Online Forex Trading For You

Friday, October 2, 2009

Stock Options Exchange Principles

By Keith Hartley

Stock options are a contract that allows the buyer or seller of an option the right to exercise the sale or purchase of a stock for a contracted underlying price within a certain time period. Market conditions and future direction is analyzed in the Wall Street Journal, IBD, Stock Option Trader and other financial news services.

A call option gives the buyer the right to buy the underlying asset; a put option gives the buyer of the option the right to sell the underlying asset. If the buyer chooses to exercise this right, the seller is obliged to sell or buy the asset at the agreed price. An option trading tutorial or often free Wall Street reference guide is essential to successful trading.

A call option provides the right to buy a specified quantity of a security at a set agreed amount, known as the 'strike price' at some time on or before expiration, while buying a put option provides the right to sell. Upon the option holder's choice to exercise the option, the party who sold, or wrote the option, must fulfill the terms of the contract.

Many models have been developed that accurately evaluate the value of an option through statistical models. This is an important consideration since risk needs to be quantified given the volatile nature of many markets and the great leverage inherent with options.

Low cost leveraging on a ?sure? bet is desirable, especially if one can get a handle on risk. Options provide that vehicle, and if used employing prudent controls, can be highly profitable. Low-cost leverage can be used to protect a position as well as take advantage of a developing market situation.

There are many indicators and tools used to predict price movement. Don?t try and use all of the indicators and signals at the same time since you will never see all of them in agreement, and you will get far more information than you can process. Information gleaned from stock option trader sources, the Wall Street Journal and other sources aid in option and stock trends.

As such there are leading and lagging indicators. A leading indicator gives a buy signal before the new trend or reversal occurs. A lagging indicator, as you may guess, gives a signal after the trend has been initiated, and trend momentum is established.

Lagging indicators give a buy signal after the trend has been established whereas a leading indicator give a signal before a trend is initiated. With leading indicators there are many fake-outs. Relying on lagging indicators only would preclude one from catching large gains found early in a trend. - 23311

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