Book excerpt: Learn the ins-and-outs of options trading with clear, practical guidance Essential Option Strategies is an introductory guide to options trading, designed to help new options traders better understand the market and the potential opportunities that exist. This book is designed to bring you up to speed with current practices and help you implement your own option trading strategies. You'll create a plan, track indicators, and understand underlying instruments, then apply that central investing knowledge directly to the options market. The discussion on pricing determinants and probabilities uses an intuitive approach to complex calculations, providing clear examples with no advanced math required, and extensive explanation of spreads, butterflies, and condors brings advanced strategies down to earth. Easy-reference appendices clarify the Greek terms and technical analysis charts, while focused discussion and expert insight throughout provide a highly informative crash course on options trading. Options trading has undergone a rapid evolution beyond stocks and commodities into asset classes including fixed-income, precious metals, energy, and more. This book helps you build a solid foundation in the fundamentals, giving you a knowledge base that applies no matter how the instruments change. This book is designed to help you: Understand the options market inside and out Avoid common mistakes Learn some basic positions, and trades Read charts and interpret probabilities Once the domain of the elites, the options market has been thrown wide open thanks to real-time price quotes, through brokerages, and the free flow of information online. The process of buying and selling options contracts is faster and more efficient than ever, and Wall Street is facing stiff competition from independent analysts and financial websites. As much as the market has changed, the fundamentals are the same—and Essential Option Strategies aims to provide expert guidance throughout the learning process.