Trade Options Online

Rating:
Summary: Good but not the best. Still Looking for the best.
Review: Based on fairly good reviews, I bought this book. I'm still working my way through it but have skipped around enough to realize it is not the ultimate book with which to learn options trading. I was specifically looking for information on writing Covered Calls and this book only gave about two short paragraphs to that particular subject. Woefully inadequate. However the book does have a good amount of resources, ratings of financial web sites, comparisons of on-line brokerages, that I found useful. But, this is the type of information that becomes outdated quickly because of the rapidly changing environment on the Internet. So overall I'd have to say that if you are looking for the ultimate book on options trading, keep looking otherwise this is probably a good enough introduction. Me....I'm still looking.

Rating:
Summary: A great reference all around
Review: Before reading this book, I was almost totally ignorant of options and option strategies. With the information I gained from Fontanills, I now trade options online and I've actually managed to make money in a declining market.

This book is excellent in every regard. It presents numerous basic and not so basic strategies and explains them in clear terms with illustrative examples including graphs and calculations of theoretical trades.

Just as important is the section with no nonsense ratings of online brokers from the perspective of their ability to trade options. Through this review I was able to find a broker that actually had their own floor traders, rather than one that farms out its option trades. This is important as my trades generally come back with prices better than I expect.

He has terrific sections on online resources for information on options and providers of data and charts. There is also a helpful glossary of trading and market terminology.

Overall, this is a must have reference for anyone who is new to options or has a basic understanding and would like to learn more. It is also helpful if you have traded options before through a broker and you would like to switch to online trading.

Rating:
Summary: A great reference all around
Review: Before reading this book, I was almost totally ignorant of options and option strategies. With the information I gained from Fontanills, I now trade options online and I've actually managed to make money in a declining market.

This book is excellent in every regard. It presents numerous basic and not so basic strategies and explains them in clear terms with illustrative examples including graphs and calculations of theoretical trades.

Just as important is the section with no nonsense ratings of online brokers from the perspective of their ability to trade options. Through this review I was able to find a broker that actually had their own floor traders, rather than one that farms out its option trades. This is important as my trades generally come back with prices better than I expect.

He has terrific sections on online resources for information on options and providers of data and charts. There is also a helpful glossary of trading and market terminology.

Overall, this is a must have reference for anyone who is new to options or has a basic understanding and would like to learn more. It is also helpful if you have traded options before through a broker and you would like to switch to online trading.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Book on Cyber-Trading I've Read Yet!
Review: Finally a book that decodes the complexities of online trading from an option trader's point of view! I was happily surprised by Fontanills' candid reviews of online sites and even more surprised that he boldly rated online brokerages in a top ten list. His writing style was fresh and easy to read, and I applaud his attention to detail. For once, I looked forward to reading an investment book and highly recommend it to anyone who feels overwhelmed by the prospect of joining the online trading revolution!

Rating:
Summary: Comphrensive Option book w references
Review: Finally a book you can sink your teeth into and getstarted. I've read dozens of trading books where you finish and youwonder what your next step should be. Here the author gives detailed examples of strategies. There are also very few typos or mistakes which to me is most infuriating. You buy a "how to" book and you need a decoder ring to try and figure out what the author really meant because they didn't bother to proof the book. Not so with this book.

Chapter 9 was so refreshing! Here the author walks thru step-by-step what his typical trading day would involve. No "well-chosen" examples to fit the author's purpose, just fundamentals that he looks for and where online he looks.

The web site reference section alone is worth the price of the book. For me it well save hundreds of hours of World Wide Wait (WWW) searching for relevent sites with good, useful and reliable information. The reference site also had pricing info for those sites that weren't free. It also gave me an idea of what's available out there, Online!

There was a lot of educational sites for those remaining questions, like the break down of the "Greeks". These would of been too much to cover in this book and I'm glad the author didn't try to.

This book is a great first-step for ONLINE Option traders.

Good Luck Trading!

PS The author doesn't self promote. He mentions a couple of his own sites amoung the hundreds of sites he references. The reference would be less than complete if he had left out his own sites.

Rating:
Summary: Time value of that book is zero
Review: First 8 chapters give you a very superficial introduction to the options trading and some strategies. Let me repeat - very superficial. If you want to learn that matter, you definetely need another book.

So, I was trying to get usefull info on the WEB resources. Let me tell you - two years make a big difference in the Internet world. Many sites do not exist. Some of them have nothing in common with the description, which you find in a book. Chapter 9 - "cybervesting from A to Z" is a complete waste of time and is full of frustration. It guides you through interfaces of nonexisting web pages. The pages, which, according to th author, answer the crutial questions of a trade. I lost most of time just to verify nonexistence of the referenced resources.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Primer for Options Trading
Review: George A. Fontanills' latest text on trading options online provides the novice and intermediate options trader with a wealth of information. For the experienced and advanced options trader, the text is a succincly written treasure of reference information. When combined with his Options Trading Course and Workbook, the reader is armed with knowledge and confidence to trade intelligently and profitably. The two texts (w/ workbook) work well together in answering the questions I had while reading Trade Options Online.

Rating:
Summary: resourceful - but contents do not live up to my expectation
Review: I bought the book after reading others' good reviews here, and was fully expecting a wealth of options strategies and most importantly, personal experience and insights from such a celebrated option trader-author. However, IMHO, this book turned out to be a combination of

- superficial introductory text to 'online investing' (from Chapter 1 to 4), which is more suited to a Finance 101 course of high school students, if there's such one. - a decent list of option trading strategies (Chap 5-8) - an extremely rich list of online resources for financial web sites, online brokerages, and other sites geared for options trading. The extensive listings are surely impressive, however, as another reviewer pointed out, can get outdated easily.

It is certainly not a bad book, but I usually buy books because I expect to find more insightful writing which is not readily obtainable from the web. To this front I was a bit disappointed in this book. To me it seems that the author practiced a low-cost approach to make money out of this book by just compiling a long list of online resources and writing some very basic educational text, instead of sharing his trading strategies and experiences. Maybe this approach is good for a beginner who has not started stock trading yet, but for a typical stock investor/day trader who is trying to diversify into option trading, there is room for more value-added discussion.

At the same time, the author seems to be keen on promoting his Optionetics website, which itself is pretty impressive (if you pay to subscribe the Platinum service).

All in all, the book is a pretty good reference to get started, simply because it has a wealth of pointers to online resources, and a decent listing of option spread strategists. But if I get more experienced in options trading, I'll look for a better book to keep.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide to online option trading
Review: I enjoyed the book and the Appendix analysis of top option web sites.

It is a concise introduction into trading options. For $20 it a great place to start to learn how to trade options online.

I liked it as it was not a promotional piece instead a real traders attempt to unearth the how to of trading options on the internet. Fontanills I thought was very modest in the book as he omits talking about himself in any depth other than in a light hearted manner to illustrate he is an ordinary guy made good.

Great book. Worked for me.

Rating:
Summary: Great reference for how to trade options online
Review: I really liked this book. Devoting itself to internet trading and options it introduces the reader to how to research a trade, apply option strategies and find a broker.

It was refreshing to see Mr. Fontanills put his neck out and give an opinion on subjects such as brokers, web sites and rank them for the reader. I have used his suggestions of research tools and have had some success already.

I liked the fact that he does not promote himself but instead gives a candid review of his successes and failures as he learned to become a successful options trader.

The A-Z of Cyber trading is a complete summary for the reader and designed to be all the option trader needs to know. He does not spend time going through Internet basics assuming that the reader knows that.

A valuable resource for any option trading that wants to get the edge for trading online.