In Options Made Easy, Second Edition, Guy Cohen clearly explains everything you need to know about options in plain English so that you can start trading fast and make consistent profits in any market, bull or bear!

Guy Cohen, MRICS, MBA, is developer of OptionEasy, the world's most comprehensive and user-friendly online options trading and training application

Preface This book can be used by any options trader, although it is fair to say that it is most specifically targeted toward novices and intermediates. Simplicity is the name of the game here, and I have made it my mission to enable anyone and everyone to learn and apply the benefits of options trading simply and easily. By giving you a grounding that is second to none, we look to give you the solid foundations required to give you the confidence to enable you to become a dynamic and successful trader. And we want it to be a fun and pleasurable experience too! You'll find during the course of this book that much of the teaching is done through use of charts and diagrams. Even the "non-visual" among you will appreciate the power of this approach. Options is frequently taught as a stodgy, theoretical subject, and I have often been bewildered as to how people can "teach" this fascinating area of finance without the use of a single chart, diagram, or illustration. So much of my own knowledge is based on the understanding of simple diagrams. You'll also discover that I ask you the reader lots of questions during this book. It's a technique I also use during my other teaching. Learning is at its best when it is interactive. So get ready to have some fun while learning at a rate and speed that you couldn't have imagined possible before now. The writing style is as close to a relaxed speaking style as possible. Another important aspect of this book is that the examples we use are designed to facilitate your learning experience. You'll discover that we don't try to make this too much of a mathematical obstacle course for you. The numbers are reasonably straightforward because we want to keep your focus honed on the specific learning points; besides, there are software products that will help you with the math anyway. Even now I still use my own OptionEasy application just to be sure before I place any spread trade. People often ask me how I got involved in options trading and training. Well, with my commercial real estate background, I'd always had a passion for finance and during an enforced sabbatical in 1995, I decided that once I had fully recovered I would pursue all the things in life that terrified me! That included a finance MBA at City University Business School, and once there it meant opting for the options specialist module. I was completely hooked, and that was the advent of the OptionEasy software package, initially just for my own benefit. That doesn't quite tell the whole story. Just weeks before taking the options exam I could barely explain the difference between a call and a put! However, by the time I got into the exam room I had brought my knowledge level from zero to getting over 80% in the exam, the fifth highest mark in a big class. As you'll see later, though, learning the academic material did not necessarily prepare me for the practicality of actual trading.... In the meantime, during those frantic weeks of revision, I developed the silliest and most outrageous techniques for learning about options in simple and eccentric ways. I drew pictures in my mind, invented silly phrases and used "junko" logic to piece things together. The way I learned is now the way I teach. It's a little unusual, but it's fun, fast, and highly effective. No one forgets what a call and a put is when I teach them. And because we build everything on such solid foundations, you'll find that the OptionEasy way is the simplest, most effective, and fastest way of learning about options. Wherever a picture can be used to explain even the most complex of topics, we use it and combine it with the logic too. We are constantly and simultaneously using different techniques to facilitate the learning process. If you don't rem