Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A future in options, October 27, 2006
This review is from: Futures & Options For Dummies (Paperback)
This author has explained concepts and strategies which I have used to make money. One trade, 100% return in one month, another 40% in two days!
This is the reason I read this book, to make money. No one should try to make money in options based on simple formulas. One must have a deeper understanding of how things work. Duarte has a firm grasp on this concept and ably communicates to his reader.
Particularly helpful is the section on recognizing trends and getting ahead of the curve. His 'Developing Strategies' does help the careful reader avoid pain in the market. Also helpful are his ten killer rules.
Futures and options trading isn't for the faint of heart. Useful information contained in this book offers information needed to have confidence in developing a trading plan that you understand and can make work. This is very useful indeed.
A very credible tome on a subject written with obvious insight and judgment that can only come with experience.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Short on details, July 26, 2008
This review is from: Futures & Options For Dummies (Paperback)
This isn't what you expect from the "For Dummies" series. Meaning you don't close the book feeling you can get started with confidence (unlike, say, Currency Trading for Dummies, after which you can do just that). Overall it's a useful primer but nothing more. Its strengths are some macroeconomic insights and occasional tips on how the big players play the game. It is average in terms of giving the basics on calls and puts and basic spreads, and it gives the usual overview of charting and technical analysis. The three main weaknesses are: 1) An overemphasis on using historical charts to show where you could have bought and sold based entirely on 20/20 hindsight; 2) Trying to cram in too many subjects in the second half of the book, offering brief intros with very few insights but what feels like at least 2 warning per page on "Don't forget there is risk involved" and "Moves can be huge and reversals are unexpected;" 3) An absence of an overview of the tools and software available. This last is the clincher why I gave it only 2 stars. Because trading in futures is considered the big league (and rightly so, because there IS huge risk involved), the best softwares cost money and are sold business to business. It is still not considered the realm of the burgeoning individual speculator. For internet software, well for any software, you need to have a simulation so you are expert in the workings of the software before trying to trade real time- imagine losing thousands of dollars because you don't understand how to correctly set up your spread in the software!
If software does include a simulation package for evaluation, it is likely using simulated data. The better software packages that offer simulation for options will balk at futures and tell you you need to be approved for a futures account, in other words you need to commit before seeing it. This current grey area for individual speculation is to be expected, but that's why I bought the book, hoping it would bridge those gaps. It did not.
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27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
need to know, October 25, 2007
This review is from: Futures & Options For Dummies (Paperback)
If you're new to options, this is _the_ book to start with. Surely, online resources are plentiful, but no single web site can give you all the information and explanations you need to really get a good grasp on whqat exactly might be happenning. I've already made some money in options but, believe it or not, I've made more in stocks because I didn't quite grasp how these things work. This said, if you understand options and have a good idea of how the underlying (stock) is going to perform you can see your option appreciate 20, 50, or even 100 plus percent in a very short time. This is the draw of options. The most important thing you need to know, however, and this is 'experience' speaking, is that you have to, i mean, have to reel in your money if you see so much as 5 or 10 cent markdown in the price of your option. Why? because, unlike stocks, you can always buy right back in if the thing does start going your way With stocks, you usually hold it until you see , say, an 8% depreciation in value. This is not true with options. If you have, say, ten contracts, you're leveraging 1000 shares. Thus, if your thing goes down 5 cents, you've lost 50 dollars; 10 cents, 100 dollars and this usually happens intra-day, within a few minutes. For this reason, options are classified as 'high risk', but it's only high risk if you're averse to gettting rid of them. Stocks might take 2 or 3 or 5 days or more to show such a drop; that's when you might sell. Oh, and one more thing...having the right software makes or breaks your trading. Schwab offers options, but not any kind of software that gives you all the information and tools you need. Check around; there's a few that offer killer stuff. Visit investools.com
I hope this helps future traders but, if you must know, you gotta digest all the info in the options part if you're to get a grip on the thing.
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