John I'll be honest, the odds aren't in your favor right now. If you wanted to buy calls last Jan/Feb would have been a lot better than this year. As we were still in a bull market. Most stocks don't have the momentum. You want to risk it all to trade? That's the sign of a gambler, be wary of that feature. A account can go to zero rather quickly especially with only $2000. I've been there. Work on adding money to the account.
Hi John, To answer a couple of your questions, if you buy a call at 50 and the stock goes to 55, it still only costs you 50 (x100) to exercise that call. So it would cost you $5000 to exercise one option. I don't use AIM actually, but you can email me at mndi@hotmail.com if you have any further questions about options on datek and I'd be more than happy to answer them. Lastly, I'd just like to echo what robert said about being careful. While options do offer alot of leverage, they don't make the game of trading any easier. In fact, the VAST majority of all puts and calls expire worthless. Somewhere above 80% if my memory serves me. Starting with only $2000 makes it risky to play options exclusively because a couple of bad trades in a row can wipe you out. I personally only trade options on the last days before expiration. So I basically use them as a cheap substitute for an actual long/short equity position. Otherwise the time premium is just too expensive. This chicago board of trade has some good general info about options. http://www.cboe.com/education/
THANK YOU to rTharp and htrader for your replies to my questions. I do appreciate the time and effort. maybe ill look around for some other "options". haha thanks again , john