147 of 158 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book for Introduction to Options, November 30, 1999
This book finally delivered the subject of options into my head. I have tried for years by reading McMillan and with Schaeffers high priced newsletters (where I lost lots of Money) to understand options. McMillan was far too technical for me to understand and Schaeffer ... well he is all about selling his newsletters. Fontanills appears to have no agenda and appears genuinely interested in conveying his ideas to the public.
The book introduces the basics well with just enough detail. The examples are in stocks and futures which I quickly got used to. I have no intention of trading futures but they were just examples to get the point across. Fontanills he confided his business is actually as a money manager of stocks and stock options.
The book moves on to more advanced strategies including his delta neutral examples. He covers butterflies, condors, long synthetics, spreads and a total of 26 strategies. I recently noticed other people copying Fontanills work but ... then imitators will always copy the master I suppose.
I also bought the Options Workbook to accompany this book as it helped me test my knowledge. The downside of the books is that I was left wanting more and more from this guy, and when I put down the book I started it again. Oh, the appendix were useful and well set out.
In summary, this book delivers. It is easy to understand, written at my level not above my head. It is not all theory but offers a practical application that I have actually started to apply.
Thank you Mr. Fontanills for taking the time to teach us small investors the secrets of your trade.
Michelle
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71 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Complete Insight Into The Options Course, October 2, 2002
George Fontanills devotes four of the 18 chapters on the delta neutral strategy. Excluding the detailed description of Fontanills' trademark strategy, the majority of the book is geared toward beginners. After providing a rather detailed description of how he entered the financial markets, Fontanills describes several of the economic factors that drive stock prices. Next he moves into the self-analysis section. This part includes information on risk profiles and margin concepts. Frequent readers of investment books will notice that many publications contain a chapter on this topic. Later, he moves into a discussion of options as an investment vehicle. All of the basics are covered, long calls and puts, short calls and puts, covered writes, naked positions, spreads, strangles, and straddles. Each of these is explained and then charted, for the visually oriented learner. Naturally, the gem of the book is the delta neutral strategy, which involves either a long or short straddle or strangle. The idea of the strategy is to help traders profit in both trending and non-trending markets, the latter of which is a very difficult concept for many people, thanks to the great bull-market of the 1990s.
The well-versed options trader will consider the book nothing more than a refresher course, as much of the material is introductory. In the four chapters which address the delta neutral strategy, Fontanills provides a thorough description of the system. After covering what he calls the "nuts and bolts," he discusses several more advanced strategies, including butterfly spreads, condors, ratio spreads, backspreads, and a few variations of each of these combinations. Fontanills finishes off with advice on placing orders and adjusting open positions.
There are two very important factors when considering all of the complex strategies presented in the book:
Are complex investments with three or more legs actually that much safer and profitable?
Do these strategies actually work in the real world, or are they only good on paper?
Many professional options traders will be the first to tell you that simply going long calls and puts are the two riskiest options strategies. Most that I know will tell you that they primarily trade two kinds of spreads, debit spreads: bull call and bear put, and credit spreads: bear call and bull put. Spreads containing three or four legs can be very expensive to open and close, because of the multiple commissions. Imagine opening and closing a four-leg position -- that would include eight commissions. This leads us to the second problem, the likelihood of actually finding these positions. Much like the works of Marx and Engel, it all seems so easy when its presented with laboratory conditions. In fact, in a world filled with rapidly changing prices and option values, it can quite difficult to achieve the perfect combination of price and delta value to actually open these positions. The more complex strategies like butterflies and condors, require a delicate balance of many factors, and as traders know, the more factors that there are to manage, the more difficult it will be to control.
The second piece of the package is The Options Course Workbook, which includes "step-by-step exercises and tests" to help people better understand what they have read.
While the advanced options trader may want to leave this one on the shelf, anyone looking for a great introduction to both both beginning and advanced strategies should definitely take a look at The Options Course.
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99 of 107 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book on how to find high profit trades, January 5, 2000
I was given the book for Xmas by my wife who trades options for a living to encourage me to stop day trading.
I could not put the book down. Easy to read, practical and non promotional. Just the down and dirty of how to make money trading.
This man's style is to try to help others. Cancer victim and now successful money manager. Don't get me wrong he does only talk about that stuff in passing to indicate that his life has not been all rosy.
The trading information is to the point and step by step. I found myself seeing for the first time why I had to trade options. He explains how to find the trades, analyse them, delta neutral trading techniques and how to enter/exit the trades. The appendix are invaluable.
My wife was very amused when I opened an options account on January 5. But I had to read this book to finally understand how to trade them.
Oh, I asked my wife why this book and she said that she has seen everything out there and Fontanills leaves them all in the dust. A real trader that can communicate the concepts. Many other salesman have scooped up his ideas and profess them as there own.
...learn from the master and avoid the $$ scams.
Now to put it all in practice
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