Rating: 
Summary: How much will it cost you if you DON'T read it?
Review: I've read dozens of books on options and investing. They all work pretty well in a bull market. A pre-schooler can make money in a bull market! The strategies George teaches in his book are the best I've learned for making money in bull, bear and/or sideways markets. Do you know what the risk curves look like for various strategies you've been trading, and how time affects the curves? You'll learn them here. If you write covered calls, how would you like to triple your % return and cut your downside risk to a third, just by using another strategy you'll learn? Do you know what Delta is? How it can be used to maximize profit and keep a trade Delta Neutral? I didn't, but I understand it now and won't make the same mistakes again. What's gamma? Theta? What I learned is that the floor traders are using these strategies every day as they move billions of dollars around. Why hasn't anyone explained them this well before? I used to think straddles made little sense, since the put and call will offset each other's profits, right? I learned differently. I learned about ratio backspreads and how to look for spreads that offer 3:1, 5:1 reward:risk profiles, or even more. I learned about combining spreads to create nearly-free trades, and trades for neutral markets that can remain profitable even as the stock channels between limits. The methodologies are important to understand and George explains them well, including times that are good to put on a trade, and his rules for taking part or all of a trade off the table, and why. I also like his advice that we pick one or two strategies in one or two sectors and specialize in them. I know I'm enthusiastic about this book, and it's because it offers real value for the price. How much is it worth to have an expert trader with you, sharing the best of what he's learned over his career, distilled for you to look at over and over again? Is it worth the cover price of the book? Amazon discounts it, so you'll get it for even less! If the prayer method of trading isn't working for you, read George's book! If you trade an account with more than $1,000 in it, you can't afford NOT to read it. The next trade you make should be your credit card number for this book! In fact, the more you have in the market, the more valuable the book is for you. If you pick up one idea or one distinction, or avoid one mistake for having read the book, it will have paid for itself hundreds or thousands of times. Again, no one put me up to this, but I spent tens of thousands on an MBA in finance and marketing and never learned how to make money....so shouldn't I be excited by someone teaching me not only how to make money, but how to protect what I have? You should, too!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book on how to find high profit trades
Review: 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
Rating: 
Summary: There is no such thing as low-stress money
Review: I did not finish this book, because I lost interest in options trading and also became somewhat suspicious of the author's motives. OK you write a book to attract people to your website, so what? Does it mean that trading options is much different from betting in a casino? Assuming one cannot predict the timing of stock price movements, what makes the timing of volatility any more predictable? As with stock prices, one can often say what is likely to happen (movement up or down) but it is hardly possible to say *when* it will happen: tomorrow, next week or in two years. If you are long a stock you will not lose anything because of the timing as long as the fundamentals are good, however if you trade options and the assumption about timing is wrong, you waste your money on endless transaction costs, plus service fees charged by option-trading software providers or websites such as the one run by the author. Not to mention capital gains taxes.
It is probably possible to make money this way, but by no means is this approach "stress-free", and certainly not risk-free. Those who want easy money should try selling books or videotapes about options promising triple digit returns.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This is definitely not a beginners book. The pages that pretend to teach the basics are far too uninformative. And why the focus on futures versus options? It left too much out of focus, unless you want to learn about Delta Neutral Trading and hedging.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended for serious option traders
Review: This book might not be for beginners. However, it's not difficult to read if you have good math skills and traded in options for a while. I'm just a beginner in options trading and it was no issue reading it. It covers the basics about options, different trading strategies like vertical spreads. What makes the book great is using charts to describe the profit/loss zone for all different methods. This book opened my eyes on the concept of "delta". However, the book has no clear explanation of where "delta" comes from and it's impact on the profit you can make, or its value at certain strike prices. One way to see what the book describe is to look at the delta column for different strike price on live options chain quote screen. This is the most important variable for active option trading. It tells how much percentage of the move you will make if the stock moves say 5 points in you direction. To know more about options formula you need to look at the book "Black Sholes and Beyond" this book is all about mathematics for pricing options and not trading.
Rating: 
Summary: A Complete Insight Into The Options Course
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Not 4 Novices; Stresses Complex, Pricey Strategies
Review: Takes a lot of $$$ to do the complex delta neutral options strategies that are this book's focus. Why not get the most band for the buck by reading Sy Harding's "Riding the Bear", which details how the market almost always is weak May 1-Nov 1 and goes up for the most part Nov-April. Then, learn options at the cboe site and optionscentral site plus consider Charles Caes' excellent "Tools of the Bear" (which is flexible enough to also guide you in bull markets). John Murphy's wonderful book, "Charting Made Easy" gives you the decisive advantage of using technical analysis at a bargain price. After learning from these resources, consider buying puts or calls on the NASDAQ QQQ or on individual stocks. As a tiny investor I am up 75% year-to-date as of June 11, doing the above.
Warning: Fontanills writing style is at-times less than clear, beginners should avoid this book. George is a true expert and easy to talk to, but his delta neutral style is pricey.
Rating:
Summary: huh?
Review: The author used many charts and graphs which were helpful in understanding the text. Also, the index and summary of option strategies was well done.
It seems that the main point of the book was on delta neutral trading. After reading the book, I have a partial understanding of what delta neutral trading is and less of an understanding of how to implement the strategy.
The book contained annoying jargon like "put on a trade." Also, an option's delta was referred to as, for example, "100 deltas" rather than "delta equals 1."
I have read "All About Options" by Thomas McCafferty, "Getting Started in Options" by Michael Thomsett, and "Understanding Options" by Robert Kolb. All of these books were easier to understand, easier to read, and easier to implement than Mr. Fontanills' book.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible ! This is a roadmap to losing money !
Review: The author encourages you to trade online and view it as a video game, except your score is your account balance ! He then spends the first six chapters explaining the equity markets in a very shallow and banal sense, yet he chooses to define volatility in Chapter 7 when introducing Delta Neutral Trading. He then goes onto say that "opportunities exist everday , its a matter of what to look for" -this is a dangerous statement. Gamblers create risk, professional speculators identify risk, and this author is trying to teach you how to gamble. The book consitently disapoints, when Fontanills begins to introduce advanced techniques, he spoils it with banal explanations of rudimentary subjects such as BETA's and P/E's. If you didn't already know what these rudimentary topics are, then you have no business trading options. He should instead, assume the reader is an experienced equities investor and wants to broaden their investment techniques. Spend your time educating yourself at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange web site..., it is more informative and won't cost you...
Rating:
Summary: Great Concepts with some slight omissions
Review: The book contains great information - if you are willing to work through some of the confusing examples. This book could be the best book on trading options with a couple of improvements. Fontanills creates some undue confusion by using examples that alternate between equities, commondities futures, and bond futures. The confusion rises in the fact that when discussing bond futures, Fontanills must delve into explaining the differences in pricing of these different types of issues. The examples would have been just as useful if he had stuck with equities options only in the main sections of the book. Adding additional chapters or appendices that discuss the trading of futures options would be a better way of approaching this. Second, Fontanills provides you with the pertinent formulas for determining break-even, max risk, etc., but he does not go through a typical trading scenario that would provide the reader with a better understanding of the more complex options strategies such as condors, and butterflies.
|
