Trading Course Review

Cashing in on Covered Calls Investing with Stock Options

The most comprehensive and easy-to-follow book on stock option investing ever before on the market, Cashing in on Covered Calls is a powerful tool that will show you how to become the CEO of your own money. Learn to invest with confidence, and generate monthly returns of 2% to 4%. “Using the same blueprint I’d adapted to become a licensed General Dentist, successful vitamin store entrepreneur, Certified Personal Trainer, licensed real estate agent, and seasoned real estate investor; one of self-education, I used to reach the level of an accomplished stock market investor. Year after year my portfolio generated higher returns than those of the average Stock Market. Then, when I started selling options, those returns increased exponentially!” (Alan Ellman). Take control of your financial future and let acclaimed author, Dr. Alan Ellman, guide you through his step by step process, and find out for yourself how the three Golden Rules of options selling can help you create incredible returns with very little risk. The government considers this strategy so safe that it permits you to use it in your self-directed IRA accounts! Perfect if you are searching for a book that touches on areas such as; stock options, stock option investing, stock investing, options trading, stock market, covered calls, personal finance, wealth building, success strategies, IRA accounts, and more!

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars KUDOS ON A GREAT BOOK
ALAN, I want to thank you for your book on Covered Calls. I subscribed to a course that cost several thousand dollars to learn all the different ways to use options (Bull Call, Bear Put, Straddles and Iron Condors etc) but they never told much about covered calls. I bought your book for $19.95 and a Subscription to Investors Business Daily. I have recouped my investment in the course and have settled on using covered calls exclusively to do options. My thanks to you for showing me the way. It involves much less risk and your method is a way that I can do options without losing sleep. It does require some monitoring, but that only takes a few minutes a day. Thanks Again

5 Stars cashing in on covered calls
For the first time in my very long life the market is now my friend. This system is so clear and concise I’m even getting great returns in the market. Just following Alan’s advise alone can point you in the right direction toward financial freedom. A must read if your looking to do things right.

Dennis Hand

5 Stars A Must Read !!!
This book is a must read for anyone planning to sell covered calls. It provides a step-by-step approach for the novice investor starting with the basics of how to evaluate a stock and then how to sell options. This is accomplished in a very clear and concise manner. Experienced investors will also significantly benefit by refreshing themselves with the basics, but more importantly introducing them to a variety of advanced concepts such as exit strategies. I enjoyed this book immensely and believe it provides valuable insights into these very specialized transactions.

5 Stars Loved this Book
Best Book on covered call options that I’ve read

This system was a real eye opener -Takes you step by step through the entire process from picking the correct stocks to exit strategies-While most option books only give you a cursory glimpse into covered calls, Ellman’s book goes through the entire process-A must read for beginners and veterans alike

4 Stars Good introduction, but I wanted more
The book contains key concepts for creating a potentially profitable trading system, but doesn’t go into enough detail in certain areas, especially regarding what to do when a stock goes down. I wanted more strategies dealing with managing losses, but I think the author saved that for his extensive line of CDs and DVDs. But you can figure out strategies of your own if you research, ponder, and trade long enough.

My final word is for you the reader to enter the market slowly and get used to the rules of placing trades, to get a feel for how the market moves and how much, and to experience the feeling of having your money on the line (much different than when it’s paper). Eventually you can move into bigger positions and discover how much “stress” you can personally endure. It took me many nights of half-sleep before finding a level of risk/reward I was comfortable with.

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The Rookies Guide to Options The Beginners Handbook of Trading Equity Options

