Binary Options Trading Ebook Guide
Binary Options Trading Ebook Guide
www.anyoption.com
Table of Contents
Welcome to the anyoption binary options Zero to Hero guide. This guide is designed
to take people who are new to binary options trading and teach them, step by step,
how to become knowledgeable and expert traders.
In this guide we will take you on a journey from the basics of binary option trading through to the more
advanced, expert levels. When you have completed the Zero to Hero guide, you will be equipped with the
knowledge and understanding to trade binary options like a pro.
2 - Recognizing emotions
2 - Indices
3 - Currency pairs
4 - Stocks
5 - Commodities
Chapter One
Understanding
Binary Options
Trading
1 - Why trade binary options in the first place?
2 - What is binary options trading?
3 - How do you trade binary options?
4 - Jargon associated with binary options
Chapter One
The third barrier is knowledge of the financial markets. Knowing when to buy
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and when to sell is not as easy as it sounds and you have to rely on brokers and
intermediaries to manage your portfolios. The execution of such trades is not only out
of your hands in most cases, but it also costs you money in fees and commissions.
Binary options trading removes many of the barriers associated with traditional
trading, the entry costs are low, you can trade options on hundreds of underlying
assets, and you have total control of when you trade and what you trade.
To put it simply, the world of traditional trading is rigid, slow, and complex, whereas the
world of binary options trading is flexible, fast, and easy.
1. When trading binary options you are not purchasing physical stock or ownership of a company.
2. Returns are fixed and pre-determined, so you know exactly how much profit you will make before
you commence trading.
3. Trades are short, normally lasting from between 10 minutes to an hour, although there are also
different binary option products, such as One-Touch, that allow you to take long positions on an
underlying asset.
4. With binary options you can profit regardless of whether an underlying asset is rising or falling in
price.
5. With binary options there are only two possible outcomes: your prediction is either correct,
whereby you make a profit, or your prediction is incorrect whereby you lose all or most of your
initial investment.
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The price that we are referring to is known as the Strike Price. This is the price that
an underlying asset holds when you commence trading. If the price of the underlying
asset is above or below the Strike Price when the trade ends (Expires), you will
make a profit and be in the money or you will lose your investment and be out of the
money depending on the prediction you made.
Heres an example using a Twitter Option. You may see that the price of Twitter stock
has been rising sharply over the last hour. Through technical analysis (we will cover
this in a later section of the Zero to Hero guide), however, you have determined the
stock price will start to fall. When you think the price has gone as high as it will go, you
can take a Put option with a Strike Price of $37.28 and an expiry time of 1 hour.
After 1 hour, when the option Expires, if the price of the Twitter stock option is below
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Call Option Predicts that an option will expire above the strike price
Put Option Predicts that an option will expire below the strike price
Strike Price The price an underlying asset holds when you commence trading
Expiry Time This is the length of time that an option is open to trade. Expiry times can range from
60 seconds to 1 week
Underlying Asset The underlying asset is the financial instrument (e.g., stock, future, commodity,
currency, index) on which a derivatives price is based.
In The Money A positive outcome (you make a profit) when a trade expires
Out Of The Money A negative outcome (you lost your investment) when the trade expires
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Chapter Two
The Mindset of
Successful Traders
1. Anxiety and excitement
2. Recognizing emotions
Chapter Two
Anxiety
Yes, you are going to experience anxiety when trading. This is normal. However,
anxiety begets anxiety and, if you are not aware of your emotional state of mind, it will
prevent you from making trading decisions based on logic and rationale.
For the most part, a traders anxiety is borne out of a fear of losing money. Nobody
likes to lose money and this is especially true for traders. This fear of losing is
compounded by the fact that you are on the clock and, depending on the way you are
trading (i.e., the binary option product you are using), you may not have any control
over the trade once it has been placed.
Before you enter the world of binary options trading it is important that you first come
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to terms with the simple fact that you will occasionally lose money, and that not every
trade will go your way. Indeed, there will be times when you hit a losing streak and
nothing seems to go your way. Once you have accepted this, you will be able to deal
with anxiety better when it does start to creep in and raise its ugly head.
Excitement
Just as anxiety can cause you to make the wrong decisions when things are not going
your way, so too, can the excitement you feel when things are going your way!
Excitement brought on by winning is like a natural high; endorphins race through your
body and you feel on top of the world. Such feelings of excitement can cause you to
invest more aggressively than you normally would in search of the biggest payouts.
