What's the best Options trading book for a beginner?

Question

What's the best Options trading book for a beginner?

Answer 1

I do not think there is a book that could be considered the "best" for every beginner. I recommend you scan multiple books to see which ones you find easy to read and follow.

In order to scan the books intelligently it helps to have a little understanding about options first. You can get that from two excellent free sites:

http://www.cboe.com/LearnCenter/default....

http://www.optionseducation.org/

As for specific books I will mention three you may wish to consider.

"Getting Started In Options" by Michael C Thomsett is described as a "very good, very basic treatment of options."

"Options as a Strategic Investment" by Lawrence G. McMillan is considered "the grand-daddy of options books." It is not as basic as the first book, but is far more comprehensive.

"The Rookie's Guide to Options" by Mark D. Wolfinger is new this year and I have not read it. One big advantage on this book is that the author contributes regularly to the message board at

http://messages.yahoo.com/Business_%26_F...

as "dagnyt" so you can ask him questions directly if you wish. (Beware of imposters on that message board.) You can download a free "Introductory e-book version with a short excerpt from each chapter" from

http://www.mdwoptions.com/freebook.pdf

if you wish.

Answer 2

Sheldon Natenberg's "Option Volatility and Pricing" is the book we start all of our new proprietary option clerks on.