Learn to use options from veteran option trader Mark D. Wolfinger, who spent more than 20 years on the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). If you are a seasoned stock trader or a casual investor who dabbles in mutual funds, this book is for you. Learn why stock options a versatile investment tool that has seen explosive growth over the past few years belong in your portfolio. If you re already trading options, this book is also for you. You will gain a thorough understanding of option pricing, function and equivalents, which will help you trade more effectively. Learning to adopt more advanced option strategies, like iron condors and double diagonals, will help protect your nest egg and, at the same time, earn healthy returns. Unlike many options guides, this book features step-by-step instructions, with extensive examples that outline the costs and benefits of each choice along the way everything you need to plan and execute each trade on your own. Wolfinger shows you how to analyze alternatives and explains why each may be appropriate for a particular investor with certain investment objectives. You ll develop a basis for deciding what is suitable for you and your investment philosophy. A thorough understanding of option basics will help you move on to powerful strategies to earn high returns with limited risk. Wolfinger s strategies will help ensure that your portfolio survives a market downturn. Stock options first traded on an exchange a mere 35 years ago and have exploded in popularity in recent years. Today nearly two billion options trade every year in the United States alone. Many people dabble in options without really understanding how they work and how they can be used most effectively. The Rookie s Guide to Options: The Beginner s Handbook of Trading Equity Options will give you the basic trading tools you need to start trading options profitably, as well as help you move on to more advanced strategies. Options were created to allow risk takers to hedge part of that risk. This book will help you learn to use options they way they were originally intended to manage risk and increase profits. You ll be guided step-by-step as the author guides you through the decision-making process in terms of puts, calls, strike prices, expiration dates and strategic equivalents. This book, aimed at the beginning options investor, will help you gain a clear understanding of how you ve been using options for years, even if unaware of doing so. If you have bought car insurance, accepted a rain check at a discount store or used a bus transfer, you already understand the concept of using options. If you thought options were too complicated, Wolfinger s clear and detailed explanations put that myth to rest. You ll see how to adopt basic options strategies, how to use them to earn profits and how to manage risk effectively. You ll move on to learn about the versatility of options and master advanced strategies, such as iron condors and double diagonals all selected to help you minimize risk and maximize profits. Learn how you can use options to: 1. Sell your stock above market value. 2. Turn a non-performing stock into a profitable investment. 3. Protect your holdings against a disastrous bear market and even profit in a bear market. 4. Create steady income. 5. Manage risk. 6. Earn profits more often than those who buy only stock. 7. Limit losses. 8. Own investments that earn a profit when the market moves higher or lower. The Rookie s Guide to Options: The Beginner s Handbook of Trading Equity Options shows you how you can get the most out of these versatile tools to protect your investments, create steady income and generate substantial profits.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars The Best Investment You Wiill Make in Options
Well, I’d like to start with this. When learning investments I have found that it pays to get your advice from people who meet the following two conditions:

1. That they are experts in their field.

2. That they have YOUR interests at heart.

These two conditions are superbly met throughout this book. The author spent decades trading options as a market maker and for his own account. He has made and lost money and in reading this book you are educated to make trades that fit your style and comfort zone, all while Mark shares real-life experiences and examples as well as the why’s of specific trading strategies.

At first, I felt a leaning towards labeling this a textbook, except that would not do the book justice. While its content, examples and insights are what you would expect from a textbook it is much more than that. It is well written and I found it extremely readable. As one of the other reviewers noted, I too have found the author extremely gracious about answering what in hindsight (after reading the book), were very basic questions that I had emailed.

After trading options for the last few years with losses (even after paying some of the advisers that we all see advertised)I feel positive that if I had read this book first (it wasn’t available then) I would have prevented losses and increased profits 50K or more. That’s not a bad ROI! Needless to say I recommend this book.

5 Stars Not Just for Rookies
I imagine my quest to successfully trade the market was fairly typical. Eventually I arrived at a fork in the road, one direction lead to washout– the other an epiphany that not losing money was infinitely more important than pushing for gains. When I picked up Wolfinger’s book I was at such an inflection point, and regretfully I’ll admit it wasn’t my first visit.

Mark’s writing style is sensible, easy to understand, obsessively objective and thought provoking. He has a unique way of presenting obvious but frightfully neglected facts such as an admission that, he personally; does not possess the “skills” required to determine in advance where the market is going. Of course nobody does but he’ll let you admit that to yourself… if you’re so inclined…

It’s a book for absolute neophytes up through experienced traders but the “rookie” title makes me chuckle as I find myself explaining things I’ve learned to peers (full-time professional traders).

