The Financial Times Guide to Options, will introduce you to the instruments and markets of options, giving you the confidence to trade successfully. Options are explained in real-life terminology, using every-day examples and accessible language. Introducing three key options markets – stocks, bonds and commodities, the book explains options contracts from straight vanilla options to strangles and butterflies and covers the fundamentals of options pricing and trading   

 

Originally published as Options Plain and Simple , this new edition includes:

 



How the options industry operates and how basic strategies have evolved


Risk management and how to trade safely


Inclusion of new products such as exchange traded funds


A glossary of key words and further reading 


Addition of market scenarios and examples

Like all investment strategies, options offer potential return while incurring potential risk. The advantage of options trading is that risk can be managed to a greater degree than with outright buying or selling.

 

The Financial Times Guide to Options is a straightforward and practical introduction to the fundamentals of options. It includes only what is essential to basic understanding and presents options theory in conventional terms, with a minimum of jargon. This thorough guide will give you a basis from which to trade most of the options listed on most of the major exchanges.  The Financial Times Guide to Options includes:

 



Options in everyday life
The basics of calls
The basics of puts
Pricing and behaviour
Volatility and pricing models
The Greeks and risk assessment: delta
Gamma and theta
Vega
Call spreads and put spreads, or one by one directional spreads
One by two directional spreads
Combos and hybrid spreads for market direction
Volatility spreads
Combining straddles and strangles for reduced risk
Combining call spreads and put spreads
The covered write, the calendar spread and the diagonal spread
The interaction of the Greeks
Options performance based on cost
Trouble shooting and common problems
Volatility skews
Futures, synthetics and put-call parity
Conversions, reversals, boxes and options arbitrage