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Option Trading Tips For Starters

Posted by Kelvin Lim | Posted in options trading | Posted on 02-07-2009

Tags: , , , ,

5

The Place to Find Option Trading Tips

Options Trading - Options WomanOptions Trading is one area that not as many people know when it comes to trading and the financial markets. It is not as common to trade options as it is to buy stocks or shares of a company and make money from it. Yet still, there are a few who have learned how to trade options and become successful in making a consistent income from it. However, option trading requires more knowledge in order to be successful. It is not as simple as putting your money aside and hoping for it to grow in the long run. This website will offer some option trading tips and strategies to make an income from trading options.

Before you step your toes into option trading, the first thing that needs to be addressed is to get back to basics and understand what an option is, and the terminologies that come with option trading. The option trading tips will only be useful once we understand the basics and then start developing knowledge on the different ways to trade options. I started out learning option trading this way, and I believe that if you are to make money using option trading strategies, you need to know the basics and build your foundations right.

Option Trading Terms

When trading options, you are in fact dealing with contracts. Essentially, an options contract is an entitlement to buy or sell a certain stock or share at an agreed price and at a certain specified period. Before further delving deeper into the details of options contract, let us define certain words that have been mentioned in the above statement:

  • Expiry Date – the agreed date on the options contract
  • Strike Price – the agreed price at which the stock is to be bought or sold

Options contracts give the holder the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the stock of share on or before the expiry date at the strike price. This means that depending on the type of options, the holder of the contract may buy the stock or share if the share price hits or goes above the strike price, or sell the stock if the share price hits or goes below the strike price. If it happens that the holder of the options contract has to buy or sell the stock or share, this action is called “exercise”.

Why Trade Options

There are many reasons why traders and investors would trade options contracts. Two of the most common reasons are:

  1. Stop-Loss – Options are used to protect assets (stocks in this case) from the possibility of the stock price dropping lower than what the stock holder is willing to risk. This forms as a stop-loss measure for the stock trader, as this will ensure that he or she doesn’t have to sell the stock any lower than the strike price regardless if the existing price of the stock at the time is lower.
  2. Extra Income – Options can be used to generate extra income from the stock held by the owner. When selling an option to another party, the seller receives a premium for risking the possibility of losing his or her stock holdings. This premium is kept and earned by the seller of the option, regardless of the option being exercised or not.

Each market or country will have mostly similar concepts when it comes to options trading, and there will be slight differences with each one (i.e., the American options trading requires 100 shares of a stock to form a contract, whereas the Australian options trading requires 1,000 shares of a stock to form a contract). Learning these terms and strategies can take time, but with the help of a fantastic financial education and investment company like Planet Wealth, your learning and involvement in the options trading arena will be accelerated through their wealth of knowledge and experience. More of these basic option trading tips in the upcoming posts, so watch out for the next series of option trading tips!

Comments (5)

Some very interesting information for me to better my self while trading.

Great article on options trading. I have been looking at getting into options for a while and there are quite a few things I have learnt here. Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the comments, Richard and Scotty! I’m glad you got something out of this. Options Trading is a great strategy as it’s very versatile. As long as you learn the basics well, you will be rewarded with the profits. Here’s to your many trading successes!

Useful insight into options trading. I am interested in finding a strategy which avoids losses and I am happy with making small gains. Can anyone suggest good places to find such information?

I have been looking at many sites and found yours extremely useful. There is clearly lots to learn on this subject. Can anyone recommend other good places to search for this information?

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