Product Description

Praise for Trading Options to Win

"Johnston has put together a very thorough work on futures options, and many stock option traders would learn something from this book as well. I especially like his reliance on expected returns and probability to choose the best trade to make."
–Lawrence G. McMillan, President, McMillan Analysis Corp.
bestselling author, Options as a Strategic Investment and Profit with Options

"Entirely different from any other book on options, thank goodness. I fall asleep immediately and without fail after opening a book on options, but not this time. [This book is] readable in one or two sittings with fascinating cases that really illustrate the principles. It may be a delusion, but I think I understood most of Trading Options to Win. Some chapters on specific strategies I will definitely be reading again and trying to use in my own trading."
–Barbara Rockefeller, founder, Rockefeller Treasury Services
author of The Global Trader and CNBC 24/7 Trading

"Stuart Johnston’s Trading Options to Win is an intelligent, literate, and informative description of the many ways to trade options that also explains why these trading strategies work. Those new to options trading absolutely need this book. Experienced options traders should not miss it."
–Desmond MacRae, freelance business writer featured in the Financial Times and New York Post

In Trading Options to Win: Profitable Strategies and Tactics for Any Trader, S.A. (Stu) Johnston shares thirty years of trading experience to help you gain an advantage and improve the profitability of your trading within the options and futures markets. Unlike some books, which offer a single "sure-fire" system for turning a profit, Trading Options to Win examines a broad methodology and philosophy of trading that puts the likelihood of profits on your side of the table.

Attempting to minimize risk, establishing a discipline for entering and exiting trades, and claiming a healthy return on capital (ROC) can be difficult in the options and futures markets. But with Trading Options to Win as your guide, you will quickly learn how to do this–and much more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88279 in eBooks
• Published on: 2003-06-12
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

From the Inside Flap
If you intend to trade options and win, you need a definable advantage. The nature of the advantage, whether historical, statistical, or any other, doesn’t really matter. What does matter is recognizing and seizing the advantage whenever you can.

In Trading Options to Win: Profitable Strategies and Tactics for Any Trader, S.A. (Stu) Johnston shares thirty years of trading experience to help improve your trading profitability in the options and futures markets. Unlike some books, which offer a single "sure-fire" system for turning a profit, Trading Options to Win examines a broad methodology of trading that puts the likelihood of profits on your side of the table.

Through thoughtful insights and detailed examples of actual and hypothetical trades, Johnston illustrates disciplined methods for selecting strategies to use and trades to enter, tactics to maintain your advantage once you’ve entered a trade, and organized methods that allow you to protect your capital when a trade doesn’t initially work in your favor.

Written in a lively, conversational style, this book looks at the ultimate necessity in trading–the recognition, avoidance, and control of diverse risks–and then shows how the careful use of options makes this task much easier.

Trading Options to Win also offers a thorough look at five main tactics of defense to use when trading options by themselves or options with assets, because there are far more ways to keep your capital where it belongs–in your pocket–than by simply exiting a temporarily unsuccessful trade.

After learning how to protect yourself in the options and futures markets, Trading Options to Win shows you, in detail, strategies designed to give you an advantage in the market, including:

• Profiting from knowing where a market is not likely to go
• Profiting no matter which direction a market moves
• Profiting when a market doesn’t move
• Profiting in long-lasting "dull" bear markets
• Profiting when the optimists of the world run amok
• Profiting when the optimists, inevitably, run out of capital
• And much more

If you want to improve your trading, and you already know the difference between a put and a call, and know what a premium, a striking price, and an expiration date are, then Trading Options to Win is the book for you.

