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56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, not great, November 28, 2009
This review is from: Exit Strategies for Covered Call Writing: Making the most money when selling stock options (Paperback)
I am a covered call seller, and I do appreciate any books on the subject, because, relatively speaking, there are not many. I've also read Ellman's blog, and he has some interesting and smart things to say about covered calls. All that being said, however, I'm not sure what to say about this book. If you're a covered call seller with any experience, chances are you know all of the concepts in this book already. We deal with these concepts every day. I learned nothing new. But even if you're a beginner, some of the material is simply too rudimentary for inclusion in a book of this type. For example, do we really need a chapter devoted to placing an online trade (Chapter Nine): "1. Go to your online brokerage account. 2. Hit the place trade link." And it goes on from there. I mean, seriously. If you can't find the "place trade" link, should you really be messing around with options? Also, about half of the book is taken up by charts that don't really need to be there; they look like filler to me (in all fairness, this isn't the first options book to do that). My other pet peeve is Ellman's overuse of "simple analogies" to explain simple arithmetic, such as the references to "if your neighbor's height is 84 inches, and then he's 87 inches," and the like, and the overuse of the "hitting a triple" metaphor. The folksy element could have been dialed down a bit. Possibly the only use for this book is for beginners to read about the real-life examples of what can happen to covered positions and what can be done with them. Perhaps that's enough. Therefore, probably worth the price and the time. But as I said, not bad, but not great either.
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33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rudimentary, of course it is, July 10, 2009
This review is from: Exit Strategies for Covered Call Writing: Making the most money when selling stock options (Paperback)
North Pole seems to believe that Alan Ellman's covered call books are supposed to be magnificent technical tomes regarding option pricing, timing and selection. That is not what they are intended to be. If you want a detailed discussion of Black-Scholes analysis there are many other books out there. If you don't know what Black-Scholes is, then this book may be just what you are looking for. There is a reason why the cover says "Blue Collar Investor", instead of "White Collar Investor". These books are for the basic stock investor. They leave out a lot of technical jargon which average investors just ignore anyway. I am a certified public accountant. I have been trading options for more than 30 years. I have found Alan's method of picking stocks to be one of the most helpful investment tools I have ever read. Exit Strategies was written because many of his students, nearing expiration dates, emailed requests to Alan asking, "What should I do now?". This book attempts to give some guidance to the blue collar investor in this regard. If you are a Wall Street trader, stock broker or hedge fund manager it probably isn't for you. Yes it is simplistic. That is it's purpose. It is intended to bring what passes as a complex trading strategy down to earth for the small investor who doesn't have $500,000 to invest with some genius who will turn it into $350,000. So, take North Pole's advice. If you are looking for an insomnia cure explaining the precise reason for an option's price at 1:38PM on Tuesday, this is NOT it. If you want a helpful, easy to read, and understand, book on covered call writing, then buy Alan Ellman's books. Disclosure: I built the Excel option calculator which Alan distributes to his students. It was designed to be simple and easy to use and understand. No, I do not receive anything from the sale, or my endorsement, of his books.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great eye opener on covered call options, October 27, 2009
This review is from: Exit Strategies for Covered Call Writing: Making the most money when selling stock options (Paperback)
I have been trading stock equities for over 15 years and options have always been some mysterious and unknown aspect of the stock market. About 10 years ago, I looked at Options trading, but it was a big convoluted world that was very intimidating, and very expensive to obtain knowledge, or to pay for 'newsletters', etc In the last year or so, I stumbled upon some online discussions about Options trading and searched on the internet for more info, and then at Amazon to see what books are out there, as well as to read others recommendations/reviews. 'Exit Strategies for Covered Call Writting' showed up. I read the reviews and decided to make the purchase. All I can say is I wish I had this book 15 years ago as it totally repaints the picture of stock trading & Options for me. The author breaks the covered call options writing strategies into easily understandable concepts and illustrates each concept with an equally understandable examples to help reinforce your understanding. This book helped me gain confidence in my understanding of the covered call options market and illustrates how covered call options trading is quite conservative as opposed to the high risk exotic options trading. Note, this book does not cover exotic options trading, only covered call writing and 'exit strategies' on how to handle a variety of issues the might come your way, such as if underlying stock goes up, goes down, goes sideways. If you are of the mentality of 'buy & hold' for stocks and you are not selling covered calls, you are leaving easy money on the table. Hundreds or thousands can be made each month off of the stocks you are already holding. This book is also great for people that watch individual stocks and feel comfortable about what to expect in how much a stock can go up or down in a short period of time. Are you down on a current stock investment? Covered call options can reduce your cost basis for the underlying stock so as to help reduce the pain of a stock loss, help break even, or yes, even make a profit on a stock that you are currently underwater with. You can write covered calls for regular stock broker accounts, or even IRA accounts. This book is a great investment. I easily recouped the cost for this book and more with my first options cycle that expired in October of this year. Last point, this book has been a great primer into the entire world of options. While this book only covers covered call writing, it has given me the foundation to understand the 'exotic' option world and allows me to see what the risk is as well as the rewards of options trading...so I can tell you the difference between a straddle & a strangle! Good luck!
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