paper trading) to learn how option prices fluctuate as the underlying stock moves higher and lower, and as time passes. Thus, you can get necessary experience without risking (or making) and money.

The major difference between options and stock is that options have limited lifetimes and expire at a known time. Stocks never expire. You can gain trading experience at no cost, and it's a good idea to take advantage of paper trading accounts - and most brokers offer them.

Why is paper trading important? Because our experience tells us that too many beginners use options strategies that have little chance of making money. By paper trading, investors gain firsthand experience and understand how buying and selling options makes and loses money in a real world environment. When you move on to trade with your own money, you can avoid those money-losing, hih-risk strategies.

Most beginners love the gambling aspect of buying options and many so-called option experts tell investors that buying options represents the road to riches. Beware. It's very difficult (not impossible, but it is difficult) to consistently make money when buying options. If you follow our suggestions, you will not be buying options and then hoping stocks make a favorable move. Instead you'll be collecting cash by selling options and combinations of options (called 'spreads').

One word of warning: Please don't fall for the sales pitches of those who tell you that options represent the road to easy riches. It's true that you can build a solid financial future for yourself by adopting conservative strategies that produce exceptional returns on your investment, but there are no get-rich-quick schemes that consistently make money. You can choose to gamble, and you may get lucky. But options were invented as tools to reduce risk, and if you learn to use them conservatively, and take the time to really understand what an option is and what it can do for your investment portfolio, your chances of making good money over the longer term are significantly enhanced.

Check out our Education page for other web sites that offer good educational materials at no cost.

Our Books

We've written three option books based on the philosophy described here. If that approach appeals to you, you can learn more about The Rookies Guide to Options and our other books. You will find the Rookie's Guide to Options to be fascinating reading. And you'll come away with an improved chance of being a successful options trader.

If you landed here searching for seminars that cost thousands of dollars and make many promises, look elsewhere. We conduct reasonably priced seminars that can be customized to meet your specific needs and arranged to suit your schedule.

For information on private consultation or group lessons, send email or click 'contact us' tab at the top of any page.

Note to readers looking for our VIX Data

Graphs of the data are available. Click (VIX Graph) tab above. Last update: Jul 18, 2008.