The Financial Times Guide to Options · the Plain and Simple Guide to Successful Strategies (The FT Guides)

"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