A comprehensive guide that lets you play the options game with confidence Due to the uncontrollable elements associated with options, many traders find themselves without practical strategies for specific situations. The Option Trader's Guide to Probability, Volatility, and Timing offers traders a variety of strategies to trade options intelligently and confidently in any given situation. With detail and objectivity, this book sets forth risk assessment guidelines, explains risk curve analysis, discusses exit methods, and uncovers some of the biggest mistakes options traders make. The Option Trader's Guide provides readers with strategies for trading options as well as expert advice on when to implement those strategies.

With over 50,000 copies in print for the first edition, Kaeppel's insight has undoubtedly made its mark in the options world. Now, he strikes again with an updated and more comprehensive look at those pesky mistakes that traders continue to make in trading options. In easy-to-understand terms, he systematically breaks down each problem and offers concrete and practical solutions to overcome it in the future. There are big profits to be made in options trading. By avoiding the four most common and most costly mistakes the majority of traders make, you'll be set to win big. System and software developer Jay Kaeppel helps you thoroughly understand each mistake before showing you how to avoid them in future trades. In this new, color edition, you'll find: More in-depth analysis of the four biggest mistakes including volatility calculations, risk/reward relationships, calendar spreads, etc. More real world examples with varying scenarios updated to reflect today's market More graphs and tables to better illustrate Kaeppel's concepts More detailed discussion on the nature of options trading and how to create a consistently winning strategy Concise and to-the-point, here's an action plan you can read and put into place immediately to become a more profitable trader.

Successful stock options trading requires extensive practice. Most options books offer theory and strategies, but don't offer the practice needed to prepare for real-world trades, where the wrong split-second decisions can cost you dearly. In The Option Trader's Workbook: A Problem-Solving Approach, expert trader Jeff Augen covers every key scenario you'll encounter in modern options trading, guides you through successful trade executions, and shows how to overcome key pitfalls that trip up most traders. You'll walk through trades designed to profit from changing prices and volatility, time decay, rapid price spikes, and many other factors. This second edition introduces powerful new techniques, and reflects the long-term impacts of the 2009 crash. New problems include: - New CBOE Weekly Options Expiration options, and their unique pricing dynamics. - Using collars, covered calls, and covered puts to structure income-generating trades with well-defined risk profiles. - Using ratio trading, VIX options, volatility ETFs, and variance trading to generate profits from shifts in volatility. Each section contains information for beginners, intermediate, and advanced traders, helping you build your skills one trade at a time, no matter how much experience you have--or how little. You'll find several hundred questions, all designed to mirror real life, and supported with clearly explained solutions.

Strategies, tools, and solutions for minimizing risk and volatility in option trading An intermediate level trading book, The Option Trader Handbook, Second Edition provides serious traders with strategies for managing and adjusting their market positions. This Second Edition features new material on implied volatility; Delta and Theta, and how these measures can be used to make better trading decisions. The book presents the art of making trade adjustments in a logical sequence, starting with long and short stock positions; moving on to basic put and call positions; and finally discussing option spreads and combinations. Covers different types of underlying positions and discusses all the possible adjustments that can be made to that position Offers important insights into more complex option spreads and combinations A timely book for today's volatile markets Intended for both stock and option traders, this book will help you improve your overall trading skills and performance.

Breakthrough option strategies from Jeff Augen: Three books packed with new tools and strategies for earning higher, more consistent profits and systematically controlling risk! In three remarkable books, Jeff Augen teaches you dozens of up-to-the-minute option trading strategies and techniques for earning powerful, consistent profits! The Option Trader’s Workbook, Second Edition offers start-to-finish hands-on practice with every leading strategy, including the newest trading techniques. Through hundreds of realistic problems (each with fully explained solutions), you’ll walk through trades designed to profit from changing prices, volatility, and time decay…plus new ways to use CBOE Weekly Options Expiration options, collars, covered calls, covered puts, ratio and variance trading, VIX options, volatility ETFs, and more…all without risking a dime! In Trading Options at Expiration: Strategies and Models for Winning the Endgame, Augen reveals new ways to structure positions that profit from predictable end-of-contract price distortions with remarkably low risk. Packed with brand-new statistical models, minute-by-minute pricing analyses, and optimized strategies, this book teaches you how to create trades that regularly deliver returns of 40%—300% with just two days of market exposure per month, or even less. Finally, in The Volatility Edge in Options Trading: New Technical Strategies for Investing in Unstable Markets, Augen introduces breakthrough strategies for identifying and profiting from subtle price distortions that arise from changes in market volatility. Drawing on more than a decade of never-before-published research, Augen shows option traders how to study historical price changes, mitigate risk, limit market exposure, and structure mathematically sound high-return positions. You’ll even discover how to build your own customized, low-cost analytical toolset to transform these state-of-the-art strategies into practical buy/sell signals!

In Volatility Trading, Sinclair offers you a quantitative model for measuring volatility in order to gain an edge in your everyday option trading endeavors. With an accessible, straightforward approach. He guides traders through the basics of option pricing, volatility measurement, hedging, money management, and trade evaluation. In addition, Sinclair explains the often-overlooked psychological aspects of trading, revealing both how behavioral psychology can create market conditions traders can take advantage of-and how it can lead them astray. Psychological biases, he asserts, are probably the drivers behind most sources of edge available to a volatility trader. Your goal, Sinclair explains, must be clearly defined and easily expressed-if you cannot explain it in one sentence, you probably aren't completely clear about what it is. The same applies to your statistical edge. If you do not know exactly what your edge is, you shouldn't trade. He shows how, in addition to the numerical evaluation of a potential trade, you should be able to identify and evaluate the reason why implied volatility is priced where it is, that is, why an edge exists. This means it is also necessary to be on top of recent news stories, sector trends, and behavioral psychology. Finally, Sinclair underscores why trades need to be sized correctly, which means that each trade is evaluated according to its projected return and risk in the overall context of your goals. As the author concludes, while we also need to pay attention to seemingly mundane things like having good execution software, a comfortable office, and getting enough sleep, it is knowledge that is the ultimate source of edge. So, all else being equal, the trader with the greater knowledge will be the more successful. This book, and its companion CD-ROM, will provide that knowledge. The CD-ROM includes spreadsheets designed to help you forecast volatility and evaluate trades together with simulation engines.

An A to Z options trading guide for the new millennium and the new economy Written by professional trader and quantitative analyst Euan Sinclair, Option Trading is a comprehensive guide to this discipline covering everything from historical background, contract types, and market structure to volatility measurement, forecasting, and hedging techniques. This comprehensive guide presents the detail and practical information that professional option traders need, whether they're using options to hedge, manage money, arbitrage, or engage in structured finance deals. It contains information essential to anyone in this field, including option pricing and price forecasting, the Greeks, implied volatility, volatility measurement and forecasting, and specific option strategies. Explains how to break down a typical position, and repair positions Other titles by Sinclair: Volatility Trading Addresses the various concerns of the professional options trader Option trading will continue to be an important part of the financial landscape. This book will show you how to make the most of these profitable products, no matter what the market does.