Options as a Strategic Investment

This book provides a thorough overview of the mechanics of options, and different trading strategies. A must read for any who wants to start trading options.

Voluminous and exhaustive,but definitely it's bhagavat Gita of options,best reference book,..

The book is voluminous. It has grown over the years. It contains lot of information and author's wisdom, no doubt. I think one trying to trade options should buy this book and refer to it to get theoretical understanding of option strategies, P/L curves, nuances of each strategy etc.But the following are the issues I have seen with the book...1. Although it has tons of strategies, the key strategies used by traders these days are missing...e.g. Iron Fly, Jade lizard, unbalanced strangle etc.2. Overall emphasis is on defined risk strategies. That is fine in US market where you can dramatically reduce your margin requirement using defined risk strategies. But in India that does not work. Sebi in her infinite wisdom has decided to ask for same margin even if risk is lot lower in defined risk strategies. So for iron condor (defined risk strangle) and strangle (undefined risk) will need almost same margin. In India you have no advantage using defined risk strategies from return of capital standpoint. Keep this in mind while reading this book. Adapt to Indian market conditions.3. If you are option seller like me then you may want to get hold of the book that focuses only on option selling. Because you get tired of reading only about option buying. Option buying is low probability trade.4. The author had trashed straddle as high risk trade and covered it in few pages. If people are trading straddle ( or options are being traded at strikes same as CMP) then those traders are not idiot. There must be some risk-reward that encourages traders to trade those options. The actual quantitative research on straddles is eye opening. Look at actual data and then decide not because some book says straddle is to be avoided.5. Important variable for the option seller is current IV with respect to past history. This is not highlighted in strategies. One reason is author has not focused on option writing.6. No advice or suggestion on managing profits and trade. The option traders hardly wait to get last paisa or wait till the last day of epiry to take the profits or take the loss. The option trading is very volatile and it has its own best practices discovered by veteran option traders over the years. The author does not touch this important topic.7. Although this book covers tons of strategies the professional option traders only trade few profitable ones. And few of those are missing in this book. In Indian context it is even more important. In Indian context you may rely on 3-4 strategies max. So you may want to be selective while reading his book because otherwise you may spend lot of time reading something which you may never use in life. Use this book as reference book only. Do not read from first page to last page.Looking at such weaknesses it is clear that, based on this book you cannot successfully trade the options. You need to learn from the practitioners the nuances of option trading like managing profits, stop-loss, entry criteria etc.But you can get the theoretical underpinning of different strategies though from this book. That is why I said it is good place to start your journey.

Thanks to the Lawrence McMillan

original an beast for options

it tells us the right way in options selling and right strategies to adopt for various market condition . after going thorugh no one find it any difficulties in options . thanks for supplying such wonderful books

Excellent literature. Easy to understand and trade.

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