Learn how to evaluate, buy, sell, and profit with investment tools that were once thought to be only for the pros. This course will teach you how to protect your portfolio and profit in a down market, an up market, or even a flat market. Learn to leverage your investment dollars for potential profits that surpass those possible with stocks.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

In our first lesson, we'll go over what options are, where they come from, and why it's worth your time and effort to learn about them. After we dissect the formal definition of an option, we'll then go over some easy-to-understand examples to drive home each element of that definition.

Friday - Lesson 02

Every investment specialty has its very own jargon and particular way of handling business. Options are no exception. In this lesson, we'll discuss many of the option peculiarities. Did you know that each option has its own unique symbol? We'll clear up any mystery about how those option symbols are constructed. When you finish this lesson, you'll be able to identify any option just by looking at its symbol.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

One of the most important things to consider before you buy anything is its price. Option pricing is, therefore, very important, and in this lesson, we'll explore where to find those prices, what they look like, and how to interpret each element you'll find in an option pricing chart. When you finish this lesson, you'll be well on your way to being what I call a good Option Detective.

Friday - Lesson 04

It's one thing to know an option's price, but quite another to know if that price is reasonable and fair. In this lesson, we'll take a look under the hood of option pricing so you understand what contributes to option value. Knowing what makes one option more expensive than another is all part of understanding the essentials of option pricing. When you finish this lesson, you'll know there are over-priced and under-priced options, and you'll know which are which before you trade.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

In today's lesson, we'll go over an easy graphing system that will illustrate what kind of profit or loss may be possible when you trade any option. The beauty of these graphs is how they bring clarity to even a very complex option strategy. With this knowledge, you'll enter any option trade fully aware of potential risk and reward. You'll also know precisely where your break-even point is, and this all contributes to a fully informed trading experience.

Friday - Lesson 06

Today we'll begin by examining the differences between stocks and options, and then we'll focus on the advantages of options. Then we'll take an in-depth look at the first basic option strategy—the long call. When you finish this lesson, you'll know the best way to profit when you think a stock price is headed up. Further, you'll understand which option to buy depending on how bullish you are about that price movement.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

In this lesson, we'll go over where options come from and how you can, if you want, create them yourself by selling call options. This is called naked call writing, and it's one way you can use options to profit when you think a stock price is going to hold steady or drop. You'll learn the risk inherent in this strategy and what it means to be assigned.

Friday - Lesson 08

We'll spotlight covered calls in this lesson. This strategy involves selling call options on stock you already own. This is a very popular way for making a profit even when your stock's price isn't going up. You'll learn the how, when, and whys of this essentially conservative strategy in one easy lesson.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Certain options profit when a stock drops, and in today's lesson, you'll get to know the put option, a powerful type of option employed for this purpose. In many ways, the put option is the mirror image of the call option. The versatility of the put option impresses a great many students.

Friday - Lesson 10

Few investors know the benefits, much less the in and outs, of selling put options, but in today's lesson, you'll get to know both. Known as writing naked puts, you can also utilize this strategy as a way to purchase stock for less. There's something to be said for collecting your profit up front and putting that money to use immediately, too.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

We'll reinforce the beauty of options in this lesson by introducing three combination strategies—the bull spread, the bear spread, and the long straddle. This taste of more advanced option strategies may whet your appetite for other more esoteric combinations, and there are plenty. After you finish this lesson, you'll have a good sense of what you can achieve using option combo strategies for profitable trades.

Friday - Lesson 12

In our final lesson, we'll pull everything you've learned together into one cohesive overview. It's helpful to review the knowledge-building process you completed and to see how each building block supported the next. In this lesson, you'll also get to know the market sentiment and how it influences which option strategy is appropriate and when. Finally, we'll review the concept of risk and go over how it's an integral consideration when you're thinking about any option investment strategy.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Mark Quinn.

Mark Quinn has actively traded options for almost 20 years. He is a disciple of option guru Lawrence McMillan, and has participated in numerous stock option seminars sponsored by the Chicago Board of Options Exchange and Options Industry Council. Years of study and experience have given Mark a keen understanding of stock options. Mr. Quinn has conducted training classes from Tokyo to the San Francisco bay area. He holds an MS degree in Distance Teaching and Learning from California State University.

Requirements:

Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

Student Reviews:

"After looking at a $20,000 course I didn't understand anyway, this course was a god-send! The instructor was really good. I liked his examples and teaching style. I hope he writes an advanced course….Thank you, Mr. Quinn!"

"A great course! I learned a lot and enjoyed doing so. Thanks for making it available."

"As you may have guessed from my nickname, I am an "Old Dog" - er - I mean a "Non-Traditional Student" and was not too sure about this "Home Schooling" thing. You sure did make a convert out of me. The material was presented in a clear and concise manner. (Fairly) easy to understand. Your method of teaching - instructing us like we are real people and not just a bunch of dummies is great. You talked to us - not DOWN to us. I felt as though we were just sitting at the table and discussing this over coffee. I thank you. I got a little behind due to a family emergency and had to play catch up. The material was right here waiting on me when I got back. I still need to scratch around on the web sites and do some paper trading yet, but, I think that this class will benefit me a great deal."