Trading when on this kind of emotional high can be a surefire way of depleting your
trading account.
So, as you can see, trading when your emotions are driven by either anxiety or
excitement can, and often do, hinder your trading efforts. To trade successfully and
optimally, you have to an emotionally balanced mindset.
Recognizing emotions
Recognizing that emotions are creeping into your trading decisions is not hard. You
just have to be aware of the telltale signs that your body is giving you. The signs are
mostly the same be you in an anxious or excited mental state.
Nervous energy
Muscle tension
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Agitation
Aggression
If you recognize any of the above signs, then it is time to take a step back from your
computer and do something completely different; something that has a calming effect
on you. For some people this could be going for a walk while for others this could be
listening to music. It does not matter what you do as long as you disconnect from the
trading arena and calm down.
When anxious its good to remember this: when things are not going your way, they are
not going your way and forcing the issue will not help. Your best friend when trading
binary options will always be a calm and rational mind. This you can control. You have
no control over the movements of the global financial markets!
When excited and everything is going your way, it can be hard to step back. However, if
you find yourself making more aggressive moves than normal, then you need to check
yourself and calm down. Keep this in mind: while it is great to make big profits, it hurts
when you lose big investments. With options trading, slow and steady wins the race, so
never invest more than your account can bear to lose.
At the end of the day, binary options trading will take you on an emotional ride. There
are highs and lows, ups and downs. That said, if you let emotion dictate your trading
decisions, be prepared to be on the end of more losing trades than winning trades.
The most successful binary options traders are aware of their emotional states when
trading and they only trade when their minds are in optimal trading mode balanced,
relaxed, rational, and free from emotion.
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Chapter Three
Underyling Assets
1. Dont make life difficult
2. Indices
3. Currency pairs
4. Stocks
5. Commodities
Chapter Three
Underyling Assets
When we refer to underlying assets, we are referring to either a group of
assets commodities, indices, stocks, and Currencies or we are referring
to the individual assets that fall into one of these particular groups. For
example, Oil falls under commodities, US dollars fall under currencies, the
Dow Jones falls under indices and companies like Apple or Facebook would
fall under stocks.
When you trade binary options, you have access to literally hundreds of underlying
assets. In essence, you have the entire global market at your fingertips; for beginner
traders, this can be overwhelming. Indeed, a beginner trader might compare this
experience to that of a kid in a candy store. There is just so much choice that you dont
know where to start, so you try a bit of everything. However, trying everything without
knowledge of the underlying assets that you are trading can prove costly.
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Indices
Indices comprise a group of companies within a certain market sector or stocks that
have some form of commonality. Indices provide a way of measuring the value of a
section of the stock market. The value of an index is normally based on the priceweight of the individual components that make up the index. That said, how indices are
valued and the type of weight measurement used can vary from index to index.
The main thing to know about indices is that they dont change direction easily and the
price of an index (depending on the size) is generally only affected by major market
news and events such as rate changes, jobs reports, and housing market reports. This
makes it easier to predict index movements and to determine events that will trigger
trend shifts.
Currency pairs
Although trading currencies is normally conducted in the FOREX market, they can also
be traded via binary options, the differences being that 1) the payout is fixed when
trading currencies as binary options and 2) you dont actually buy the currencies that
you are trading.
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Trading currencies can be lots of fun if you like edge-of-your-seat trading, as the
nature of the currency marketplace is very volatile and any number of factors can
affect the price of a currency, from political to social to economic. For beginner traders
it might be best to give this market a pass until you are more experienced.
Stocks
Trading stock options is one of our favorite activities to engage in. While this market is
also prone to volatility it is also one that is prone to trends, and it is relatively easy to
determine when a company stock is likely to trend in a particular direction. Companies
are easy to track in the news and any announcements made by a company can trigger a
trend, be it an up trend or down trend. New product launches will generally trigger an
uptrend, whereas a bad earnings report will trigger a down trend. If you want to trade
stock options, you ought to be taking positions as soon as the news pertaining to that
company is made public. With stock options, it really is a case of the early bird catches
the worm (or trend).
