http://www.marketwatch.com/game/polse

[TRADING INTENSIFIES]

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=== Options ===

> https://www.google.com/finance/option_chain?q=NYSE%3AAMD

Options are contracts giving you the right to buy or sell 100/10 shares at a certain price any time until a certain date. A "call" gives you the right to buy ie. going long.

> AMD $3.66 :: September 21st, 2013 Expiration

> $3.00 call costs $0.67 per share ($67)
> $3.50 call costs $0.30 per share ($30)
> $4.00 call costs $0.08 per share ($8)

You can buy a $3.00 call for $67 which gives you the right to buy 100 shares of AMD anytime on or before September 21st at the price of $3.00.

> AMD $3.67 :: January 18th, 2013 Expiration

> $3.00 call costs $0.87 per share
> $3.50 call costs $0.57 per share
> $4.00 call costs $0.38 per share

The prices increase with the further expiration. For $0.20 more cents a share you have allow more than 400% as much time for AMD to meet your expectations. This value beyond the call's "intrinsic value" ($3.67 current price - $3.00 strike price) is called the "premium". Premiums degrade at an accelerating pace as you get closer to the expiration. The $4.00 "out-of-the-money" call has a premium of $0.71, while the $3.00 "in-the-money" call only has a premium of $0.20.

For now, for at least a year, do yourself a favor and only buy options with small premiums. Far "in-the-money" and long expiration. Never buy a contract expiring in less than 2 months until you know why.

... continued ...

Say AMD was $6.00 in December. That Jan $3.00 call would increase ~275% from $0.87 to $3.00 plus the remaining premium (a few cents). The massive increase in price ie. volatility may actually increase the premium however your call would be so far in the money that this wouldn't happen. I mention volatility as it's important to understand in case you happen to be an idiot and buy an option with a high premium. If a stock just jumped up 10%, there's going to be high premiums, and these premiums will "decay" very fast if the price remains the same.

In other words, always have patience. Never buy options contracts after an extreme change in price. Don't buy options with high premiums.

=============

To start trading options, you're going to have to lie to your brokerage. It's one of those "you need experience to get experience" things. They need you to assert that you're experienced enough so that you cannot sue them for your own mistakes. I'm not recommending you commit fraud, just saying you need experience to get experience. You could possibly do it honestly by being rich and then writing contacts for a few years as a Level I.

> http://optionshouse.com/

Anyway, when you're ready, I recommend going to this brokerage and applying for Options Level II. In order to allow you to trade contracts, they will likely need these requirements...

> trading goal: speculation (ie. you assert that options are throwing darts)
> have a net worth > $25k
> 4 years experience trading stocks, 20+ yearly trades
> 2 years experience trading options 20+ yearly trades

Some brokerages like E-trade will flat out deny you for Level II unless you're a millionaire. Also consider taking advantage of one of their new account offers...

> http://landing.optionshouse.com/test/promo/callawayrazr/201306
> http://www.optionshouse.com/promotions/

Apply for options at your own risk.





Forex:
For a "school", the one on babypips (http://www.babypips.com/school/) is a decent (and free) school. It goes through all of the basics you should know, or at least most of them - what forex is, how the market works, how price works, how indicators work and so on, and also, they both stress safety, which of course, is important. Doesn't provide a strategy, but explains a lot of stuff in a (relatively) fun way. It also has quizzes that you can do for every segment, and tracks your progress if you check the pages off while logged into an account.

The (forex4noobs/ Nick B) videos I would recommend were:

Candlestick Analysis Basics (1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WryH2xInhM

Support and Resistance (2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zxqwp5ws7M

Trading Reversal Trades (3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0RLGGOqkfQ

Software:
https://www.thinkorswim.com/tos/client/index.jsp
http://finviz.com/map3d.ashx

Read Me: Trading options
http://cfe.cboe.com/education/TradingVolatility.pdf
http://www.cboe.com/tradtool/virtualtrade.aspx
http://pastebin.com/qnTrGeKN

Reading Material:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/1jo6vo33ob14f3l/The_Intelligent_Investor_-_BENJAMIN_GRAHAM.pdf

http://www.terry.uga.edu/~akefalas/courses/mirrors/htm

http://www.investopedia.com/term/e/earnings.asp

Watching Material:
https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/WDIS
http://www.outsider-trading.com/paul-tudor-jones-documentary-trader/
https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance






Extra Stuff:

Basic technicals to learn. 50SMA 200SMA.

RSI MACD indicators. Parabolic SAR (support and resistance) These three all developed by

Advanced theory can include Elliott wave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_wave_principle

and fibonacci
http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:fibonacci_retracemen

ADX
http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:technical_indicators:average_directional_

In my humble opinion, indicators developed by Welles Wilder are the best and most reliable. Being in the computer age of auto trading. I think these are what most systems are set up to use. Thus why they become so apparent in the charts, almost like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Technical trading gives you the ability when learned properly to identify the oversold and overbought areas, where you can then risk your capital. Keeping the stop losses just outside of these boundary just in case we are wrong, keeping losses at a minimum and letting profits run with things like a trailing stop loss.

one might ask, how do you identify oversold and overbought areas. You look for the divergence between price per share and indicator levels.

from chart school : Divergence: A situation that occurs when two lines on a chart move in opposite directions vertically. People often look for divergences by comparing a stock's direction to the direction of its RSI, its MACD or its Stochastic Oscillator. There are two kinds of divergences: positive and negative. A positive divergence occurs when the indicator moves higher while the stock is declining. A negative divergence occurs when the indicator moves lower while the stock is rising.

here are some simple examples. http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:technical_indicators:relative_strength_index_rsi#positive-negative_re