The Financial Times Guide to Options

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