Search This Blog

Sunday, October 14, 2007

"Keeping a Cool Head In A Hot Market"

Sign up for our email newsletters and get a free copy of our best selling eBook, "Keeping a Cool Head In A Hot Market"

Professional Options Trading

FREE Professional Options Trading
Audio Book

Free Options Resources

FREE Book - Learn to Trade Options on Futures

OptionTrading-Pedia - Your Free Online Option Trading Encyclopedia

Free Option Pricing Spreadsheet

Optionetics, Inc.

Get a FREE Options Trading Book

Free Trading Software

FREE Options Trading Manual

FREE Package on Selling Options

FREE 'Opportunity in Options' Booklet

Monday, April 30, 2007

Options Resources from OIC

Options Resources

The Options Investigator

The Options Investigator is a comprehensive options learning tool. Whether you're a novice or advanced investor, this comprehensive software will get you focused on options.

The Options Investigator

Characteristics and Risks of Standardised Options

Options involve risks and are not suitable for all investors. Prior to buying or selling an option, a person must receive a copy of

Friday, April 06, 2007

HeatSeeker

Whether you're a seasoned day trader... trade options occasionally... or simply would like to learn how to trade options right, this FREE Online Seminar can teach you how to follow the money to fast 100%-350% gains.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

optionsXpress New Account Application

Access:
Virtual trade
Free Online seminars

Please click here.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

The market is full of potential opportunities

Ameritrade offers you many ways to spot and seize yours today: 50 commission-free Internet option trades (contract fees apply). After that, pay just $10.99 per trade (plus $0.75 per contract).

Plus, get advanced research tools and more.

Join now.
http://at.zacks.com/?id=2241

Free Investors Package

LEARN THE ABCs OF OPTIONS AND FUTURES

If you're like many investors, you've been too busy to take advantage of the potential profit and protection benefits of options and futures.

Now Barkley Financial has a FREE introduction to these important tools available as a CD, cassette or video. Whether you're a new or experienced trader, simply click to qualify for this important information.

http://a.gklmedia.com/btrends/nl/20

Free download of Option Trading 101 Course

I just posted an actual sample of my brand new course: Option Trading 101: How To Turn The Odds In Your Favor And Trade Like The Pros that you can download now for free.

I don't know how long I am going to keep this up, so go now to: www.doctorjsblog.com and look for the post at the top entitled: "Download a Sample of the Options Course"

If you've traded options in the past but lost your shirt, or if you've been afraid to even try, you'll want to check this out. The key is to narrow your focus to just the RIGHT stocks... and I'll give you a few hints how to do just that.

Heck, even if you are a pro options trader, you might learn a thing or two. So don't miss out. Go download your free sample now www.doctorjsblog.com.

Good luck trading!

Jon

Free Options Education CD From The OIC

Options can help you grow or protect your portfolio. The OIC Options Investigator is a comprehensive audio and video learning tool for novices through advanced investors. Work at your pace, with more than 400 tutorials by subject and skill level: Position Simulator, Strategy Analyzer, Glossary and more. Click below to learn more now. a.gklmedia.com

The 4 Best Stocks to Own Now and 25 to Dump

In this FREE report, Tobin Smith tells you why the next six months will be the most critical period of your investing life time - and how you can earn a decade's worth of profits over the next two years. You'll also discover:

The 10 Hottest ChangeWaves for the second half of this year, according to our proprietary ChangeWave Alliance research. From RFID to hybrid cars, we'll see some amazingly steep sales ramps for brand-new products that are just now starting to get some traction. This can only mean life-changing profits for you.

Four "Slam Dunk" Money Makers: Even if the market stays status quo, we're still looking at high-octane profits in the next two quarters. And if there's a rally - well, the potential is virtually unlimited. Now's your chance to grab them at bargain prices.

25 Stocks to Unload IMMEDIATELY. They've been banished to mediocrity; in some cases, scuttled towards bankruptcy. If you own any of them, SELL. If you don't, steer clear, or you'll deeply regret it.

