Best books to read for learning options?

[JamesB]

Thomas, let me share my story with you. I began trading about 7 years ago. Over the years, I have tried several options services and educational services. For a period of time I was with Simpler Options. I felt like John Carter is an amazing trader, yet their service just nickels and dimes you to death, paying for this indicator and that classes and this trading room. I also was a part of RightwayOptions; that was just a losing money adventure for me! I was also a part of Options Money Maker. I have bought several indicators from Champion Setups with Rob Hoffman. I learned a ton about technical analysis from Barry Burns with Top Dog Trading. I have also watched the free education from Options Alpha and Tastytrade. Yet the best that I have seen with Options is TheoTrade! They have a vast archive of classes and proprietary indicators and a trading room that is open throughout market hours all included for about $100 a month. Their customer service has been amazing! My subscription has ended with them, yet I still send them emails from time to time, and get great feed back. Therefore, I would highly recommend Theotrade not just for options education but all around they definitely provide the most value for your dollar.

The journey into becoming a successful trader is not easy and definitely not for the faint of heart! For the first five years of my trading experience, I would win on several trades in a row and then in one or two trades give it all back plus some. I lost well over $100k in spite of following other people's trades, buying proprietary indicators, etc., etc., etc. Yet in the past 2 years, I have made leaps and bounds in my trading and a lot of that yes I will credit to TheoTrade. There are literally golden nuggets in Don Kaufman's classes on hedging, his VIX volatility class, in and out spreads, infinite spread, gamma iron condors, selling premium for a living, and his latest class called Ultimate Trades.

Yet no book, indicator, or trading service is the Holy Grail of options trading. To me, successful options trading must include 3 key elements. First, you need to have a solid understanding of technical and quantitative analysis. This will help to steer you in the right direction from the start. The better you understand technical and quantitative analysis, the higher your win/loss ratio is going to be period!

Second is options strategies. Part of my journey of trading has included stock trading and futures trading. Yet stock and futures trading by themselves is an extremely difficult road to walk down as you need to have an astronomically high win/loss ratio. And most times that is hard to maintain over the long run! Yet options when understood correctly can minimize your risk and can easily be used to take large losers and cut them down drastically.

Third, is mindset and money management. The only Holy Grail in trading is between your ears. You have to be able to control your emotions which can be super hard to do when you look at positions being down possibly higher than 300%, yet learning to trust your technical and quantitative analysis, and options strategies, and money management can tell you when to hang on through the pain, how to hedge that risk, and the euphoria as that position that was over 300% down turns into a 100% winner!

Therefore Thomas, I encourage you to join TheoTrade, learn as much as you can about technical and quantitative analysis, options strategies, mindset and money management. Endure through the tough times, and you will be on your path to financial freedom. Best of luck to you!

 

[Learnbot]

Thomas, let me share my story with you. I began trading about 7 years ago. Over the years, I have tried several options services and educational services. For a period of time I was with Simpler Options. I felt like John Carter is an amazing trader, yet their service just nickels and dimes you to death, paying for this indicator and that classes and this trading room. I also was a part of RightwayOptions; that was just a losing money adventure for me! I was also a part of Options Money Maker. I have bought several indicators from Champion Setups with Rob Hoffman. I learned a ton about technical analysis from Barry Burns with Top Dog Trading. I have also watched the free education from Options Alpha and Tastytrade. Yet the best that I have seen with Options is TheoTrade! They have a vast archive of classes and proprietary indicators and a trading room that is open throughout market hours all included for about $100 a month. Their customer service has been amazing! My subscription has ended with them, yet I still send them emails from time to time, and get great feed back. Therefore, I would highly recommend Theotrade not just for options education but all around they definitely provide the most value for your dollar.

The journey into becoming a successful trader is not easy and definitely not for the faint of heart! For the first five years of my trading experience, I would win on several trades in a row and then in one or two trades give it all back plus some. I lost well over $100k in spite of following other people's trades, buying proprietary indicators, etc., etc., etc. Yet in the past 2 years, I have made leaps and bounds in my trading and a lot of that yes I will credit to TheoTrade. There are literally golden nuggets in Don Kaufman's classes on hedging, his VIX volatility class, in and out spreads, infinite spread, gamma iron condors, selling premium for a living, and his latest class called Ultimate Trades.

