Options

Contracts that grant the right (not the obligation) to buy or sell an underlying at a fixed price. The richest derivative for expressing nuanced views.

Difficulty advanced

Reading order

1. Black-Scholes — closed-form European pricing
2. The Greeks — delta, gamma, vega, theta, rho
3. Volatility Smile — why a single σ isn't enough
4. Strategies — payoff structures (covered call, straddle, condor, etc.)

What you should walk away with

• The ability to price and Greek a vanilla option from scratch.
• An intuition for which strategy implements which view.
• An understanding of why implied volatility is the real traded variable.