I remember a retired floortrader mentioning that you never end learning... so perhaps I should not feel too hard on myself for still learning what I don't know after 2 years. I finally started another of Jeff Augen's books from the stack I picked up at a thrift shop. "Day Trading OPTIONS" Alright, I don't believe in day-traders, since I have yet to see proof any one of them really makes money, but there are a few interesting things in this book so far. Though once again, a few elements start to go above my head. If you're reading a better one (or even worse), mention it below.
That's about all that you can learn from floor traders. They benefitted tremendously from access to flow and buying the bid and selling the offer. There are few good books about how to approach upstairs trading. Google Hull, Natenberg, Baird. Cottle writes well but can't trade. Learning synthetics leads to arbitrage. You're not going to arb-anything, but it's foundational. Natenberg -> Baird -> Hull.
Let me know if that book makes you a millionaire...or thousandaire, or hundredaire, or dollaraire....by actually utilizing the information in the real world. I truly do, hope, you become a millionaire or thousandaire...but I won't be holding my breath, waiting.
The biggest and best trades on the floor were lifting limit orders through news (just saying). One of the bets option traders I ever saw worked the Eurodollar option pit. If you saw him on the street, you would think he was homeless. He once made $100 million in one day. Next day he walked in still carrying the same grubby knapsack.
$100 million in one day? It's humbling to meet a big, swinging dick, just when you thought you were the stuff. Is that his Own, personal, wealth, bet...or does he represent a company, firm, brokerage or client? Can you elaborate, specifically, what that trade involved...risk/reward? What kind of a return % ROI is that?
This isn't a book, its a forum or something. It's helping me learn some stuff. http://sp-finance.e-monsite.com/ It frequently links to this (e book?) by an actual quant. https://bookdown.org/maxime_debellefroid/MyBook/all-about-volatility.html#implied-volatility The guy doesn't fuck around. If I was better with options, I might be able to learn a lot from it -- most of it's going way over my head.
You can't lose reading an options book if you want to be an options trader. Almost all of them will have something you can synthesize into your current knowledge base. When I started I read Hull and did all the math problems in it. It took me about 2 weeks while also working on a some stat arb strategies for the desk. I just finished most of Euan Sinclair's latest book. After 20 years of trading vol (as a quant, market maker, flow trader, prop trader, and as a retail shlub), I'm still learning about options and about how they work. It's a journey, not a destination.
Im reading this book by Cottle. Im not too far in but it is well written and easy to follow...lots of footnotes and explanation for some of the more challenging concepts. I will also say that some of the threads on this forum have extremely good info. I read through them and if i see something I dont understand, I stop and start searching until the concept is clear then continue the thread. @ironchef thread with Destriero in the title has a ton of good info and a decent place to start...mainly thanks to @.sigma for really trying to educate the ignorant. Im not trying to brag or anything but I can read Des's posts now and understand like 60% of it as opposed to the ~10% i was at not long ago lol. I've learned that trading options isnt easy, it takes work, if you ignore the details you will lose money. This stuff is really exciting though once you begin to grasp it. Next up is "trading volatility"