From the Back Cover
Praise for Trading Options to Win

"Johnston has put together a very thorough work on futures options, and many stock option traders would learn something from this book as well. I especially like his reliance on expected returns and probability to choose the best trade to make."
–Lawrence G. McMillan, President, McMillan Analysis Corp.
bestselling author, Options as a Strategic Investment and Profit with Options

"Entirely different from any other book on options, thank goodness. I fall asleep immediately and without fail after opening a book on options, but not this time. [This book is] readable in one or two sittings with fascinating cases that really illustrate the principles. It may be a delusion, but I think I understood most of Trading Options to Win. Some chapters on specific strategies I will definitely be reading again and trying to use in my own trading."
–Barbara Rockefeller, founder, Rockefeller Treasury Services
author of The Global Trader and CNBC 24/7 Trading

"Stuart Johnston’s Trading Options to Win is an intelligent, literate, and informative description of the many ways to trade options that also explains why these trading strategies work. Those new to options trading absolutely need this book. Experienced options traders should not miss it."
–Desmond MacRae, freelance business writer featured in the Financial Times and New York Post

In Trading Options to Win: Profitable Strategies and Tactics for Any Trader, S.A. (Stu) Johnston shares thirty years of trading experience to help you gain an advantage and improve the profitability of your trading within the options and futures markets. Unlike some books, which offer a single "sure-fire" system for turning a profit, Trading Options to Win examines a broad methodology and philosophy of trading that puts the likelihood of profits on your side of the table.

Attempting to minimize risk, establishing a discipline for entering and exiting trades, and claiming a healthy return on capital (ROC) can be difficult in the options and futures markets. But with Trading Options to Win as your guide, you will quickly learn how to do this–and much more.

About the Author
S.A. JOHNSTON is a systems analyst and designer by profession. His company, Software & Systems, specializes in inventory optimization and control systems for business. Johnston attended Yale, operating a part-time sports book and appearing on quiz programs to earn tuition. In 1972, under the tutelage of Fredric B. Fitch and Richmond Thomason, he became the first graduate of Yale to receive a BA in formal logic. In 1992, after observing the collapse of the ERM, the unfortunate forerunner of the Euro, he became interested in the analysis of risk and began formulating the beginnings of a methodical and risk-controlled approach to trading in the markets.

Customer Reviews

Practical Solutions for the Options Trader
When you want to set up a spread, which options set should you use ? out of money, in the money or at the money ? When your trade is not going your way, what kind of damage control is possible ? If you want answers to such practical questions, then this book is for you. All traders in options should read this book. While the book refers to options on futures, traders in stock options should find many useful concepts - as I did.
Persons new to options will probably read this book once they have gone through some introductory text.

Excellent � practical trading with an edge!
Johnston's book is very well done - an excellent read without the hype. It assumes the reader has some knowledge of the options markets. Beginners should start with Natenberg's book then read "Trading options to Win". It's a must read for anyone that's serious about trading options with a defined edge. The book covers several extremely practical trading methodologies, when to employ them (when the odds are very much in your favor), and how to defend when things go wrong(maybe the most important part of the book). I have read numerous books on trading options. This is far and away the most practical book I've found on the subject. It gives the reader something they can use immediately. I also enjoyed the real world trades and how they were deployed and defended. I have to give this book the highest rating.

Tons of very useful info and fun to read
Don't know what book Edward Lovette read, but it's pretty clear he didn't read the entire book. This is an exceptional book and anyone who trades options would be taking the short end of the bet by missing it. Johnston makes his points easily, clearly, practically, and (unusual for a book on options, which are usually dry as dust) it's very entertaining. Mainly, and again this is rare or nonexistent in the options books I've read, Johnston presents the background and the reasoning behind the trading strategies he's talking about and shows the WHY of making profits in the markets and not just the what and the how. The strategies themselves are pretty interesting. Everybody knows about straddles and strangles, but how about a "Martian ratio-spread" or a "WOOM non-seasonal?" I've traded options for a long time and read a lot of books on options, yet I never even heard of these strategies, so there's a lot of originality in this book, too. Any options trader will get a lot of good fresh ideas from "Trading Options To Win." I just wish it had been longer, but it's 5 stars anyway.