The Benefits of Trading Options – A Beginner’s Guide

The first step to becoming a professional option trader is obtaining at least some experience with retail options trading. For a retail trader, this means trading under very tight risk restrictions with little or no leverage. The next step for an option trading is to obtain a thorough understanding of option pricing and option trading strategies. Professional option traders use complicated mathematical models and require a thorough knowledge of their underlying market. To understand all of these one should take professional options trading course.

Trading options can be complicated, but it is important to understand why trading options are better than other investment vehicles. There are many benefits of trading in the derivatives market; here’s a summary of some of them.

1) Limited Risk for Option Buyers

The main benefit when buying an option contract versus simply purchasing the underlying asset outright is that when they buy an option, their risk is limited to the price they pay for the option; if the buyer exercises, they’re only out the money spent on acquiring it. If they don’t, then they’re free to go ahead and sell it at any point later on before its expiration date. This gives buyers a certain amount of security knowing that they have time to fulfill their agreement’s end.

This differs from the traditional method of buying income securities where they are subject to immediate price fluctuations.

2) Access to Securities One Wouldn’t Normally Be Able To Invest In

Trading options opens up their investment opportunities beyond what is normally accessible through other methods. For example, they can invest in foreign currencies, commodities or other assets that they normally wouldn’t buy into. This expands their portfolio and offers far more opportunities for not only greater returns but also lower risk. It’s kind of like being able to purchase lottery tickets over the stock market.

3) Diversification

Trading options offers a great way to diversify one’s portfolio by preceding an outright purchase of the underlying asset itself, usually available only to institutions or accredited investors who would be able to take on the risk and restrictions of owning it.

4) One Can Trade Options on Every Security Currently Available

Just like trading stocks, options grant them access to all of the securities available for trading on most stock exchanges throughout the world, opening up a world of possibilities regarding their portfolio. For investors with relatively small sums of money, this can be extremely advantageous. It gives them access to otherwise restricted capital markets that would normally be out of their reach.

5) They Can Lock-In Expected Gains or Stabilize/Protect Stocks and Bonds from Fading Value

Through the right option strategy, it is possible to protect their initial investment by limiting your downside should their underlying asset suddenly fall in if it happens to be a stock or bond.

6) Low Transaction Costs

Compared to the costs of buy and sell transactions, trading options offer much lower transaction fees. This allows investors with small amounts of capital to invest in assets that would otherwise be too expensive for them because of the huge price difference between the option and its underlying asset, which can easily run into thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per trade if not more. It’s like being able to get a famous burger such as McDonalds Big Mac versus only getting a Choose-Your-Franchise value meal at their local fast food serving up both hamburgers and French fries; they end up paying less by getting less but still get what they need out of it while saving themselves some cash.

• Ratios, Leverage and Volatility

All of the above benefits have been discussed in greater detail at other places on this article However, two last points that are worth mentioning here deserve a brief mention: ratios and leverage. Because options offer a higher degree of flexibility than stocks or bonds, one can use them to modify their portfolio to achieve a much higher rate of return for a given amount of investment capital.

Finally, volatility is a common aspect of options trading strategy. While some investors may find volatility a deterrent towards buying into an option, the fact that they can trade options on securities known for their high fluctuations in price makes it a huge benefit. It allows them to take advantage of changes in the market and earn profits from swings in either direction without taking out a short position or going long. Volatility also means prices may be more likely to rise over time as there is more room for movement away from the current rate than stocks or bonds that tend to hover within a relatively tighter range.

In conclusion, trading options offers several benefits above and beyond other traditional forms of investment capital available today. Moreover, the newer methods make them even better from an investor’s standpoint, as strategies can be modified to increase or decrease your expected returns based on the nature of the market.

Stock market is a huge market of traders and investors that brings huge profits and losses at the same time.  Do you think it is complex to learn stock trading?