Best way to buy stock options

I have been blessed in that I have worked for and had clients who were Billionaires. But there is one Billionaire I met during my hedge fund days that I will never forget, because he was one of the best options traders I have ever seen.
He had a 5 Step system for trading options that I use for my all my options trading today. I am going to share this with you today and I call this ” The Billionaires 5 Rules of Options Trading”
1) Never ever buy an Option (a Put or a Call) unless there is a catalyst or event. This means you only buy an option when there is an event that will dramatically move the price of the stock up or down. These events or catalysts can be anything from: Earnings Announcements, Fed Meetings, Economic Releases, an Activist Hedge Fund buying a stock to any type of corporate change, CEO, sale of a business unit, merger or acquisition. The key is to buy the option before this event occurs, you never ever want to buy an option after the catalyst or event. So in summary only buy an option when there is catalyst or event that will dramatically alter the price of the stock.
2) This Catalyst or Event must occur before the option expires. An easy example of this is Earnings, you only want to buy an option that expires more than a week after the earnings date. Again this means when you buy an option make sure you leave yourself enough time so that your option does not expire before the catalyst or event occurs.
3) The Option must be Cheap. This can be hard to measure but I like to keep it simple, I personally don’t like paying more than a $1 for any option. But if its a high priced stock, I will only buy the option it gives me at least 25 times leverage or more on the stock. Meaning divide the price of the stock by the actual option price. For example if the stock of XYZ is $100 do not pay more than $4 for the option on that stock, that’s the easiest way to make sure the option is cheap.
4) Only buy options in stocks that have low volatility. This means you want to buy options on stocks that have moved sideways of flat for months at a time. Look at a chart if there has not been a significant uptrend or downtrend in the last 3 to 4 months, there is a good chance that the volatility in the stock is low and the options are cheap. Also if you have options software, you can compare the stock and its options implied volatility and underlying volatility to its historical implied and underlying volatility. This may sound confusing but its the same premise value investors use, they buy stocks when they are cheap in comparison to what they historically sold for, so you want to buy options when the volatility is low or lower than what it historically has sold for.
5) Only buy options if you can make 200% or more on the option. This is very important, too many people buy options with no exit plan or profit target. You have to set a goal or sell point when you buy an option and to make it worthwhile from a risk reward standpoint. The option should have at least a 200% or more upside. Why 200%? because there is a good chance when you buy an option, you will lose the entire value or premium of the option (or 100% of your investment in the option) therefore to be rewarded for that risk you need to be able to make 200% or more in that option. Simply stated only buy an option when you have at least a 2 to 1 reward to risk scenario.
Now I will give you a real life example of an options trade I just made, where I only followed 2 of the 5 steps and it cost me dearly on my trade.
About two weeks ago I purchased a large quantity of put options on Silver, (The Silver ETF, Symbol SLV), that expired on June 28th. The option was very cheap I paid .$50 cents per option. So I followed steps 3 and 4, in that I purchased a cheap put option ($.50 cents) whose volatility was low, so the options were cheap not only in price but also cheap in terms of Silver’s historical volatility as well.
My big mistake though was not having the proper catalyst, I thought Silver was going to drop in price but I just wasn’t exactly sure why? I thought initially it would drop because the Job Numbers that were released 2 weeks ago would be strong and therefore would cause Silver to sell off. Also I thought Silver had broken a huge downward consolidation pattern and therefore it would drop 10% in the next couple of weeks.
Well the Job Numbers were good, and Silver sold off and I was up 100% on my Silver put options in 2 days, but instead of following the Trading Rules my Billionaire friend taught me, I took my 100% profit and went home.
Because of this I did not follow the 200% or more profit rule and I did not have the right catalyst, which turned about to be the Fed Meeting I therefore missed out on one of the biggest moves in Silver’s history, its 7% decline today.
By not following my Billionaire friend’s 5 Trading Rules for Options, I missed out a huge trade. I would have made 400% on my Silver Puts today instead of the 100% I made two weeks ago. So I learned first hand how much it can cost you by not following each and every one of the 5 rules above.
So my lesson to you is not only are these 5 Rules for Trading Options important, but even more important is that you make sure before you buy an option that you have followed each and every one of the 5 rules I stated above. Meaning do not buy an option unless it meets each and every one of the 5 rules.
To make it easy for yourself print out these rules and then before you trade an option make sure that you can check off each rule before you buy the option. If you do this I promise that not only will you greatly improve the success of your options trading but you will make a lot of money in the process as well.

