Put Option Strategies for Smarter Trading: How to Protect and Build Capital in Turbulent Markets

Options traders most commonly focus on calls: the right to purchase stock if prices rise. The 2008 stock market crash demonstrated just how misguided this singular emphasis can be: thousands of investors suffered massive losses they could have avoided through the careful, defensive use of strategies based on puts instead of calls. Now, for the first time, there's a comprehensive, balanced guide to using puts to create profits, protect stock positions, and hedge against all types of risk. Renowned expert Michael C. Thomsett, author of the #1 options best-seller Getting Started in Options, introduces powerful "defensive" strategies that are typically ignored or deemphasized in most other options books: indispensable techniques for any investor anticipating a market decline, now or in the future. Thomsett shows how to use long puts to ensure paper profits in stock or to offset losses, even when stocks decline steeply and quickly; how to apply puts in straddles and spreads, in multi-part strategies that prevent losses and hedge risks; how to identify opportunities to create cash flow by selling limited-risk naked puts to create cash flow, and much more. These defensive strategies balance out the "you can't lose" approach seen in all too many options books. What's more, Thomsett's clear writing style, complemented by dozens of easy-to-understand tables, graphics, and examples, makes it easy for any investor to apply these strategies successfully.