Best Options Trading Courses

Options allow you to play the trading game without assuming a ton of risk. Whether you want to trade options as a part-time hobby or to turn a substantial profit, an online course is worth considering. You can enroll for free or at a price that fits your budget.

Benzinga is here to help you find the best options trading courses. 

The Best Options Trading Courses 

• Best for Diverse Educational Tools: Benzinga Options School
• Best for Active Traders: Bullseye Trades With Jeff Bishop
• Best for Specialty Information: Calls or Puts
• Best for Trading Tips: Mindful Trader

The best way to learn options trading is to study the markets, take a class and use that information in real time. While an options trading course for beginners is a good place to start, you might also look into other option trading courses that review intermediate and advanced strategies. Look through these options trading courses for beginners, weighing the price, content and your learning style. When you get the perfect fit, the class will help you acquire solid foundational knowledge to build a trading strategy.

1. Best for Diverse Educational Tools: Benzinga Options School

Now accepting new students.

A new type of educational product to help new traders succeed:

• College-style courses on the foundations of successful trading
• Active chat room with live trading
• Daily web sessions & watchlist building
• Trade ideas
• Homework + quizzes to track your progress

Every option trader should start off with single leg options. This class focuses on how to use simple single leg option strategies to generate income. This class will explain how trading options is unique versus buying and selling stocks, along with what are option calls and puts. Get started.

2. Best for Active Traders: Bullseye Trades With Jeff Bishop

Price: $139 per year

Learning how to trade options can be treacherous as the market is complex and each new trade has its own pitfalls, pros and cons. When you sign up for the Bullseye Trades service from Jeff Bishop at RagingBull, you’re learning from a 20-year veteran of the industry who offers insight, alerts and explanations of how the options market can benefit you. 

With the Bullseye Trades service, you get:

• A weekly options alert when the market opens on Monday
• Live access to the walkthrough of that trade alert
• The desired entry price
• Other options contracts Jeff has his eye on
• Target and stop loss plans for each trade
• Access to the Launchpad Training Series where you can review dozens of videos on a range of important trading topics

With the Launchpad Series, you can learn:

• The basics of technical analysis
• Options basics
• Momentum stock information
• How to trade large cap stocks and more

Just check out the page and see some recent winners, join at any time and make the most of your options investments.

3. Best for Specialty Information: Calls or Puts

Calls or Puts is focused on developing the trading world's leading data platform through real-time option sweeps. It provides state-of-the-art filters that remove useless sweeps, show you the most traded options and give you with an insight never seen before in the institutional world. It features a straight-to-the-point platform unlike any other.

Sweeps are smart-routed orders that go across multiple exchanges to fill orders quickly, and this platform can provide you with that vision. With a single click, you can easily select and filter what you want to see to help you execute that trade within seconds to capture all the profit you would have missed. You'll have the tools to make decisions with fact-based data and aggressive trade setups.

Monthly, quarterly and annual plans are available.

Enroll now.

4. Best for Trading Tips: Mindful Trader

Price: $47 per month

What are the best stocks for options trading? Mindful Trader provides stock picks and options picks, but it can also teach you the trading strategy behind them. The Mindful Trader approach is based on data and statistics. Because the concepts are a bit more nuanced, you can think of this as one of the more lightweight yet advanced options trading courses.

Eric is the “Mindful Trader” who owns and operates the platform. He did several years of quantitative stock market research, and the result is a trading system that may have generated a 181% annual return according to a 20-year back test. In addition to that, Eric is a Stanford grad who spent $200k and several years of his life doing quantitative research about which trading strategies could actually work.

The Mindful Trader posts his watch list each day and teaches the exact trading strategies he uses to trade stocks and options. The whole package helps you learn how to make swing trades that have a back-tested statistical edge. No prior trading experience is required.

What Makes an Options Trading Course Great? 

A professional options trading course must tick several boxes if you want to get true value from its content. From options trading for beginners to advanced stock trading courses, you need to see a complete overview of the process that offers several perks. The best courses to learn about options trades meet these criteria: 

• Includes Real-Life Simulations: Be it a novice or advanced options trading course, you want a class that conveys key concepts through real-life simulations. It’s also ideal if you can replicate these strategies through paper trading platforms. Trading courses should also explain these concepts in detail. While it’s nice to see a few charts a short explanation, there are option scenarios that require a blog-length walkthrough. This also means that you get scenarios with specific call options, put options and strike prices that you know will likely occur in the real world.

• Self-Paced: Don’t settle for a course that imposes strict deadlines. Only consider options courses that are self-paced so you can work through the material when it’s convenient. The best day trading courses allow lifetime access so that you can review your resources and continue your education long after completing the final assessment. Ultimately, the best way to learn options trading is to teach yourself with the instructor’s/course’s assistance. The product has to help you—not hurry you.

• Affordable: There are free and paid options trading courses to choose from. If you’re just getting started, give the more affordable classes a try and move on to higher ticket items if you want additional insight into options trading. A great options trading strategy cannot make up for overpaying for your class.
• Specialty information: The best options courses not only use reinforcement learning to help you retain information, but they offer specialty information on things like algorithmic trading, technical analysis, naked options, unique investment products in this space, market analysis techniques, etc.

Best Broker for Shorting Above $25K

You need a broker to start trading, and Cobra Trading is among the best brokers for shorting above $25,000. And Cobra offers 4 different platforms, so you don't need to shop around before trading stock options. You can find an option contract, operate as a day trader, maintain a larger account, research price action and complete as many options trades as you need. The broker has been in business for nearly 20 years and maintains the perks of a small firm.

Cobra offers:

• Taxable individual and joint accounts
• Non-taxable IRAs
• Business accounts
• Trust accounts
• Margin accounts

In these accounts, you can trade in stocks, options, and ETFs. Stocks include penny and OTC securities. Futures and forex can be traded in a separate account with Cobra’s affiliate Venom.

Cobra Trading does require a $25,000 deposit to open an account. Then the broker-dealer requires $10,000 to keep the account going.

Find the Best Course to Learn Options Trading

Options trading for beginners need not seem impossible. Take a look at our list of recommendations and select a course that fits your needs and budget. When you learn how to trad stock options, you are opening your portfolio to a whole new world of diversity. Plus, you gain independence so that you can choose the best stock options to buy, increase your net worth and build wealth.

You won’t regret your decision as these options trading courses provide top-notch instruction that’s both interactive and includes real-world simulations. You can set realistic investing goals, learn about risk management, study the options market and come to understand a range of investment products that can complete your portfolio.

Frequently Asked Questions