Buying Stock Using Stock Options.
Stock Options Are a Viable Addition to Some Investors' Portfolios.
When long-term investors want to invest in a stock, they usually buy the stock at the current market price and pay full price for the stock. One alternative to paying the full price at purchase is to buy it using margin. Basically, this is a 2:1 loan from your brokerage, allowing you, for example, to buy $1,500 worth of stock with an investment of only $500.00.
Another way to buy stock without investing the full amount of the purchase at the point of sale is to use stock options.
Buying stock options allows you to leverage your purchases far more than is possible in even a margined stock purchase.
Stock Options.
A stock option is a contract giving you the right -- but not the obligation -- to buy or sell an equity, usually a single stock, at a specified price. Options are time-limited, although the limits vary widely. If you do not exercise your right before the expiration date, your option expires and you lose the entire amount of your investment.
Stock options can be used to trade a stock for the short term, or to invest for a longer term. Since all options are time-limited, however, most options are used in the execution of a shorter-term trading strategy. Stock options are available on most individual stocks in the US, Europe, and Asia. Note that in contrast to the 2:1 leverage of margin trading in the stock market, option trading effectively leverages your investments at dramatically higher ratios.
This allows you to control a large amount of assets with only a small investment. It also dramatically increases your risk.
Buying Stock Using Stock Options.
When using stock options to invest in a particular stock, the reasons for investing in the stock may be the same as when buying the actual stock.
Once a suitable stock has been chosen, one common options trade is executed as follows:
Sell one out of the money put option for every 100 shares of stock Wait for the stock price to decrease to the put options' strike price If the options are assigned (by the exchange), buy the underlying stock at the strike price If the options are not assigned, keep the premium received for the put options as profit.
Advantages of Stock Options.
There are three main advantages of using this stock options strategy to buy stock.
When put options are initially sold, the trader immediately receives the price of the put options as profit. If the underlying stock price never decreases to the put options' strike price, the trader never buys the stock and keeps the profit from the put options. If the underlying stock price decreases to the put options' strike price, the trader can buy the stock at the strike price, rather than at the previously higher market price. As the trader chooses which put options to sell, they can choose the strike price, and therefore have some measure of control over the price they pay. Because the trader receives the price of the put options as profit, this provides a small buffer between the purchase price of the stock and the breakeven point of the trade. This buffer means that the stock price can fluctuate slightly before the price decline eventuates in a loss.
Another Example Trade.
A long-term stock investor has decided to invest in XYZ company. XYZ's stock is currently trading at $430, and the next options expiration is one month away. The investor wants to purchase 1,000 shares of XYZ, so they execute the following stock options trade:
Sell 10 put options (each options contract is worth 100 shares), with a strike price of $420, at a price of $7 per options contract. The total amount received for this trade is $7,000 (calculated at $7 x 100 x 10 = $7,000). The investor receives the $7,000 immediately and keeps this as profit.
Wait for XYZ's stock price to decrease to the put options' strike price of $420. If the stock price decreases to $420, the put options will be exercised, and the put options may be assigned by the exchange. If the put options are assigned, the investor will purchase XYZ's stock at $420 per share (the strike price that they originally chose).
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If the investor does buy the underlying stock, the $7,000 received for the put options will create a small buffer against the stock investment becoming a loss. The buffer will be $7 per share (calculated as $7,000 / 1000 = $7). This means that the stock price can fall to $413 before the stock investment becomes a loss.
If XYZ's stock price does not decrease to the put options' strike price of $420, the put options will not be exercised, so the investor will not buy the underlying stock. Instead, the investor will keep the $7,000 received for the put options as profit.
Conclusion.
Options have other uses beyond the scope of this article. In several investment situations, however, it may make sense to invest in options rather than the underlying stock. Note, however, that the basic fact of option trading -- that you are highly leveraging your investment -- inevitably means your risk is similarly greatly increased.

Three Ways to Buy Options.
When you buy equity options you really have made no commitment to buy the underlying equity. Your options are open. Here are three ways to buy options with examples that demonstrate when each method might be appropriate:
Hold until maturity.
. then trade: This means that you hold onto your options contracts until the end of the contract period, prior to expiration, and then exercise the option at the strike price.
When would you want to do this? Suppose you were to buy a Call option at a strike price of $25, and the market price of the stock advances continuously, moving to $35 at the end of the option contract period. Since the underlying stock price has gone up to $35, you can now exercise your Call option at the strike price of $25 and benefit from a profit of $10 per share ($1,000) before subtracting the cost of the premium and commissions.
Trade before the expiration date.
You exercise your option at some point before the expiration date.
For example: You buy the same Call option with a strike price of $25, and the price of the underlying stock is fluctuating above and below your strike price. After a few weeks the stock rises to $31 and you don’t think it will go much higher - in fact it just might drop again. You exercise your Call option immediately at the strike price of $25 and benefit from a profit of $6 a share ($600) before subtracting the cost of the premium and commissions.
Let the option expire.
You don’t trade the option and the contract expires.
Another example: You buy the same Call option with a strike price of $25, and the underlying stock price just sits there or it keeps sinking. You do nothing. At expiration, you will have no profit and the option will expire worthless. Your loss is limited to the premium you paid for the option and commissions.
Again, in each of the above examples, you will have paid a premium for the option itself. The cost of the premium and any brokerage fees you paid will reduce your profit. The good news is that, as a buyer of options, the premium and commissions are your only risk. So in the third example, although you did not earn a profit, your loss was limited no matter how far the stock price fell.
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A Simple Guide To Making Money With Options.
Over the past few decades, we've seen many advances in how the stock market functions. Today, exchanges and brokerage houses exist almost entirely online, and everyone is competing for microseconds of speed.
As a quick example, let's say IBM is currently trading at $100 per share. Now, let's say an investor purchases one call option contract on IBM with a $100 strike price at a premium of $2.
The call option gives the buyer the right to purchase shares of IBM at $100 per share. In this scenario, the buyer could use the option to purchase those shares at $100, then immediately sell those same shares in the open market for $105. Because of this, the option will sell for $5 on the expiration date.
Using the same analysis as shown above, the call option will now be worth $1 (or $100 per contract). Since the investor spent $200 to purchase the option in the first place, he or she will show a net loss on this trade of $100.
If IBM ends up at or below $100 on the option's expiration date, then the contract will expire "out of the money," meaning it will now be worthless. In this scenario, the option buyer will lose 100% of his or her money (in this case, the full $200 that he or she spent for the contract).
Profit Amplifier Closed Trades.
Aside from a few road bumps, our path to success has been very profitable. In fact, my readers and I have made an average return of 14.5% on our trades so far, and our average holding period stands at just 40 days -- that's good for a 132% annualized return.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of NASDAQ, Inc.