Yet no book, indicator, or trading service is the Holy Grail of options trading. To me, successful options trading must include 3 key elements. First, you need to have a solid understanding of technical and quantitative analysis. This will help to steer you in the right direction from the start. The better you understand technical and quantitative analysis, the higher your win/loss ratio is going to be period!

Second is options strategies. Part of my journey of trading has included stock trading and futures trading. Yet stock and futures trading by themselves is an extremely difficult road to walk down as you need to have an astronomically high win/loss ratio. And most times that is hard to maintain over the long run! Yet options when understood correctly can minimize your risk and can easily be used to take large losers and cut them down drastically.

Third, is mindset and money management. The only Holy Grail in trading is between your ears. You have to be able to control your emotions which can be super hard to do when you look at positions being down possibly higher than 300%, yet learning to trust your technical and quantitative analysis, and options strategies, and money management can tell you when to hang on through the pain, how to hedge that risk, and the euphoria as that position that was over 300% down turns into a 100% winner!

Therefore Thomas, I encourage you to join TheoTrade, learn as much as you can about technical and quantitative analysis, options strategies, mindset and money management. Endure through the tough times, and you will be on your path to financial freedom. Best of luck to you!

@JamesB that is amazing piece of information. My buddy took Theo trade course and he liked it as well. I m going to reach out to him as well. Thank you so much bud

 

[JamesB]

Thanks Thomas. A couple other thoughts, I feel like the best technical analysis is taught by Barry Burns with Top Dog Trading. However, for the money, TheoTrade has a lot of great teaching on technical analysis at a fraction of the cost (included in the basic membership).

A few things to look for or consider if you join TheoTrade, Don Kaufman's Ultimate Trades/TheoTheta Portfolio is spot on! I have either witnessed or followed him on about 50 trades in these portfolios and only 2 were losers! The only issue that I have with his TheoTheta Portfolio is that he does not take enough trades for someone like me who prefers to be super active. Therefore, I add other trades into the mix. Blake Young with TheoTrade has very worthwhile material; and his teaching is included in the basic membership. Overall, I would caution you to not blindly follow Don's in/out spread trades or intra day trades that he takes. He tends to be a perma bear in those areas yet history proves that the bulls are right more often than not. Therefore, I strongly advise you to not follow one of those trade ideas unless you are convinced of your own accord.

Thus, I would rank TheoTrade's services in the following way:

1. TheoTheta Portfolios and Ultimate Trades
2. VIX Volatility and Gamma Iron Condors--these are awesome hedges especially for people like me who tend to be most times bullish to delta neutral.
3. Blake Young's work.
4. Matt Williamson's work.

I hope that some of this helps you or others to avoid the headaches that I had to endure in order to become a profitable trader!

 

[ssmike123]

Thomas, let me share my story with you. I began trading about 7 years ago. Over the years, I have tried several options services and educational services. For a period of time I was with Simpler Options. I felt like John Carter is an amazing trader, yet their service just nickels and dimes you to death, paying for this indicator and that classes and this trading room. I also was a part of RightwayOptions; that was just a losing money adventure for me! I was also a part of Options Money Maker. I have bought several indicators from Champion Setups with Rob Hoffman. I learned a ton about technical analysis from Barry Burns with Top Dog Trading. I have also watched the free education from Options Alpha and Tastytrade. Yet the best that I have seen with Options is TheoTrade! They have a vast archive of classes and proprietary indicators and a trading room that is open throughout market hours all included for about $100 a month. Their customer service has been amazing! My subscription has ended with them, yet I still send them emails from time to time, and get great feed back. Therefore, I would highly recommend Theotrade not just for options education but all around they definitely provide the most value for your dollar.

