Are you a dabbler?

" So, you're a stock option trader?" she asked. " Not really, I just dabble a little bit". " Then here, just open your wallet and give me your money", she smiled. It might be more productive than being a dabbler", she laughed coquettishly.

That might be the only luck you'd have being a stock option "dabbler". If you are a private pilot would you "dabble" when you climb into the cockpit? If so, don't invite me to go sightseeing with you. No, if you don't take option trading seriously-no matter how often you trade-you're probably a masochist looking for someplace to hurt yourself financially. It's not that trading options is dangerous and ultra risky, it's just that trading options requires some education beyond a newspaper column or enticing stories of financial conquest. It takes some effort and understanding to trade options and option-trading hobbyists have the longevity of a fruit fly.

To learn how to successfully trade stock options requires some time and dedication to the learning process. Options aren't that difficult to learn, but the subject is a cut above investing in mutual funds or invest and hold strategies. Stock option trading is not for the hobbyist. If you're an option trading masochist, go see a Hollywood movie or read the Britney Spears autobiography.

Stock options are pretty amazing investment tools and offer tremendous flexibility for option traders. But they don't earn their potential rewards by being easy to understand. If you want to trade options, you need to be serious about them. It takes a business-like attitude to trade stock options.

First and foremost, the subject of stock options needs to be studied. Nowadays, with the tremendous advantages of online learning, anybody anywhere can learn about stock options and how to trade them. Would you start a business and invest your money without learning about the business? Of course not.

Once you have learned about the basics of trading stock options, it's time to assess if option strategies will help meet your investment goals. That suggests some sort of investing plan. Have you made an investment plan? Most

people don't and this is the first sign of hobbyism and its resulting disappointments.

What is an investment plan? Consider it like a business plan. First, you decide what your goals are and then how to reach those goals. After that, the devil is in the details. Extensive study has shown that doing a business plan first goes a long way to assuring success. Without a road map, you not only can get lost but you also don't even know where you're going.

In an investment plan, a trader not only defines goals and ways to measure progress toward those goals, but also operational strategies and procedures to select the proper option trade, what profit margins to expect, stop-loss parameters and how to exit a trade. Almost as important is the rules for money management and what to do if the option trading system is not producing the results expected.

Needless to say, doing an investment plan is a subject in itself. The point is, if you aren't willing to spend the time to approach options trading with a more than casual level of commitment, your chances of having a positive experience will be nil; only momentary thrills as you toss the dice and cross your fingers. Option traders are not gamblers, they define high probability trades and execute them where they find them. Option traders don't do things without weighing the odds, and a real option trader would never be a hobbyist. Likewise, a hobbyist will never be a trader.