I was a new investor in 1990 when I subscribed to the Investors.com newspaper called Investor’s Business Daily. As a new subscriber, I received a copy of
William J. O’Neil’s book entitled How to Make Money in Stocks. While reading the book I was impressed with the entire story about Growth Investing. One
quote stuck with me, “Wouldn’t you prefer to invest your money into the sector leaders?” I like that thought and stuck with it for most of the past 23
years. When the Bear Market arrived in the early part of 2000, I had not paid much attention to chapters on “Sell Signs,” and I suffered serious losses to
my margin account. I received a quarterly document from my IRA broker which showed that more than four years of my aggressive savings had been lost in one
quarter.
I had experienced many losses in equities that were not successful in their breakouts. I sought some way to protect myself with options. I started
the path toward Options Education. I was eager to learn the basic behaviors of the instruments and how to select them in combination with long equities.
The organization of the education at OptionsANIMAL is what I was seeking. They have the various topics sorted into categories, with each building upon
those that were just learned. The Coaches were personally interacting with the students in many ways: live classes, email, chat section and mentor
sessions. The intention is to guide the students toward their own personal success in applying Options to equities. The keys to the success are for persons
to understand how to calculate the risk to reward ratio, measure the result, and know their personalities enough to be comfortable with the strategy.
The structure of the education is built on a simple method. Each step is worthy of your personal discipline to follow. Many students want to cut the
time donated by eliminating parts of the steps. I found myself dropping the Trade Journal to save time. When I reviewed several of my
trades, it was clear to me that this cut in my six steps and didn’t help at all. I made a decision to stick with the full method and continue
practicing until the time became a smaller commitment.
The education at OptionsANIMAL has improved over the years since I went through it. I enjoy telling students to do at least five trades in each strategy as
they are learning about the options behavior. The first-hand experience will provide all the needed education on options, especially when a teacher will
answer questions. The best way to fully understand the options behavior is to practice the methods taught and apply them to the virtual trades that are
entered for learning. Ask questions about what you should learn: implied volatility? delta? extrinsic value? Should you seek evidence to tell you where you
may need to adjust the trade? Options involve time, and time is a different concept for investors. Remember, when we have new things to learn, it becomes
easier when we do it more often!
Emilu Bailes
OptionsANIMAL Instructor
Options Trading Resources
trading options course * option trading class * practice options trading * learning to trade options online * beginner stock market investing * online options trading information
