Options Trading Books: Help!

[edtost]

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hull is too general in scope. wont really teach you anything if you want to trade.

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would you be comfortable actively trading without being exposed to most of hull, even if its not sufficient?

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if i had to buy a book on options trading, it wouldnt be hulls. the options coverage is weak, and nothing you cant learn for yourself after a couple of minutes on yahoo finance 101. the natenburg text covers everything that the hull text does, plus more. its also written with trading in mind.

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natenburg may be better (i'm not familiar with it) and more focused on trading strategies, but hull has hundreds of pages about options (numerical and theoretical pricing, greeks, etc) with applications to different markets, so i doubt anyone could learn all of that in a few minutes on yahoo finance.

edit: as for the "if i could only buy one book" argument, my first reply already stated that hull wouldn't be my first choice (taleb's 'dynamic hedging' would). but hull IS the standard text for the field, whether we like it or not.

[thehun69]

The Hull book is great, from an academic nuts and bolts perspective. I used that textbook for Advanced Derivatives when I took my MBA. However, from a practical trading perspective, it sucks donkeys. Yes, oh this is a call, this is a put, this is a profit graph. However, it doesn't give you anything on practical strategies nor trade management, which is the most important thing. It's one thing to know a call, and yes, oh it MUST be over or underpriced, but what do you do when the stock starts moving against you? The Hull book will not help you. One answer is to turn it into a call spread...didn't get that from the Hull book. MacMillan is a great start, the Cohen book, both of them are fantastic. As well the Natenberg book is great. I have all of them, recommend all of them.

This is really a question of knowledge versus practicality, as sometimes they don't overlap. Do you need to know everything there is about electricity to turn on a lightbulb? Or do you just flip the switch?

THE HUN.