Fair value is, in essence, the market price of the basket of stocks under consideration. For example, the fair value for the S&P 500 that you see quoted every morning consists of the market price of all 500 stocks that make up the S&P 500, adjusted for the opportunity cost (interest on the purchase cost) and dividends received. This number is compared to the price of the S&P futures contracts. So if the futures are trading higher than fair value before the stock market opens, you might expect the S&P 500 to trade higher at the open. CNBC publishes the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P futures compared to their fair values to give investors an idea of what to expect in the upcoming trading day. Of course, the market's trading direction can change quickly after the market opens.

Placing stop losses on your trades is essential to your success. But where you place that stop loss trigger is largely a personal style issue. When I use covered calls, I place my stop loss contingency order about 7-8% below the stock purchase price. This will normally hold one's loss to within 5-6%. With a diagonal spread, the long call is your surrogate for the stock position, but with less capital at risk. If you use an 8% stop loss based upon the stock price, that will correspond to a much larger loss on your diagonal spread, probably of the order of 50%. However, that is typical of options trading - the leverage works both ways. If you try to place a tighter stop loss, the probability of being whipsawed out of the trade increases, i.e., intraday price movement trips your contingency order and then the stock trades back up. In any case, be sure you have learned how to place OTO (One Triggers the Other) contingency orders with your broker. In these orders, you select a stock price as the trigger for an order to buy to close the short call; that order's execution triggers a second order to sell to close the long call. Contingency orders help us maintain good trading discipline.

Iron butterfly and iron condor spreads are actually at extreme ends of the same position. You form an iron butterfly by selling a call spread and selling a put spread where the short strikes are at the same price. The iron condor is also formed by selling a call spread and a put spread, but both spreads are far OTM (out of the money). If I pull the short strikes of my iron butterfly apart by $10 or $20, some would say this is now a condor. I still call it a butterfly, but that is just a semantics argument. I refer to positions as iron condors where the spreads are far OTM, whereas a position where the short strikes are "closer to the fire", I would consider to be an iron butterfly, even if the short strikes are not at the same price.

The Qs are an ETF made up of the 100 largest NASDAQ stocks (ticker symbol = QQQQ). In general, SPY is a more broadly diversified ETF whereas QQQQ is largely high tech stocks. Consequently, QQQQ tends to rise faster in bull markets but also fall faster in bear markets.

Yes and no. You can create a position by selling put options in such a way as to be exposed to large losses if the stock declines suddenly. However, it is possible to sell puts to either generate monthly income or to build a stock position in your portfolio at a discounted price; and this can be done safely with the use of contingency orders placed with your broker.

Bollinger bands are lines drawn on a stock chart at plus or minus two standard deviations from the stock price. The theory is that when a stock price is near the upper range of the bands, it is more likely to move down rather than upward, and vice versa. Bollinger Bands are one of the more common technical indicators used to evaluate stock price movements on a chart.

Options can be used in very conservative ways to protect or "insure" your stock portfolio. They can also be used in conservative strategies to generate a steady monthly income. But options can also be used for highly leveraged speculation on the movement of particular stocks or the entire market. People have gained and lost large amounts of money speculating with options. Dr. Duke teaches you how to use options in very conservative ways.

ETFs, or exchange traded funds are essentially trusts made up of the stocks representing that industry sector, e.g. the SPDRs (pronounced, “spiders”, ticker symbol SPY) are made up of the Standard and Poors 500 stocks. ETFs are superior to mutual funds in several respects; ETFs have less overhead expense (less than 0.5% compared to mutual fund fees as high as 5%); you can buy and sell ETFs anytime the market is open for the standard stock trading commission; the ETF holder does not incur capital or short term gains unless he decides to sell the ETF; you can use options to protect or augment the gains on ETFs.

In general, the covered call strategy requires the underlying stock to either increase in value or trade sideways. Since most stocks have been steadily declining recently, this may be a difficult criterion to meet in this market. However, if you did find a suitable candidate, the advantage of this volatile market is that the premiums of the call options are quite high and this increases the returns of this strategy.