Read this book (then read the chapter on equivalences- again). You may lose all desire to trade or own stock (as I have) or learn to effectively protect your investments, or you may decide that options aren’t for you. Either way– you’ll gain an understanding sure to advance your probability of success in the market.

5 Stars extremely practical advice for options traders
Mark has written a terrific book that all options traders should read. He focuses on several popular strategies that you can find in many books, but the difference is that Mark gives you practical advice on how to trade, and even more importantly, how to stay out of trouble when you do trade. Mark’s advice is consistently conservative. He is not so focused on milking every trade for every last dollar. It’s more important to keep trades gone wrong from losing big. Over and over, you will find this important message coming through.

Mark writes in a style that is friendly, easy to read, but deceptively informative. You don’t feel like you’re being overwhelmed with theory, but when you look back, you find that you’ve actually picked up more than you thought. He demonstrates the surprising equivalence, for example, of covered call writing, which many people are comfortable doing, and selling a naked put, which sounds riskier but is in fact identical.

This book is full of really useful and practical information, and I believe anyone actively trading options would benefit from studying this book thoroughly. It’s not just rookies who will gain from Mark’s shared experiences. BTW, Mark maintains a web site and blog where he continues to share his knowledge. He is also most generous with his time, answering numerous questions from his readers.

5 Stars esential reading for anyone trading options
Before reading Create Your Own Hedge Fund (one of Marks other titles)I considered options to be far too risky and exotic and solely for the professional trader. However after reading the book options were no-longer anything to fear and I was completely sold on the idea of using options to both reduce risk and increase profits.

The Rookies Guide to Options takes the ideas that were previously introduced and takes them to the next level. Concepts are introduced and explained in a way that makes them easy to understand and completely transparent. You’re never left wondering - but what would happen if?

It’s a master class in options from a truly brilliant teacher.

I can’t recommend this book enough

5 Stars One of the 5 best options books
Mark participates in an online options forum. I praised his book there and he asked if I would be willing to review it here. I’m not sure I can add much to what has already been written here. Donald West’s review is especially detailed.

This book actually holds your hand through profitable methods of trading. You still have to understand options to be successful, but this book is more practical than most. Most importantly, the emphasis is on decreasing risk. Options can be used like lottery tickets or can be used to make investing much safer than buying stocks, as the average investor does. Mr. Wolfinger is not a gambler, and he advises you not to gamble either.

Is this the only options book you need? Perhaps. I can’t be sure, since I already understood options well before I read it. If you are serious about taking control of your investments, then options can give you real advantages. But don’t think that you’ll skim over any book and then sit on a tropical beach the rest of your life making a few trades. Options are complicated and will leave you baffled at first. If you make the effort then they can be very rewarding. The good news is that this book is clearly written and practical. It really is one of the 5 best books I’ve read about options.

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The Complete Guide to Investing in Short Term Trading How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely

Short-term trading refers to the practice of buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading week or, at most, a few weeks. Short-term traders buy and sell stocks over a few days or weeks in the hope that their stocks will continue climbing in value for the time they own them, making for quick and, often, huge profits. Some of the more commonly traded financial instruments are stocks, stock options, currencies, and futures contracts such as equity index futures, interest rate futures, and commodity futures. Short-term trading was once the preserve of banks, financial firms, and professional investors. Many traders are bank or investment firms employees working in equity investment and fund management. As with many other business segments, the Internet, technology, and legislative changes have opened up this attractive marketplace to a new breed of individual investors and speculators working part-time. You and I can now stand on an even playing field with the largest banks, wealthiest individuals, and trading institutions from the comfort of home. Short-term trading can provide you with very high and secure rate of return as high as 12%, 18%, 24%, or even 300%. If performed correctly, short-term trading can far outpace all other investment techniques. The key is to know how to perform this process correctly. This all sounds great, but what is the catch? There really is none, except you must know what you are doing! This groundbreaking and exhaustively researched new book will provide everything you need to know to get you started generating high-investment returns with low risk from start to finish. In this easy to read and comprehensive new book you will learn how to set up your online account, how to choose the correct software to use in trading, how to get started in short-term trading, how to invest in short-term stocks, evaluate performance, and handle fees and taxes. This book delves into trading tactics for swing trading, position trading, leveraging the stock market, selling short, and pinpointing entry, exits, and targets for your trades. You will pick up the language of a trader so that you recognize candlestick patterns, advancing and declining issues and volume, call options, and put options. You will know how to find the very best stocks every day, how to read and prosper with stock charts, how to use the New York Stock Exchange tick indicator and trading index (TRIN), the Commodity Channel Index (CCI), the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD), the Dow 30-Day Moving Average. As you read this book, the mysteries of short-term trading will unfold so that you can double or even triple your investment all while avoiding the common traps and pitfalls. In addition, we took the extra effort and spent an unprecedented amount of time researching, interviewing, e-mailing, and communicating with hundreds of today s most successful investors. Aside from learning the basics of mutual fund trading you will be privy to their secrets and proven successful ideas. Instruction is great, but advice from experts is even better, and the experts chronicled in this book are earning millions. If you are interested in learning essentially everything there is to know about short-term investing as well as hundreds of hints, tricks, and tips on how to earn enormous profits in short-term investing while controlling your investments, then this book is for you.

