The stock market is behaving in a way that makes many of us uncomfortable.  To add to that,  the overwhelming prevalence of attention grabbing headlines leaves many of us either ready to just stop trying or paralyzed into inactivity.

When things appear scary,  positive action to focus on something with substance and value helps to remove the feeling of being powerless.

Investing in the stock market involves risk.  It’s better to think about that and address it than be scared of it. 

That is why I am very interested in reading Mark Wolfingers posts on trading options in the Know Your Options column on our homepage.     Mark is very carefully providing an introduction to trading options and using conservative options trading strategies to help manage the risk in our portfolios.    I feel a lot better on Mondays/Wednesdays and Fridays when I spend some time reading Marks posts and thinking about what I can do with the information than I do reading the headlines about BP and feeling helpless.

You can find a link to the posts he has made so far here:

http://www.bivio.com/know_your_options/mail

If any of you are using these strategies in your portfolios, it would be great if you can share your experiences.     If you are using them in your club,  I’m sure there are others of us who’d like to hear how you got started.  What was your first transaction?  How did you determine what to try?   

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

Laurie Frederiksen

www.bivio.com