Trading Stock Options: Basic Option Trading Strategies And How I've Used Them To Profit In Any Market Paperback – April 20, 2009

My experience is in trading equities and forex, with none in options. The unique language and operational aspects of options posed an obstacle for me. Brian Burns presents the basic foundation of options in a clear and easy manner, such that I snarfed down this 180-pager in a week, and enjoyed it thoroughly. He basically limits the strategies to six: 1) buying calls, 2) writing covered calls, 3) buying puts, 4) writing puts, 5) straddles, and 6) strangles. He is clear in showing the stock quote, chart entry & exit points, and the stock's option chain going into/out of the trade, as well as his broker trade excerpts to show how the trades appear in his statement. He gives common sense guidance as to when you might employ a given strategy, as either a speculative trade, or as a hedge on an underlying stock position. He shows profitable and not-profitable trades. The only negatives are minor: some math and spelling mistakes. The real art in a starter book is making it fun to learn - nice work Mr. Burns. A++!

I read this book and agree is it clear and concise - well written. Options are one of the more complex investment vehicles to understand. After signing up with my broker, ThinkOrSwim, and looking at all the features for options trading, and signing up for a trial of some of the option trade recommentations [...] and read some of the recommendations, I quickly realized how basic this book is. If you really get into options trading you will realize this book only scratches the surface of all the strategies out there.

A simple, basic, book, but it covers actual trading and has everything you need to know. He gives you ideas that you can use to make money. Not much filler stuff, all facts and quick to read. I like it better than large books on options that I own. Lets say you have been trading calls successfully, and you decide you want to try selling puts or calls. You can review his information on this in just a few minutes, and maybe avoid a big mistake. At least you will know what is safe to do, and what involves unlimited risk. For someone who does his own trades, and likes to learn by doing, this is a great book to start with.

I read this book on options and it gave me a good idea of the basics plus it got into some advanced trades. I later ordered his second book because this one has several minor errors - mostly grammar but was confusing. Since it gave me such confidence that I could actually learn options trading I urge anyone to pay a bit more and buy his second edition in order to avoid the confusion of the mistakes.

This is a great book for the beginner or novice in options. The book is filled with lots of practical examples. However, the book is not well-proofed. There are several distracting grammatical mistakes, and in one example, the author is discussing options with an expiration in 2004, when he suddenly starts talking about 2008. I expect this kind of stuff to be caught by a publisher before going to print.

This is a great intro book to options trading, it has plenty of examples and it discusses all the common strategies. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a beginner in the subject.

The examples of past option trades is informative, but this book was not proofread very well. Dates and figures in certain examples do not match up. References are made to tables and charts that are mislabeled.I learned a lot from this book, but I suspect there are better books out there on the subject.

I LOVE Trading Stock Options. I wanted to get a basic understanding of how I might be able to use stock options to gain profit, and this was the best book I found so far. It was easy to understand and very well written. It will be helpful to just about anyone who is interested in learning the subject. What a great resource.