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Commodities
The commodities market can be hard to navigate as myriad of factors can influence
commodity prices: political events (both global and local), supply and demand, weather,
and economic events, to name but a few. If you want to trade commodities you need
to watch the markets as a whole. For example, if you are interested in trading oil you
need to think both global and local. While there may be one major event that you think
will influence the price in one direction, you will find that there are lots of more minor
events that make the price move the other way. To trade commodities you really need
to have your finger on the worlds economic pulse!
If you want to trade binary options successfully, you need to be informed about the
underlying assets that you are trading and the factors that have an influence on their
price. You should also realize that because binary options have a fixed payout there is
no need to trade volatile underlying assets when you can trade less volatile underlying
assets, such as indices, or underlying assets where trends are easier to predict, such as
stock options.
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Chapter Four
Capital
Management
1. Types of Investment
2. Passive Investment and the 5/15 rule
3. Aggressive Investment and 10/30 rule
Chapter Four
Capital Management
In the last chapter, we discussed the importance of knowledge and
knowing the underlying assets that you are trading. In this chapter, we will
be discussing the importance of financial management. The fact is that no
matter how much knowledge you might have, it will be of little use if you
burn through your funds and lose your trading capital.
Firstly, before you start trading binary options, you have to understand that sometimes
you will lose money. This is par for the course when it comes to any type of investment.
Not every trade will be a winner and, when you trade, your goal should be to keep
losses to a minimum while maximizing your potential for profits. One of the ways we
do this is through capital management. You see, capital management is the foundation
to successful trading; it is the backbone of every trading strategy.
Types of investment
There are two types of investments Passive and Aggressive.
With passive investments, the risk of loss to your trading account is minimized, but
so too is your profit-making potential. This is a conservative approach to trading and
it employs what is known as the 5/15 rule. Traders who use this approach are of the
mindset that trading is a marathon and not a race.
Aggressive investment is where your trading account is exposed to greater loss than
that of passive investment. However, with aggressive investments your profit-making
potential is increased as well. Traders who use this approach want to make big profits
in the shortest amount of time, but dont think that aggressive traders throw caution to
the wind. For this type of trading to be successful you still have to manage your trading
account. The best, smartest traders will use the 10/30 rule.
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One thing to note is that although this is a very effective risk management strategy
it is not foolproof; you can still burn through the funds in your trading account. If you
find that you are on the losing end of multiple trades within a short span of time, use
some common sense and stop trading. The 5/15 rule, when used with common sense
(emotional control), ensures that you live to trade another day!
As you can imagine, if you have a limited amount of capital in your trading account,
then employing this strategy is very risky indeed. It is also worth noting that most
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traders use this strategy intermittently. It is considered best practice to trade for the
most part using the 5/10 rule.
There are many ways to reduce the risk associated with binary options trading, or any
form of trading for that matter. In our Zero to Hero guide we have already covered
some of the areas that help you reduce this risk while at the same time increasing your
potential for success. However, everything you have learned so far will do you no good
if you dont implement a capital management strategy that properly protects the funds
in your trading account.
In the next chapter we will be learning about market analysis. This is where everything
you have learned so far in the Zero to Hero guide will really start coming together.
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Chapter Five
Market Analysis
1. Fundamental and technical analyses
2. Candle Stick charts
3. The anatomy of a candlestick chart
4. Identifying trends with Candle Stick charts
5. Support and resistance
Chapter Five
Market Analysis
Market analysis helps to reduce the risk associated with trading by helping
you determine the direction that a market is moving, or will move, in. It also
gives you the data needed to help determine which trading strategies to
employ.
Without conducting some form of market analysis on an underlying asset before
placing a trade you are really just gambling, with the chances of a successful trade
being 50/50.
Fundamental analysis
When trading binary options we dont need to delve too deply into fundamental
analysis, at least not in the traditional trading sense, a little information can go a long
way when options trading. This is certainly true if you like to trade stock options!
Example If you want to trade Twitter stock options, then you dont necessarily have to conduct a lot of
fundamental analysis to predict which way the stock will move. You can profit from trading on trends that
develop after they (Twitter) make major company announcements such as product launches, earnings reports,
changes in CEO, jobs cuts, etc.
If you want to trade a commodity such as oil, you would need to dig deeper with your
analysis and consider global, local, and political factors when trying to determine its
future movement.
Trading binary options using fundamental analysis, requires that you stay up to date
on news that effects the assets you are trading, news that can have a direct impact on
price and investor sentiment, news that can cause a market trend or strong market
movement.