"A terrific intro course to options. Mountains above any book I have bought on the subject. A well designed course and excellent instructor."

"Being a conservative investor, stock options are one of several types of investments that over the years I have neglected. Still my curiosity for at least knowing what stock options are and their use by investors did arouse my interest. I found Mr. Quinn’s Introduction to Stock Options to be a very informative and well-organized course. As important, Mr. Quinn also presented various strategies employing stock options that displayed their flexibility to be tailored to suit investors of every risk level tolerance. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and found it most interesting. I feel most fortunate to have taken this course and look forward to further study on my own with the background Introduction to Stock Options provided."

"Excellent course, outstanding instructor. A challenging, at times difficult course. It required study & concentration, exactly what is needed to get the most out of the course material. My money was well spent."

"Excellent course taught by a good instructor who showed a genuine interest in reaching the students. I got a lot out of this course. Thanks."

"Excellent coverage. Well-developed explanation. Quizzes reinforced the lesson content. Challenging topics were explained thoroughly."

"Excellent instructor!! Perfect introduction course to Options!! We need the advanced course now!!"

"First, I had no knowledge about stock options before taking this course but now I feel comfortable applying the skills and knowledge I've learned. Thank you so much, Mark. Keep up the good job."

"Great course, great instructor...best money I've spent on options trading so far..."

"Great course,on-line giving needed time flexibility, extremely well thought out and laid out, great references, teacher very insightful regarding subject, all positive, great stuff,want even more..."

"I am 38 and I am in the financial services industry. I attended a success magazine investor education seminar and got hooked on the potential gains that can be made in options trading. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the large sum of money that was required to continue more training with them, so I signed up for this class to learn more. It has been outstanding. Thanks!!"

"I didn't know what to expect from this course when I took it, but I have been impressed from start to finish. After 4 years of university, this course was by far the easiest to understand. Since all the material is new to me the clarity of the course must be attributed not to simplicity of the topic, but to the well written, concise lectures. For a course in which the instructor is never seen, I am very impressed. Congratulations on a job well done, and thank you for imparting some of your knowledge to me."

"I enjoyed this class immensely, simply because you made it as easy as possible to understand this whole new world of stock options. I enrolled in this course because I wanted to learn more about investing my stock shares, and found another avenue altogether. Thank you very much, Mark. I thoroughly enjoyed the course."

"I enjoyed this class thoroughly and would recomend it to anyone who is interested in stock options."

"I have several books on the topic but the course allowed me a chance to understand the topic much better than reading a text."

"I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the teaching method of this course. Even the final exam allowed us to review the questions first and go back and do research throughout the lessons to focus more clearly on specific points that may have been hazy the first time we read them. The subject of Options was rather deep, and I still missed a couple questions on the final exam. But the process of researching helped me understand some points I didn't fully understand the first time. And the evaluation of our exam, providing the correct answers to the ones I missed, helped me further reinforce the points I still didn't fully grasp. Thanks, Mark, for a fine course. By the way, I had already started trading options. About 4 or 5 days after my first purchases, I sold the options (10 contracts) for a net gain of 960 dollars. And another batch of options had gone up enough that I set a stop loss for it, and have yet to see how much my gain for it will be."

"I LOVED this course. I can't imagine a more efficient way to integrate so much information that with a lesser instructor could have been very confusing. Mr. Quinn's presentation really simplifies this topic into understandable format."

"I never thought taking a course over the internet could be so interesting. You proved me wrong. I enjoyed and learned a great deal from your course. Thanks, Rosie."

"Instuctor wrote the subject in a very interesting way. It was clear. He is encouraging to students studying a difficult subject."

"Introduction to Stock Options was a very challenging and enlightening course. I had always wondered, over the years that I have spent buying and selling stocks, what options were and how they were traded. Now I know! The instructor's lessons were illustrative and thoroughly written. I wish all instructors were this competent and effective. I would recommend the course to others most certainly!"

"I really enjoyed the information presented in this course. Thanks for all the pointers."

"I think the best thing about the entire course was that it took the "mystery" out of options and also instucted that options are not these horrible risky and speculative investments that everybody thinks they are. This was an excellent course!"

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course. The material was well written and easy to understand."

"I thought I knew something about options before I signed up for this course, but it didn't take long for me to realize how little I knew. I took your advice and did no option trading while involved with the course. And now with the course over, I am going to spend more time paper trading before I actually get into real option trading. Having been a teacher, I compliment you on how you did a lesson. It was articulate; you gave excellent examples, and your graphs were almost self explanatory."

"I very much enjoyed this course. If Mark is going to teach an advanced course I would like to sign up. Thank you for the course instruction, Mark, I've already made money!"

"Loved the course. Outstanding course and instructor. Would highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in stocks. Clears up any myths and misconceptions associated with options."

