Most people meet options the wrong way. Someone shows them a 10x screenshot, they buy cheap calls a week before expiry, and they watch them melt to zero. Then they decide options are gambling.
They’re not. Used properly, options are one of the most strategic tools in the market. The trend tells us when. Options let us decide how. Before we enter, we know exactly what we can lose, what we can make, and where we’re wrong.
Of course, options won’t make a bad idea good. But they can make a good idea much better.
Lawrence McMillan’s Options as a Strategic Investment has been around since 1980, 5 editions in, and it’s still the reference. It’s over 1,000 pages long, so it’s not a weekend read.
Everything is in there. Covered calls, spreads, butterflies, ratio spreads, backspreads, straddles, index and futures options, volatility and hedging. For each strategy, McMillan explains when to use it, when not to, and what to do when the trade goes wrong. That last part is what most books skip.