Stock trading or Options Trading? Where to begin

Have you mentioned to your friends and family that you are interested in learning how to make money on the Stock Market, or perhaps Options Trading?

Did you get the same reactions that I got when I first told my family?‘It’s too risky’, and ‘That’s a sure way to lose money, better leave that to the professionals!

What most people don’t realise is when you buy a car you are guaranteed to make a loss as it will depreciate in value, but nobody seems to react the same way when you show themyour new wheels!

Honestly,for me taking the ‘risk’ and learning to trade was THE best move I ever made in my life. Today, I earn a very healthy income through several investment strategies (one of them is trading stock options for cash flow) and I ‘work’ only a few hours a week.

Now every investor has their own take on which is the best vehicle to use when putting money into the market. These days there are so many trading vehicles available, it can be quite confusing to the beginner.

So if you were to ask me “Is stock trading better than trading stock options?” I can only answer from my personal experience.

I trade stock options for income and I invest in stocks for capital growth. Notice I said invest not trade? There is a big difference. When you invest in something, you are purchasing to hold onto it, eventually hoping to profit. When you trade something, you are purchasing to onsell it for a profit.

Investing in shares for capital growth has given me the ability to diversify my investments, not just in the sharemarket, but in real estate. But I will go into that in more detail at a later date. For now though, if you are looking to replace your income or just earn a little extra money, options trading can be a powerful money making tool. Stock Options offer you leverage -a smaller amount of money used over a shorter period of time equates to higher returns!Stock Trading can also present healthy profits, as well as bonuses like dividend payments while you hold, however, you need to have much more money to be able to purchase the stocks (or shares) in the first place, and you would be expecting the share price to increase (and quite rapidly) in order to sell at a profit.

Blue Chips are established performers, or the tried and tested favourites if you like. These companies offer opportunities for profit with more peace of mind than speculative stocks, but owning them can be expensive. Owning an option over the same shares costs a fraction of the price.

For example, XYZ share might cost $ 15.00 to own, whereas $1.50 might buy you an XYZ option that gives you control over a parcel of those shares.

Confused? I’ll try and make it a little more simple.

 

Stock Options give you:

The right (but not the obligation) to buy or sell a fixed number of shares at a set price (strike price) on or before a fixed date (expiry date)

Call options are contracts to buy shares.

Put options are contracts to sell shares.

The value of a Call Option increases when the share price increases.

The value of a Put Option increases when the share price goes down!

So when options trading we would buy puts when the market is falling, and sell them for a profit!
And we would buy calls when the market is increasing and sell them for a profit.

On the U.S market, one option contract typically relates to a parcel of 100 shares and 1,000 shares on the Australian market.

So in the previous example, on the Australian market, to trade the stock would have cost us $15,000 to buy the shares before we could sell them for a profit, whereas an option contract over the same shares would have cost us $1,500.When you trade stock options your maximium potential loss is limited to the amount you initially pay for the option contract. Doesn’t a risk of  $ 15,000 sound more frightening than $ 1,500?

I use options trading to make a steady income, not an overnight million, so my risk is minimised and my profits are retained. With the strategies I use the full option price is never my maximum loss, it is much much less.

To your success

Jules Dawson

Options Trading for Beginners