If making trades based on fundemntal analysis the economic calendar will be your best
friend. It contains scheduled financial news releases from across the globe. Economic
calendars are freely available online from news portals such as Reuters, Yahoo
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Finance, and Google Finance - here you will be able to access all the scheduled financial
announcments for any giving day and the impact these events are expected to have on
the market.
When trading binary options using fundamental analysis, you dont need to use
technical analysis. Nonetheless, for the best results it is highly recommended that you
at least check a chart to make sure that what is appearing in the news is playing out in
the markets. This is a more hybrid approach to fundamental analysis. You dont need to
be a technician; a basic understanding of how to read a stock chart is all that is needed.
Technical analysis
As the name suggests, this is a technical (scientific, if you will) method of determining
a market movement. This form of analysis relies heavily on tools and hard data. It
incorporates the use of past price changes and trading volume as well as the use of
different stock charts and indicators such as the Moving Average Indicator.
Charts
There are many different aspects of technical analysis; certainly too much to cover in
this piece, you could write a whole book on them! Indeed, there are many such books!
Therefore, for the purposes of this guide we will solely focus on understanding and
reading charts and chart patterns (Candle Stick charts). This is a core fundamental of
technical analysis, a bread and butter ability utilized by technical traders across the
globe, every day.
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We can see how an asset performs over a certain period (including historic data)
We can see if a market is/was bullish (rising) or bearish (falling), which indicates market sentiment
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A white or green body depicts when an underlying asset closes at a higher price than
the opening price suggesting a bullish period. A black or red body depicts where the
closing price is less than the opening suggesting a bearish period.
A wick at the top of the body depicts the highest market price during that period, and a
wick at the bottom depicts the lowest market price during that period.
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Identifying an uptrend
An uptrend signifies a bullish (rising) market, identified on a Candle Stick chart by
increasingly higher peaks and troughs.
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Identifying a downtrend
A downtrend signifies a bearish (falling) market, identified on a Candle Stick chart by
increasingly lower peaks and troughs.
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Sometimes an underlying asset will break through the support level it was holding. This
can signify the start of a new downward trend.
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Sometimes an underlying asset will break through the resistance level it was holding.
This can signify the start of a new upward trend.
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Tyr to digest the above information before moving on in the guide. In the next section
we will be delving into actual trading strategies that will take you further along the
road towards becoming a Hero trader.
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Chapter Six
Fundamental
Hybrid Strategy
1. Trend trading with the news
Chapter Six
Fundamental analysis
Fundamental analysis can be broad. It requires at the highest level that you perform
a complete 360-degree detailed analysis of an underlying asset. Depending on the
type of underlying asset, the information required to complete this analysis will differ.
However, when it comes to trading binary options, we only need to know that there is
a news event happening that can have an impact on the market. We then wait until the
news event has been released and trade with the trend that follows.
Generally, when news, events, or announcements are released into the public domain,
a trend will occur. This will be either an uptrend (positive reaction) or downtrend
(negative reaction) and it is on the basis of these trends where you begin trading.
This strategy is pretty straightforward. We refer to it as a fundamental hybrid strategy
because, although it is based on trading with news events, we confirm that the news
event is having the expected effect on market by referring to a stock chart. Thus, it has
just a slight element of technical analysis to it.
This strategy can be used when trading any underlying asset, but you will find it works
most effectively when applied to stock options.
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When preparing to employ this strategy you will need only two things:
1. An economic calendar, which you can find for free at nearly every financial news portal, as well as
right here on our blog
2. A Candle Stick chart, which also can be found for free on most financial news portals
Essentially, its the news that moves the markets. Normally the market goes up and
down and has regular fluctuations, but when major news events are released the
market tends to make a strong move in a particular direction. These sharp movements
in the market are the perfect time for the binary options trader to make money by
simply following the trend.
To employ this strategy, you dont really need to know what type of news is coming out,
you only need to know that there is a news event happening on a particular day at a
certain time. This could be news about a particular asset you are following , e.g., Apples
quarterly earnings report. It could also be another type of news that affects the market
as a whole, such as the latest unemployment report. Most of these news events are
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scheduled in advance and collected into whats called an economic calendar. Economic
calendars are available for free onlineand usually you can find them in the Wall Street
Journal. Bloomberg.com and dailyfx.com also have them, as does myfxbook.com.
