Equity options, the all-purpose vehicles that today's smartest investors use to increase profits, reduce risks, or both. Equity options, considered overly complex and aggressive by most investors, are actually among today's most straightforward and easy-to-use investment vehicles. Providing both protection against loss and potential for exceptional profits, they are ideal for virtually any trader or investor. "The Options Strategist" outlines effective and easy-to-follow strategies for incorporating the power of equity options into your trading program.Starting with the basics of options and options trading, it goes on to reveal specific strategies that you can use to: maximize your trading profits in up, down, or sideways markets; protect your portfolio against sudden market declines; take advantage of price swings, regardless of their direction; hedge your corporate stock and/or options against unforeseen events; and, employ advanced options techniques to take your trading success to the next level. It's time that you discovered the many benefits of equity options. Let "The Options Strategist" show you just how easy and profitable options investing can be and provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to give your portfolio the options advantage.Investors of all types, with portfolios of every size, are beginning to realize the protection and profit in equity options. Long seen as a volatile investment designed strictly for gamblers and high rollers, options in fact offer unique advantages to even the most conservative investor and are suitable for rounding out virtually any investment portfolio. "The Options Strategist" tells you everything you need to know to trade and invest with equity options. Whether you use options to aggressively increase trading profits through the power of leverage or conservatively protect the stocks in your portfolio against sudden market reversals, this hands-on, practical guide will introduce you to strategies from basic to advanced, including: buying calls and puts; writing covered calls and puts; writing naked calls and puts; straddles; spreads; strangles; collars; and, combinations.But more than just discussing what to do and how to do it, "The Options Strategist" explains why to do it. Why would an investor buy an option to purchase 100 shares of a stock instead of just buying the stock itself? Why would an investor write calls on shares of stock he or she already owns? Or write both puts and calls on that same stock? This plain-talking guidebook explains the strategic motivation behind each of these examples and dozens more, along with the rewards, risks, best outcomes, and worst outcomes for each. In addition, "The Options Strategist" takes an in-depth look at the theory behind options investing.Option pricing, implied and historical volatility, the Greeks, the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model: for each of these topics, key questions are asked and answered, central arguments are introduced and analyzed, and specific technical terms are demystified to underscore their practical applications (or lack thereof) for options traders and investors. The result is a guidebook that lays a solid foundation for equity option trading and investing. "The Options Strategist" explains how to use basic techniques for both profit and protection and then explores more advanced aspects for the truly serious student of options trading. It is, in short, today's most comprehensive introduction and rulebook for making equity option trading an integral part of your everyday investing strategy.