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Stay away from this “Book’!
This book is nothing but a wast of time and money. The whole point of the book is to lure you to the websites of the so call “success stories traders” and try to sell you some secret systems for $200+ dollars, or more to steal your money. I would not be surprise if the five star reviews are fake and from the same so call “success traders” to boost the book up. They are all from Australia. The whole book smells like a scam!

5 Stars Very well organized and informative book!
I was truly impressed with this book and its insight, laid out in a very easy to read and instructive format. Make no mistake about it however; this book is not for the beginning trader!

2 Stars Far from “complete”, despite the title
I’ll start off with the positives: this book does give a good basic overview of basic short-term trading timelines and styles, and it frequently reminds the reader of several key rules for trading success (for example, developing a consistent trading methodology that emphasizes discipline over emotion). The profiles of successful traders also provide some pithy advice from people with varying backgrounds and perspectives. That said, after reading through the entire book, I find that it leaves a lot to be desired. My main complaint is that despite its claim to being a “complete guide” to trading, the book only covers fundamental and technical analysis at a very superficial level. Beyond that level, the book’s best advice is “buy some trading software and figure it out.” While it’s true that you ultimately need to practice the concepts yourself to really apply them effectively, a few diagrams or concrete examples in the book would go a long way toward helping readers digest the ideas being discussed. In addition, I find that the book isn’t very well-written in terms of the clarity, precision, and relevance of its language and content. You may not need to have a doctorate in English to write a good book about trading, but when a book lacks focus and professionalism (this one gives a hearty endorsement of getting an abandoned dog to help you exercise in your new trading career), I find it more difficult to put stock in the author’s qualifications to advise me on how to do something a lot more complicated than writing a beginner-level book.

Bottom line: you can use this book if you are an absolute novice looking for a very high-level overview of analysis principles and trading techniques. Otherwise, I’d recommend looking elsewhere for more detail and sophistication.

3 Stars A good place to start… …but not the place to stop.
I purchased this book hoping to learn how to use technical analysis to aid in choosing winning stocks. It does indeed give what I would consider a very good introduction/overview of some of the most popular indicators, and it offers guidelines on how to interpret what they typically mean. For somebody like me who knew very little about picking stocks or timing the market, I think the book did a very good job explaining these concepts, and I have gained much knowledge.

However, I was a little disappointed by the end that the book did not offer more specific “strategies” with which I could experiment. The book does explain that it does not offer specific “mechanical” type techniques that a trader could follow because the author cannot take into account the various trading dispositions of every unique reader & then expect one specific method to suit everybody. While this may be true, I still feel that the book could’ve offered a variety of specific strategies to try out as a place to start as one develops their own trading style.

Likewise, in a few cases it glossed over some concepts; for example, it makes a very brief mention about what the Fibonacci sequence is, but gives absolutely no explanation on how to use it when reading charts & trying to set exit levels. Likewise, while it explains what the different types of stop losses are and why they’re important, it doesn’t really offer any advice regarding a method to determine how tight/loose to set them (again relating back to strategies that employ Fibonacci).

