Option Trading vs Stock Trading
One of the most common questions that most people ask when they start looking into how to make money with options is whether or not there are any differences between option trading and stock trading. The truth is, both of them involve buying a particular financial product (typically an option) and trading that product for the right to purchase it at a future date (a stock). The one major difference is that the stock can be traded for a much longer time frame than options can be. However, before you get too caught up in the fact that both options and stocks involve selling and buying of securities, there are a few things that you should know about options trading that will help you understand the process and make an informed decision on how you want to proceed with this type of investment.
Options are often described as “gambling” because the actual transaction in which you buy particular security (the “right” to purchase the security) is not entirely under your control. The seller of the options (or the buyer of the options) is usually the one who has the ultimate power to purchase or sell the underlying securities. There is often a margin deposit involved in this transaction. This deposit is usually a very small amount of money, but it is necessary to cover the risk of not being able to purchase the securities that have been placed in the option contract.
Stock trading is basically buying a company's stock and selling the same stock within the same day. In this case, you actually own the stock and you are the actual owner of the company. You have actually invested in that company, and it is important that you realize how much stock you actually own and what percentage of that stock you actually own at any given moment. Stock trading is a lot more stable than option trading because there is no margin deposit involved, and the stock can be bought and sold within a matter of minutes.
Options are also known as puts and calls. Puts are simply what they sound like; they're just a way to place a specific price on a financial asset. A call is exactly what it sounds like, a way for you to buy the underlying security before you put a particular price on it. Both of these options types of transactions require you to have a certain level of financial knowledge since you will need to make sure that the market is ready to sell or buy your assets at that price.
Options trading is a great way to make some quick money if you are in a position to do so. It doesn't really matter what you do with your profits. You can use them to pay off debt, take vacations, take care of minor medical problems, get married, or whatever else you like.
Stock trading is much riskier and requires that you know a lot about the company's financial history and its stock price. It's also much more complicated than options trading because the risk of not getting a profit is higher. If you are able to successfully trade options, however, you can often make quite a bit of money by using options as your primary source of income.
