Ameritrade bought them and you know they are not going to stop selling those overpriced courses. Mark
Correction: Optionetics ---> OptionsExpress tos ---> Ameritrade The latter part of your statement , however, is valid.
The people who are saying to read some books, trade small lot sizes and keep a trading journal are right on. It is a bit of work to learn to trade options successfully. Anyone in the options business who says that you don't need to know how a car works in order to drive one is scamming people. It's a lousy analogy. In this case, you absolutely do need to know how the car works. At some point, probably soon after beginning, most people lose some money. The correct response, at that point, is to say to yourself, "Could I possibly have avoided this, and how?" If you do not possess a deep understanding of the subject, how can you possibly answer that question? If you cannot recognize and fix your (inevitable) mistakes, how are you going to learn trading? There are no short cuts. Therefore, it makes no difference whether Optionetics courses, or anyone else's courses, are good or not. There is just no way that a few days of lecture and a spiral-bound notebook are going to prepare a person for trading options. It's more complicated than that. Everyone who wants to be successful at this will have to do the hard work. The only way around it, is through it. I notice that there are some honest professionals out there--Wolfinger, McMillan, Sheridan--who are successful in this business and have written inexpensive books or made free videos. And not one of them is telling you that you don't need to know how a car works--au contraire.
Also--I meant to make a response to the previously offered statement that you have to know which way the market is going to move to trade options. This is not true, unless you are using only directional trades. Options have two big things going for them. 1. You can trade volatility, which is somewhat easier to predict than price direction. 2. Time, unlike underlying securities, moves in only one direction, producing decay in option prices.
Reincarnation of Optionetics.com " Hello Optionetics Students, Tom Gentile here. It’s been 3 long years but I’m thrilled to announce that Optionetics and I are together again! I recently purchased Optionetics from Charles Schwab and am ready to help refresh our trading community. Now it’s not just me, but many of your fellow trader instructors and the original Platinum programmers are joining in on this next adventure. We are dedicated to bringing back and updating the training and learning experiences you enjoyed in the past. Since we last talked, I have been hard at work with several projects, but more on this later. Right now it's all about re-connecting you to the trading education that you have been a part of for several years… Optionetics! "
There are TONS of good video content out there about options. The effort is in filtering out the good from the bad AND resisting the temptation to fall for a "get rich quick" course for thousands or an alert service that promises > 80% win rate.. It is not just the win rate but the overall expected return. I just paid for a course at udemy.com for $10 and it was pretty good-covered condor trading and adjusting. I also created a course there for free for anyone interested in learning about John Bender's method of option trading.