Comments for ETF Stock Trading

Comment on Getting Started in Options by Cynthia Rennolds

Cynthia Rennolds — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:26:27 +0000

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

Start here if you are new to options or to review the basics, September 17, 1999

Cynthia Rennolds (Alpharetta, GA) -

This review is from: Getting Started in Options, 3rd Edition (Paperback)

I love the "Getting Started" series on Options, Stocks and Online Investing. Getting Started with Options led me through the basics of learning about Options and with the information I was able to do my first Option trades. I made a little money and lost a little money - but I felt as though I had basic knowledge to work with. One would still need to learn more to successfully trade options ~ but this is definately the place for a beginner to start. I highly recommend it!!

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Comment on Getting Started in Options by M. Carpenter

M. Carpenter — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:13:59 +0000

63 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

Fair but Not the Best, October 11, 2004

M. Carpenter (Baltimore) -

This review is from: Getting Started in Options, Fifth Edition (Paperback)

Explaining options from the ground up is hard, and Thomsett gets most of the particulars right... but the book itself is not well designed, making it harder to read than need be. Since no beginning options book is perfect, this one is worth buying. No matter where you start, you'll need to read more than one book.

Getting Started in Options does have some very strong points for beginners... presenting the results of a complex trade in a table format (if the stock goes to $40, you make $X; if it goes to $45, you make $X...) instead of the usual cryptic risk profile graphic is good. On the other hand, there's peculiar misinformation such as the claim that the "striking price" (read strike price) is always divisible by 5. Not true, options come at 7.50, 12.50, 17.50 etc. strikes. And then there are the weird post-split prices. The major points are OK, though.

However, the reviewer below, who complained that she (he?) stopped reading when Thomsett told her that if she bought a put she wanted the stock to fall, which outraged her, was completely off base. She needs to read this book again, or another. Puts have multiple roles, and Thomsett give several uses. Thomsett started with the simplest case, trading puts. You certainly do want the stock to drop when you buy a put in that case. But if you owned the stock or similar stocks before buying the put,that's a different purpose with a different objective. That's a hedge, which is an insurance move, and the reviewer is right... we usually don't want to collect insurance.

But this is the kind of mistake that can happen when reading this book, and it is more the publisher's fault than the author's. It's a case of very poor design and somewhat tatty organization. Wiley is an indifferent publisher... if a manuscript comes in strong, OK, but if the author needs a professional editor, Wiley's not the place to find one. In this book, some key points will sail right by the beginner, others are hard to find. I have the third edition, which even has barely readable light green type.

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Comment on Getting Started in Options by edge

edge — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:54:15 +0000

150 of 154 people found the following review helpful:

excellent tutorial for investment using options, February 11, 2000

edge -

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Getting Started in Options, 3rd Edition (Paperback)

Options are a very powerful tool in investing. Any stock investor is running half blind if they do not consider using options as part of there investment strategy

This book is a great place to start for anyone who wants to have an understanding of what options are and how they can be used as both speculative and conservative investment tools.

The author provides a very through tutorial on what options are, what they are used for and how you can used them in your investment strategy. Many examples are presented to insure that each topic is fully understood. In fact there are so many examples that you may want to skip one here and there after you already understand the subject described. However, these examples are great in illustrating the various topics presented.

The book will be useful for both beginners and more advanced users who wish to know more about the various techniques used in options trading. Having said that, if you are a very experienced options investor who is looking for complex strategies, you would probably be better of with a more advanced book.

The ideal reader of this book would be a person who has been doing some stock trading and is now ready to move to more complex (and potentially rewarding) options based trading.

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Comment on Technical Analysis For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) by Edward Keenan "IceMan"

Edward Keenan "IceMan" — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:08:58 +0000

171 of 188 people found the following review helpful:

Great Book, January 7, 2005

Edward Keenan "IceMan" (New Jersey) -

This review is from: Hot Commodities : How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market (Hardcover)

Jim Rogers wrote a very easy to read book.

If you are looking for hot tips as to what commodity to invest in do not waste your money buying this book. He does not offer any "hot" tips. I personally believe if any one person had "hot" tips to make tons of money, why would they tell other people? It does not make sense. Anyhow this book does not have any formulas, and actually the author points out that most technical analysis traders loose money, it is the people who write the book on technical analysis that make money.

The book however is well written, and makes basic arguements based on facts, namely suppy and demand. Jim Rogers as you can tell from his book is a fundamentalist. His arguements are clear and concise, and make perfect sense. You will not be disappointed in this book, and even if you are technical trader, you could still use many concepts in this book to help with your trading, or if you just want some information on the fundamental side.

This is one of the best books I have bought in a long time. It will sit with my arsenal of other books, so that I can use this to help make better judgements into what commodities to invest into.

He also makes some nice parallels with the stock market and commodities market.

You will not be disappointed, and the price is not bad at all.

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Comment on Technical Analysis For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance)) by James H. McDuffie

James H. McDuffie — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:19:46 +0000

186 of 204 people found the following review helpful:

Self serving to an extent, January 29, 2005

James H. McDuffie (Huntsville, Alabama United States) -

This review is from: Hot Commodities : How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market (Hardcover)

Rogers wrote this book because he runs a commodies index and a fund to go with it. The book is poorly disguised advertising. With that said I believe Rogers is sincere in his beliefs. However, as usual there are several caveats. First, he quotes papers and research showing that investing in commodies in the past has been less risky and had better returns than equities or bonds. All of this research however ignores institutional risk associated with commodity investing. The fees are high, the market is sometimes manipulated, the investor virtually has to use a full service brokerage firm, and even Roger's mutual fund is available only through a broker and has high surrender charges. Second, although many money handlers like Rogers end up rich, it is almost never pointed out that the vast majority of their money is not made by their own fantastic investing but by charging high fees to their investors. Look at the fees on the Rogers fund. Good God. Third, the various commodity indexes that are out there are new. Gibson, in his book on asset allocation, took the Goldman Sachs index back to the good old days of the seventies not bothering to point out that the GMCI only dates back to 1992 and so this was essentially backtesting - a popular hobby even though there is much evidence to indicate this is not the way to go. There are good reasons to believe that the commodity bull market of today will not repeat the golden years of the seventies even though it is real enough. None of this even touches the fact that the average investor should only have 5 - 10% of his money (at the most) in commodities. Either high minimums on the funds or huge front and back end fees will keep everyman out. Nevertheless, Rogers is correct in his assertion that learning about commodities will help any investor look at the world in a different way, and, in the long run, teaching the investor the basics of understanding commodities is the real contribution of this book. Those looking for a commodity investing how to book will have to keep looking. He is pushing commodities indexing.

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