The journey into becoming a successful trader is not easy and definitely not for the faint of heart! For the first five years of my trading experience, I would win on several trades in a row and then in one or two trades give it all back plus some. I lost well over $100k in spite of following other people's trades, buying proprietary indicators, etc., etc., etc. Yet in the past 2 years, I have made leaps and bounds in my trading and a lot of that yes I will credit to TheoTrade. There are literally golden nuggets in Don Kaufman's classes on hedging, his VIX volatility class, in and out spreads, infinite spread, gamma iron condors, selling premium for a living, and his latest class called Ultimate Trades.

Yet no book, indicator, or trading service is the Holy Grail of options trading. To me, successful options trading must include 3 key elements. First, you need to have a solid understanding of technical and quantitative analysis. This will help to steer you in the right direction from the start. The better you understand technical and quantitative analysis, the higher your win/loss ratio is going to be period!

Second is options strategies. Part of my journey of trading has included stock trading and futures trading. Yet stock and futures trading by themselves is an extremely difficult road to walk down as you need to have an astronomically high win/loss ratio. And most times that is hard to maintain over the long run! Yet options when understood correctly can minimize your risk and can easily be used to take large losers and cut them down drastically.

Third, is mindset and money management. The only Holy Grail in trading is between your ears. You have to be able to control your emotions which can be super hard to do when you look at positions being down possibly higher than 300%, yet learning to trust your technical and quantitative analysis, and options strategies, and money management can tell you when to hang on through the pain, how to hedge that risk, and the euphoria as that position that was over 300% down turns into a 100% winner!

Therefore Thomas, I encourage you to join TheoTrade, learn as much as you can about technical and quantitative analysis, options strategies, mindset and money management. Endure through the tough times, and you will be on your path to financial freedom. Best of luck to you!

Hello JamesB. In post above you mentioned Barry Burns.
Have you also taken his Options Course?

 

[JamesB]

Hello JamesB. In post above you mentioned Barry Burns.
Have you also taken his Options Course?

At $5k, not a chance! Honestly, the more I consider Top Dog Trading, the less I am impressed with the value in his classes. I recently took his day trading course, what a joke! You can gain 90% of what is in that class simply by watching his free YouTube videos!

 

[ssmike123]

I

At $5k, not a chance! Honestly, the more I consider Top Dog Trading, the less I am impressed with the value in his classes. I recently took his day trading course, what a joke! You can gain 90% of what is in that class simply by watching his free YouTube videos!

You already have taken Courses 1+ 2 & Advance?

 

[JamesB]

I

You already have taken Courses 1+ 2 & Advance?

Yes, and intermediate swing trading, fibonacci class, and the advanced course, plus the day trading course, and several of his bonus videos.

 

[JamesB]

I

You already have taken Courses 1+ 2 & Advance?

Have you taken Top Dog Trading's Options Course?

 

[ssmike123]

I have. At this time I can not give an honest evaluation because of my time limitation ( I have a regular business) & not practiced enough.
Overall, the $5000.00 is for six month. Way too short period. To extend this, they want another $5000.00. Not a good deal.
Barry thinks you can take the options class without any knowledge of courses 1 & 2. I disagree, a lot of practice in 1 & 2 & most likely Advance course is necessary before taking options class. Barry promotes this by a series of videos that eventually introduces "Unusual Option Activity" as solution to predicting up/down movement of a stock.
The Back Bone of option course has nothing to do with "Unusual Option Activity." Not sure why he had to promote this way. The smallest part of the course is devoted to "Unusual Option Activity", which in itself can be very problematic.

 

[JamesB]

I have. At this time I can not give an honest evaluation because of my time limitation ( I have a regular business) & not practiced enough.
Overall, the $5000.00 is for six month. Way too short period. To extend this, they want another $5000.00. Not a good deal.
Barry thinks you can take the options class without any knowledge of courses 1 & 2. I disagree, a lot of practice in 1 & 2 & most likely Advance course is necessary before taking options class. Barry promotes this by a series of videos that eventually introduces "Unusual Option Activity" as solution to predicting up/down movement of a stock.
The Back Bone of option course has nothing to do with "Unusual Option Activity." Not sure why he had to promote this way. The smallest part of the course is devoted to "Unusual Option Activity", which in itself can be very problematic.