Another area where the book is lacking is in Fundamental Analysis (FA). It does devote a chapter to the concept & explains that the majority of the book is to teach Technical Analysis (TA). So, I don’t fault it for being focused on TA, nor do I fault it for the limited good info it did present on FA, but when the words “Complete Guide” are in the title, I do think it should be COMPLETE!

To the book’s credit, the chapter on FA is informative, and provides a good general idea of several concepts with a few “rule of thumb” type things to look for when evaluating a company, but I had hoped to learn more about using FA to help screen which types of stocks I should pick. When I look at the vast amount of Fundamental information offered by my online broker, I feel that this book barely even scratched the surface of FA, and now I must look elsewhere for a better grasp of that type of analysis.

Anyway, overall I feel the book is great pick for anybody just getting their feet wet who desires to establish a good foundational knowledge of the concepts behind Technical Analysis. I do feel armed with some good information, but I’m still not ready to dive into battle until I study more on fundamental analysis. Essentially this book will help you recognize things that tell you WHEN to buy a stock, but determining WHICH stock is not as complete as I would like it to be. Likewise, if you’re interested in only day trading then the book has more to offer. I’m more a a swing style trader & therefore would need to rely on FA a little more heavily.

I hate to be too negative, as the book did indeed provide me with a lot of good information. If I could give it 3.5 stars I would, but 4 just seems too much to me. I don’t feel that it was enough be called a “Complete Guide” as the title suggests. Likewise, the by-line title states “How to Earn High Rates of Returns Safely”. If it had really shown me specifically HOW then I’d say that line isn’t misleading, but I find myself left to seek other books to learn specific enough stock screening techniques to even use the TA information it provides.

I realize that there is truth to the fact that there is no “magic formula” when it comes to picking stocks, but I hoped it would at least give me a few “mechanical” strategies as a place to start without having to blindly experiment on my own until I discover my own reliable trading system.

Another thing about the book that I thought was a little hokey is the interviews with other successful traders. Most all of the interviews had anecdotal information, along with the underlying theme that you should be disciplined, etc… But in general I thought the information provided by the interviews was just filler to make the reader feel that they’re getting their money’s worth out of buying the book. The experts didn’t really offer any specific trading strategies. The info is more biographical than anything. Most of them just talked about themselves, shared war stories, talked about when they first started trading, maybe what type of trading software they recommended (which is the least of my worries), etc… At the beginning of the book it tries to play this feature up as being something truly unique & special about the book, but 90% of it is just filler, that’s all.

I am explaining the downside so people won’t be diaoppointed, but I do wish to stress that the book is still a great intro to TA & would recommend it to anyone in my position who is just starting out & would like good foundational info.

5 Stars Excellent road map for beginners especially
I just finished reading the whole book and I, without reservation, recommend this book to anyone who wants a professional in the field to guide him or her along in this risky activity.

Let me introduce myself. I am working in the accounting field and have just started to invest or trade in HK stock market. I want to make money in the stock market and I am very interested in learning everything about it.

As far as I know, there are two basic approaches to invest. If you believe in long term investing, you would probably invest like Buffett using value investing approach. On the other hand, if you like to invest in the short term, you should know something about technical analysis. I chose the latter approach because I don’t have time and resources to analyse fundamentals. I think you would agree with me that, as a result of the recent global financial crisis, we are ignorant of what’s are going on in big companies and in the stock markets.

Now let me talk about this book. The strong points of the book are that it gives you a roadmap from basic introductions to what you need to know as a day trader. Besides, the author gives a lot of interesting cases along the way so that you won’t be bored.

No book is perfect in every aspects. For continuous learning, I’d recommend ‘Technical Analysis for Dummies’ if you’d like to understand more about how TA can help you as a short term trader. Another book is ‘High Probability Trading’ by Mr. Marcel Link where he offers his valuable trading experiences for you to start with.

Finally I gave this book 5 stars because it’s so comprehensive and reader oriented.

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