Normally an economic calendar will indicate the time an event will happen, where it
will happen, the likely impact it will have on the market, the previous level, and what
is expected. If, however, the news released is different than what is expected, we
often see a strong move in the market and thats where you can take advantage of this
strategy. This strategy works well for stocks, commodities, and currencies and it works
just as well if its a news event that you are following or something that you find in the
economic calander.
What you essentially need to know is that there is an event coming up, but its unclear
whether its going to be good or bad for the market. In other words, you dont know if
the market is going to go up or down. You then schedule yourself to be available at the
time the event happens, a few minutes before the event happens, then a few minutes
afterwards in order to place the trade. You then track the event in your charting
software. There is plenty of charting software available for free online, such as whats
used in the above video from Freestockcharts.com, which allows you to track the
market in real time as the event happens.
Now, the trick of this strategy is to wait for the event to happen and then track the
market over a five-minute time period. Why five minutes? Because usually, following a
major event, there is a lot of fluctuation in the market and there will be strong moves
in either direction for a short period of time, maybe one to three minutes before the
market consolidates the direction that it will be headed in. Usually after the first five
minutes, the market direction will be established. Its at that point that you want
to wait for your first Candle Stick to close, which gives you a good signal into what
direction the market is moving. The period just after the first candlestick closes is when
you ought to move over to your binary options trading platform and buy an option
according to the direction.
Now that you are in the market, all you have to do is wait for your option to expire.
Often there is a little fluctuation, which reflect the normal moves you have in the
market, but if your options were to expire every hour, for example, once you get
into the market it would expire a good 15 to 20 pips higher, way beyond the normal
fluctuations that you have in the market.
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The effects a news event can have on the market can last up to a day or two, but you
dont want to rely on this for this strategy. What you want to do, as soon as the news
event happens, is wait for the normal fluctuations that accompany a news release,
which happen in the first three or four minutes. Then, once you get your first fiveminute Candle Stick, you get in the market. According to this strategy, the market will
continue in the same direction its been going and it will make sure your option expires
in the money. Basically the idea is that the news release pushes your binary option so
far into the money that the normal ups and downs that the market has will have no
effect on your option.
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Chapter Seven
Technical Analysis,
Strategy
1. Trend trading strategy
Chapter Seven
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to take Call or Put positions at the right time in order to take advantage of these
brief market movements. To get the best results from this strategy, take your positions
as close as possible to the expiry time.
Downward Trends
When the market is trending downwards we know its moving downwards, so look
for fluctuation periods when the market comes back up and then take Put positions
when the upward movement reaches its peak and starts to turn around and move back
down.
Upward Trends
When the market is trending upwards we know its moving upwards, so look for
fluctuation periods when the market comes down and then take a Call position when
the downward movement reaches a trough (low point) and starts to turn around and
move back up.
This trend trading strategy is perfect when trading options at 60-, or 30-minute expiry
times and it works very effectively with all underlying assets: commodities, indices,
stocks, and currency pairs. However, it does require that you confirm a trend in both
5-minute and 30-minute charts using a Moving Average Indicator. As such, you may
have to spend time reviewing different assets before you find the right set-up.
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Chapter Eight
Ready To Trade
Chapter Eight
Ready To Trade
We have finally come to the end of our Zero to Hero journey. If you have
followed all the chapters, you should now be ready to go forth and trade
like a hero trader. Before you leave, take a minute to review all that you
have learned. If you dont feel that you have fully understood a certain
chapter of the guide, then revisit that chapter and read once more.
Chapter 1 - Understanding Binary Options Trading
In this chapter we learned the basics of binary option trading:
We also learned about the jargon associated with trading: call options, put options, strike prices, and
expiry times
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All in all, you have the knowledge of a hero trader. Now, its time to put that knowledge
to use!
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As well as providing 5-star support, we also give you access to additional training in the
form of our trading academy, where you will find in-depth video tutorials that cover
every aspect of binary options trading. The academys content complements what you
have learned in this Zero to Hero guide while also providing training in additional
areas.
You can also access our official anyoption blog, where you will find in-depth articles on
all that is happening in the global markets. Stay up to date, with news, market reviews
and more. Our blog is an excellent resource for traders who want information that can
help guide their trading decisions and discover opportunities for profitable trades.
We hope you have enjoyed the anyoption.com Zero to Hero binary options trading
guide.
Happy Trading!
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