Covered Calls And Naked Puts: Create Your Own Stock Options Money Tree Book

Ronald Groenke has written a gem of a book that is ideal for conservative investors looking for low-risk opportunities in the options market. For most investors, the options market is an arcane universe populated by puts and calls, spreads and straddles, and other unfathomable concepts. The author has done an admirable job of de-coding the mysteries surrounding these investment products and rendering them comprehensible to average investors. Most people who are unfamiliar with options regard them as highly speculative and specialized tools for sophisticated investors. What is largely overlooked is that, for every free-wheeling investor who speculates on puts and calls, there is a conservative investor on the other side of the trade who uses options to generate extra income for his or her portfolio. Covered Calls and Naked Puts addresses the conservative side of the options market.

This book offers one of the best expositions of low-risk options trading I've ever read. I was particularly impressed by the stock-picking advice and discourse on how to find value in puts and calls.

Also valuable is the so-called "Cedric Chart" on historical stock market highs and lows, which at first glance appears deterministic, but is primarily reflective of boom and bust cycles in the past and serves as a suggested roadmap for the future.

The author leads the reader by the hand through the basics of the most conservative options strategies, such as selling covered calls and selling puts on stocks one would like to own. By the time investors are finished absorbing the information contained in Covered Calls and Naked Puts, they will feel comfortable embarking on the strategies discussed, with the goal of generating extra income in their accounts on a regular basis. As an investment professional with 30 years experience in the financial services industry, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.