Please get your report here.

More Options Information

At my online options seminar I was able to answer a lot of great questions. Unfortunately, there were so many that I couldn't get to them all so I thought I'd answer a few more.

To see me answer additional questions watch this video - yes, computer video! Go to my blog at www.doctorjsblog.com then on the right side go to the post entitled "Answers to More Questions".

If you haven't had a chance to watch my options seminar click here: http://commpartners.client.ninesystems.com/Drj/index.html

Jon "Dr. J" Najarian

Option Straddles: Mastering the Moving Parts of Options

By Steve McDonald

Investors usually think of an option as the right to buy a stock a pre-determined price – the strike price. More to the point, an option is a bet that a stock is going to move up or down in price. But did you know that you can use options to make money on a stock, even if you have no idea whether it will rise or fall?

The secret is an options straddle, a strategy that involves buying a “put” (a bet that a stock will go down) and a “call” (a bet that a stock will go up) on the same stock, usually with the same expiration date and strike price.

To most people, this might sound like a good way to lose money. After all, if the call goes up, the put should go down by about the same amount. Factor in commissions and eroded time value and you’ve got a losing trade, “Right?”

Not necessarily.

When a straddle works properly, the gain you make on the winning side of the trade will more than offset the loss on the other side of the trade, resulting in a net gain.

There are several things you can do to increase your chances of making money with a straddle and end up with a net profit. But before we jump into how to play straddles, we need to be on the same page about the moving parts of options and how they affect your trade.

In a conventional stock trade there are essentially two moving parts. If investors buy a lot of a stock, the price of that stock goes up. If they sell a lot of a stock, it goes down. It’s a matter of demand.

Options, on the other hand, have multiple moving parts and have earned their reputation as confusing and mystifying. Demand is still a key element, but one of many. An option’s price is the result of several influences:
Price movement of the underlying stock
Time value
Demand
The herd mentality
Option market makers

As the underlying stock goes up or down in price, the market maker is supposed to adjust the price of the corresponding options. Where things get really interesting is when the herd latches on to an idea and the demand for an option goes crazy. When I refer to the herd, I am referring to the people who jump on the bandwagon when they don’t know which tune is playing. In some cases, I have seen prices for an option shoot up 700 and 800 percent in a matter of hours.

You might wonder how much an underlying stock has to go up or down for its option to multiply several times over. This is where the market makers come in. If lots of people suddenly want in on it, the market maker makes them pay for it … big time.

In other words, the price of an option is tied to the price of the underlying stock as well as to the demand for the option itself.

This is a very basic description of options and market makers. But, if you are going to play straddles successfully, you need to understand how all these factors can drive your success.
The best scenario to play a straddle is when you believe a stock’s price will move significantly, but you’re unsure as to which direction.

An example of when this might happen is when a company releases earnings. It’s very difficult to predict corporate earnings on a regular basis. And even if you could, Wall Street may have the exact opposite reaction you expect. Often, stocks post record earnings, only to see their shares go down.

There are several things you can do to increase your chances of making money with a straddle and end up with a net profit:

Activity. Make sure there is plenty of activity in the stock and the option that you choose. Look at the volume of the stock, the open interest of the option and the date of the last trade of the option. Don’t get caught in a play that has all the numbers right, but no one is buying.

Attraction. There should be something about the company that will get the herd’s attention. An impending announcement by the company … new management … new products … any event that will pique the interest of investors.

Affordability. Make sure you aren’t paying too much for the straddle. I like to get options with virtually no time value. It just doesn’t make much sense to pay a lot. We can do this by shopping for an option whose expiration is near the date of whatever event will be driving the interest of the herd, and as a result, the price.

Trends. The trend is your friend. If you hold options even after they start dropping, thinking they will turn around, you probably shouldn’t trade straddles. If you’ve gotten to the point where you know the market is right and you’re probably wrong, you might have a future. Dump the losing side of a straddle as quickly as possible and keep the winner.

