The first 60% of the book is the introductory option stuff that you should already know reading a book like "Option Market Making". There next 30% or so is "what to do if you need (gamma, vega, theta, delta)" which is nothing terribly creative or surprising. The last 10% is story telling. The stuff I didn't like: 1) He seems to allude to having a strategy in managing a large position, but never talks about it. He mostly says things like, "If you need some vega, then..." without saying how he decides if he needs vega or not. 2) He rants about how one should NEVER be short gamma. Repeatedly. He says you should always buy gamma before you sell gamma. 3) He spends very little time on how to trade volatility. 4) The entire book assumes he gets the edge of every trade. A retail trader can probably only get the edge on maybe 1 leg of 2, if you're patient and lucky, so many of his assumptions (e.g. create the conversion whenever you can) seemed less relevant to me. I was disappointed in the book, but it could just be my viewpoint. I already know how to get gamma and delta. I already know there are convexity risks if you're short gamma. What I don't know is how and when to add or modify a position without cutting profits short, how a market maker measures total risk and what actions he takes to reduce it, and how and when a market maker hedges and unrolls those hedges. Your mileage may vary.
No, I'd agree with your summary above. It's been hailed so many times on these threads as essential reading, but personally I couldn't get anything from it. I forget what I paid for it, but mine's going for a buck.
I agree that is was pretty vague and, but all in all I'd say it wasn't a bad book. Not exactly something you get a ton of ideas from, but if you're interested in what MM's do I'd say it was worth reading. I still keep my copy around and flip through from time to time.
One other thing to be aware of--the book was written some 14 years ago. Certainly the options market today is an entirely different beast than it was then. There are some universal truths with derivatives, but much of his commentary about what the market will do seemed to be describing a market I wasn't familiar with.
Thanks very much, FullyArticulate, for the review, and to all who chimed in. I was hoping to glean something of options MM's angle from it, but it seems to have passed its prime...
At $1, I'd take Profitaker's copy, if I were you. It has at least $1 worth of useful stuff in it. It probably is not worth the $52.50 that Amazon wants (and I paid).