Thanks for the info!!! I've wondered about Barry's options course.

Foundations 1-2, and the Advanced courses are good. The volume patterns in the Swing Trading course are helpful but the scanning is a joke. If you go through Foundations you can figure out the criteria.

 

[Thomas]

At $5k, not a chance! Honestly, the more I consider Top Dog Trading, the less I am impressed with the value in his classes. I recently took his day trading course, what a joke! You can gain 90% of what is in that class simply by watching his free YouTube videos!

Hey JamesB.....thank you for sharing. There are so many who are getting wealthy creating content that seems all the same when the Bull is roaring, wait until something changes. As the example of "Top Dog," ya, watch the videos, first, too general, and a failed trader maybe,...someone who creates content,...as they all do.
Rightway for me was a "Try," but when I watched the "Consistent Profit," video lightbulbs popped in my head and the concept was so simple, I went to RWO, and overstayed my experience. Doug is the best damn instructor,......maybe two or three RWO recent videos tell you all you need to know, or a few older videos but..it's so SIMPLE. His deepdive video was so important. The main take away is simple directional puts and calls, sell premium for consistent stream of cash. SIMPLE,.... John Carter, F_ _ _ _ _ _ prostitute,..... his support staff who wrote the codes need to be paid...... windbag, good for him he's making money,..... it's the person. All these people you mentioned I panned, hearing nothing but hope. Even QuallMaggie one of the greatest traders in our time is giving his information free, that's right, free, he tells you exactly how he made his trades and money. Learn to read price, Harami's, Piercing's, Matholds,...blah, blah and attach to a trend, options, directionally, spreads,.... whatever, but make it SIMPLE. I was in Stockbee for almost 10 years and couldn't learn his concept, it just didn't click, maybe it was the terms, the vocabulary, his accent, something I just couldn't get it and that's why Theotrade clicked with you, you understood what they explained, same with RWO with me. I have since gone on with my strategy of a thesis from gathered information and came to a direction where I use a combination of shares and options to capitalize on the trade. Find a trend and use options......you will be happy......
There's CPToptions, John,.... enthusiastic, reachable, explains simple rules...... I don't need him to teach me, but he's made lottsa money while working,..........if you can't trade fulltime, and don't want to put your money at risk daytrading, another simple concept, John uses S&P Cruiseships that move slowly,.... no real volatile stocks,......and still makes great money....

 

[Thomas]

Thanks Thomas. A couple other thoughts, I feel like the best technical analysis is taught by Barry Burns with Top Dog Trading. However, for the money, TheoTrade has a lot of great teaching on technical analysis at a fraction of the cost (included in the basic membership).

A few things to look for or consider if you join TheoTrade, Don Kaufman's Ultimate Trades/TheoTheta Portfolio is spot on! I have either witnessed or followed him on about 50 trades in these portfolios and only 2 were losers! The only issue that I have with his TheoTheta Portfolio is that he does not take enough trades for someone like me who prefers to be super active. Therefore, I add other trades into the mix. Blake Young with TheoTrade has very worthwhile material; and his teaching is included in the basic membership. Overall, I would caution you to not blindly follow Don's in/out spread trades or intra day trades that he takes. He tends to be a perma bear in those areas yet history proves that the bulls are right more often than not. Therefore, I strongly advise you to not follow one of those trade ideas unless you are convinced of your own accord.

Thus, I would rank TheoTrade's services in the following way:

1. TheoTheta Portfolios and Ultimate Trades
2. VIX Volatility and Gamma Iron Condors--these are awesome hedges especially for people like me who tend to be most times bullish to delta neutral.
3. Blake Young's work.
4. Matt Williamson's work.

I hope that some of this helps you or others to avoid the headaches that I had to endure in order to become a profitable trader!

BTW,...I trade full time, alone,... a value contrarian,.... with formulated thesis on direction,... it boils down to Simple,....I work as Doug/RWO with a "BlankChart," and draw trendlines.....read price down to a one minute chart but prefer positioning for BIG MONEY! The Livermore way...... is my way.