"Mark has a knack for tackling the complex and often daunting subject matter and breaking it down into its simplest parts. I had taken stabs at learning about options trading in the past, only to quickly retreat, feeling overwhelmed and dumb. Because of Mark, I was able to understand for the first time what was going on. He is a wealth of knowledge and experience, responds promptly and directly to questions, is never condescending, is easily approachable, and is eager for our success. I would definitely sign up for any other investment class he might teach in the future. If he were available for trading mentoring, I'd go with him in a heartbeat."

"Mark has been a great instructor! His real life experiences gave credibility to the whole course. His examples, his warnings, and his lists of reference materials truly helped build my interest and confidence in options trading. I am excited, as he predicted, to be involved in this aspect of investing."

"Mark is an excellent instructor and provided a carefully crafted introduction to the study of options. He provided a solid foundation to what seems to me a potentially complex subject. Also very helpful were the websites, books and other resources listed."

"Mark Quinn is a great communicator and teacher.I've been out of school for 30 years and Mark really kept me on track.Thank you very much."

"Mark Quinn is an excellent instructor and knowledgeable in what he does. Thank you for this course which others charge thousands of dollars for this information. And theirs isn't half as informative as Mark's."

"Mark Quinn is an excellent instructor. I really enjoyed how he simplified a rather complex subject with humor. This was a very enjoyable class and I would recommend it to anyone interested in stock options."

"Mark's presentation brought the world of options trading into keen focus. I understand money in options is money at risk; however, the sheer leverage of options has fueled my desire to make the transition from paper trades to live trades."

"Mark, you are the best teacher I've ever seen. Thank you very much for this amazing course."

"Overall, a GREAT course. Just what I needed!"

"Prof. Quinn did an excellent job. I feel the class and his presentation of the material has prepared me for trading. More importantly, his class has given me a strong foundation for further study on options. I would strongly advise any options novice to take this class; such a person will graduate from the class with confidence."

"Super cool course. I have seen my Investopedia virtual account go up due to the knowledge I attained in Mark's lessons."

"Thank you so very much for making this course available. This is the type of instruction a beginner like me needs in order to make informed investment decisions. I have learned more than I can express. Thanks again."

"The course was excellent in its presentation and allows the student to benefit from the lessons on a real-world basis. Mark Quinn is an exceptional instructor and brings his full experience into the course with astounding examples and an exceptional methodology."

"The instructor did a fabulous job explaining things on a level that a novice like myself could understand."

"The instructor Mark's material made what could be a dry subject into a very interesting read. His examples of when and how to use various option strategies made the material very applicable to my investing. Excellent course."

"The instructor was great and explained the material very well."

"This course has been a tremendous introduction for beginners like me. It's provided real value. You've done a great job of introducing and explaining a complex topic. Thanks a lot for the help!"

"This course is excellent. I enjoyed it very much and I learned a lot. The instructor is great. He made the material easy to understand. He is very encouraging and supportive. I'm very grateful!"

"This course underscored the need to look before you leap. Get the training and learn from others' experience! Good course to take to learn the basics."

"This course was excellent. It met my needs and allowed me to accomplish my goals for taking the course. Mark's expertise and enthusiasm for the topic were very motivating... Thanks for a wonderful intro to stock options."

"This is a course I should have taken a long time ago. All I can say is that it is perfect. I hope you offer an advanced class in the future."

"This is a great class and very clear. After I have some experience trading options I would like to take an advanced class from this instructor."

"This is a great course! At last I understand options and plan to build on the knowledge I've gained. Thanks Mark!!"

"This is a great course for anyone interested in learning the basics of options trading. Thanks so much for a great learning experience. This class is exactly what I needed to gain the confidence to feel that I can really do this!"

"This was a great course and Mark was a great instructor. He was kind and generous with his answers and his experience and this course really opened my eyes into a completely foreign area of the financial world that is usually only known to advanced investors. The only comment I would make is that Mark should be very much encouraged to take his teaching methods and methodologies and expertise and apply this to other areas of investing to produce more courses. This was by far the best online course; I cannot recommend him more highly!"

"This was an EXCELLENT course! It provided a perfect introduction to stock options. I loved the way all the concepts were broken down into sections! EXCELLENT & well-worth the cost! THANK YOU!!!!"

"This was my first on line course. I feel that on-line teaching is an excellent way to learn. I have been out of school for many years and it has been an effort for me getting into the swing of studying. It is good at my age (almost 63) to keep learning new things. I plan to take other courses."

"Well presented. Really enjoyed course and learned a lot and the resources presented will be very valuable."

"While I was taking this course, I started trading real world options instead of paper trades as my exercises for the lessons I learned from you. As an investor without previous experience in option trading, I am surprised how profitable options can be in contrast to stocks. In addition to the profit that I have taken, I still have some over 80%, 70%, 60% and 50% gains to be taken in my account. These are the options that will expire in a month or two. I am not bragging, but I am trying to use the real experiences to let you know how much I appreciated your lessons and how your course helped me in a practical way."