Contents — The Other End of the Trade

Part I · Returns and risk

How returns behave, how risk is measured, and where an edge can come from.

What you actually trade, and how an order gets filled.

Building a trading model, fitting it, and testing it honestly.

Contracts whose value comes from something else, and why they exist.

The contract, what its price is made of, and the Greeks that describe its risk.

Who is on the other side of your trade, and what hedging forces them to do.

Why hedging works: the Black-Scholes-Merton equation from the dealer's side.

Adding up every dealer's gamma: how the total is estimated and mapped, what it does to prices, and how to use the maps without being fooled by them.

The VIX, same-day options, and reading the day's tape.

The known sources of return: what each pays, why it exists, and when it fails.

Trading SPX, SPY and the largest stocks over days to weeks.

About fifty-eight option strategies, each reduced to its parts and sorted by difficulty.

Turning a paper edge into money that stays in your account.

The glossary, the maths on one page, the reading list and the checklists.