Let’s look at a real straddle play for October and tie all the variables together.

Yahoo! is currently trading around $26 and the company is due to report earnings on October 10th. Everyone knows earnings drive the markets and stocks are very likely to move if the report is good or bad. Lots of people will be looking at it.

The current October $27.50 call has 45,000 open contracts. The October $25 put has open interest of 34,000 contracts. So there is a huge amount of activity in these options.
Since we want to keep our play near the event, the middle of October, we will choose the October call and put, just out of the money. This gives us until the third Thursday of October before expiration.

October $27.50 call, YHQJY at $.45
October $25 put, YHQVE at $.90

So, we have a very inexpensive straddle, an event that will attract a lot of attention, a call and a put near the money, and a pretty good reason why the herd will want to be involved, with an earnings report due the second week of October.

What we have no way of knowing for certain is which way the herd will drive the stock price, and with it the option prices. That’s why I love straddles. Up and down mean nothing. As long as there is movement we make money.

Please note that I am not suggesting a straddle on Yahoo! This is simply an example. Several days ago the CEO issued an earnings warning that caused the stock to gap lower by more than 10%. It’s likely that the brunt of the announcement has already been priced in.

Once a trend has emerged, you should immediately dump the loser and take your gains from the winning side of the trade. The key to this strategy is letting the herd run up the price of our winner.

This is where you have to be able to take your winnings and not look back.

If you haven’t learned to leave the first 20 percent and the last 20 percent of the price movement on stock and option trading and take the glutton’s share without looking look back, you will definitely not be successful at this type of play.

Straddles, like all options, require rigid adherence to a system, the discipline to walk away when you have a profit and never look back, a solid understanding of all of the moving parts of option pricing, and the market wisdom to let all the variables work for you.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

FREE Options strategy guide

For a limited time, the brokerage that SmartMoney calls "a paradise for options traders", is giving away a FREE strategy guide, "Options Strategies for a Bearish Market" when you open an account.

Please visit here to open an account.

2 gifts from Chris Marett

I'm Chris Marett and I've got to be the luckiest publisher in the investment world. I publish Maximum Options, the premium investment service driven by the King of Options, Ken Trester. What sets Ken apart from every other investor who has ever traded options is his time-proven track record of remarkable success (33 years running!)... and his selfless commitment to helping other investors pile up profits.

Now, before I tell you more about Ken, I want you to know that his critically acclaimed options software (Push Button Options) is sitting right here on my desk and I want to give it to you --free!

But, as the counter above shows, I only have a few left. Claim your free software right here and now!
http://iplacereports.com/?sid=6TJ215&en=3015724

This profit-generating software normally retails for $195.00. Thousands have been sold. Thousands more will be sold. And thousands and thousands of dollars of profit already have been made this year -- and will continue to be made -- by those fortunate enough to own Push Button Options.

Ken and I are delighted to pass this software along to you without charge. Because we want to spoil you rotten with profits right from the start, I'm ready to give you an additional bonus -Ken's much sought-after 320-page best- selling book, 101 Option Trading Secrets.

When experienced options traders pay $1 500 to $2 959 to pack themselves into hotel auditoriums to hear The King of Options spill the beans about how he amassed his 33-year-consecutive record of incredible profits, they also line up outside the door to buy his best-selling 101 Option Trading Secrets for $29.95... and his software for $195.00.

But since I publish Ken's book and distribute his software, no one stops me when I walk away with a box filled with a couple dozen copies of both. And no one is going to stop me from giving you a free copy of both, as long as I still have some to give.

So if you're at all interesting in the secrets that earned Ken Trester the title King of Options, if you want to...
Make quick, super-size profits in good markets and bad
Control all risk with absolute certainty
Generate safe, steady income -- yes, with options
Make more money by investing less money... then all you have to do right now is click here http://iplacereports.com/?sid=6TJ215&en=3015724 to get Ken's software and his best-selling book with our compliments.