The Black Box

[ljk]

Your brokerage account has to be approved for Options Trading -- you just have to fill out a form, generally, for that approval.

You can get a look at any stock's options, delayed, on the CBOE:

http://quote.cboe.com/QuoteTable.asp?TICKER=emc&ALL=2

This will give you all the EMC options. Leaps are over one year out and are sold for January expiration, so you can get Jan 05 or Jan 06 leaps for EMC. Options expire on the third Friday of the month of their expiration. CBOE sends out free booklets and tapes to help people get oriented with options.

The big problem with Options as a whole, is that they can expire worthless. You can only lose the amount you invested, when it comes to buying Puts or Calls, but you can lose all of it. Options trading can be quite complicated with hedging plays of various kinds. You need to read books about that! If you really want to know about it. But the simple things, like buying Puts or Calls, are simple to learn.

Linda