INTRINSIC: Using LEAPS to Retire Early

I have been a stock investor since mid 1990's with reasonable success. My annualized return is about 31% over the past 5 years, which beats any index by a wide margin. Picking stocks and beating the market, to me, has been more than just investment. It is a game that I love to win. My bookshelves are filled with investment books, including some that I never finished after reading just a few chapters. But when I came across this book, I could not stop reading it. I finished it over one weekend. I could only wish that I had discovered the LEAP strategy introduced in this book sooner. I usually stayed away from any options, except for covered calls, covered puts, and collar. I always considered any naked options simply as speculative and even perhaps stupid gambles. However this book completely changed my view towards LEAP. It convinced me that DITM LEAP is indeed a legit and efficient investment mechanism. The book is written for all levels of readers. If you are new to options, it provides a very easy to read tutorial. If you are already experienced with options fundamental, you can jump to the chapters covering the DITM LEAP strategy and still find the content very intriguing. It's also written for different styles of readers. If you are a math or number person like me, you will find this book very logical. If you are less mathematical but more intuitive, you will still find those examples easy to follow. Regardless whether you consider yourself a growth or value investor, the DITM LEAP strategy simply makes sense. If you prefer ETF, the DIMP LEAP strategy introduced by this book works as well, perhaps even works better. As an experienced investor, my stock selection is based on the fundamental while my timing is often contrarian. I often load up during a market crash and I never chase the high flyers. I often say that I do not care if I miss many hot stocks. There are so many of them. I only need the one that I buy is a great one. If you have a similar style in investing, you will find the DITM LEAP strategy described in this book the most valuable. The strategy is not about helping you with more speculative success. Instead it is more about rewarding you with higher annualized return with the same stock that you pick based on its long term fundamental. This is about making your good investment better. This is not about trading speculative options. In short, I highly recommend this book and encourage any serious stock investors to read it. The DITM LEAP strategy articulated in this book is both insightful and practical. It simply makes sense!

The book describes his strategy, about how to leverage up (relatively safely) when going long (or short) on certain stocks, using options. Generally speaking it’s sensible advice to newbies and carries useful information about options trading and the options market. I learned things, and got to absorb some of his experience, and it’s easily worth the reading time if you just got the idea of long term options trading. There are some statements or lack of nuance in the book that I’d like to quibble with. One example: The author suggested the act of being patient and waiting for an investment to go positive. Patience is good, but the strategy of buying a stock and waiting for, in my words, volatility to take it positive doesn’t really work. The author also described a case where he should have sold when ahead instead of waiting for more gains. The problem is, if you keep buying securities and sell, for example, when they go 2% higher, then eventually you’ll get one that never goes higher. You might even construct an argument that the author doesn’t really offer a good strategy, because in a prolonged downturn your options would get wiped out. Imagine starting this strategy in 1920. Everything is fine, until 1932, when your last options purchased before the crash are worthless. Nowadays, the Fed might have a more inflationary response. So running this strategy is partly a bet on Fed policy. So maybe he was picking up hundred dollar bills in front of a steamroller. I don’t remember an analysis of such risks. That doesn’t diminish the usefulness of the book. You’re responsible for making sure you have a good balance between LEAPS and other securities. The book makes no secret of the fact that for this book to be useful, you do have to pick the right stocks. I can tell you that reading this book altered my investment strategy a bit and it paid for its time to read. This is a review from somebody who was new to options, who had some opinions about certain stocks, who wanted to put a small chunk of his portfolio in long term options. Edit 05/27/2022: In response to the other reviewer's comment, "I sincerely hope no one bought this book in late 2021 and followed entered any LEAPS plays on tech companies.": I did! But they were puts.

Fabulous book with tons of detail! I was originally looking for a book to understand options better, after reading one on the fundamentals. Let me tell you, I was blown away by the tremendous amount of information compacted into THIS one book. Most valuable knowledge about investing in the stock market that I have read, and I have read A LOT!! THE best way a long term investor can significantly increase their investments, while minimizing risk, is by using LEAPS! This is a way of trading options that I never knew about before, and it was beyond enlightening. I’m generally a risk adverse person and try to make “safe” investments, but also am drawn to more volatile stocks because of the high reward. LEAPS is a perfect method of trading options for me! After reading this, I’m confident my ROI will be so much greater with the knowledge at hand. The author goes into significant detail with numerous examples, and tells about his own personal experiences which made the strategies he described comprehendible. The book was inspirational and gave me the tools to accelerate the growth on my investments, so I too, can retire early!!! The author truly is living his dream and lays it out perfectly how you can too. In fact, I bought a few more books for friends and family members to share the “wealth”. Best gift I have ever given myself. :). This book is an absolute gem and I’m so glad I found it!

Me ha gustado mucho cómo aborda el autor la estrategia de operar con opciones de fecha de expiración lejana. El tema en concreto empieza a analizarlo hacia la mitad del libro y, hasta casi el final, desarrolla la estrategia. Quizás sobra el apéndice de enlaces de interés y libros.

The book's core value to me is about deep in the money LEAP call options. About half of the book is irrelevant.

Nice and insightful, although the reader should keep in mind that the strategy explained in this book was very effective in a multi-year bull market with pretty short bearish periods. Towards the end, some sections were just copy-pasted which felt off. Also I would have loved more insights on how companies were selected, or how positions were managed throughout the years (reallocations, rolling, etc). The core concept could be (and is, in the book) condensed down to a few sentences, though simple doesn't mean bad. Solid read overall!

This book was a great read. Options are a complicated topic to explain and I think Mike made it as easy to understand as can be possible. The thing that I like about this book is that it teaches the art of long term investing coupled with options. Many options traders lose sight of that and I'm glad Mike elaborates on that. In addition, the book is very practical in nature. Provides you with a lot of examples so that the strategies can stick. I've been investing since 2012 and trading options for the past 4 years, but this is a great addition to my skillset. Highly recommend!

basic overview of author's experience and success on trading call options in the manner of passing on his options investing experience to his kids like all investing books too much or not enough in some places overall a good overview or recap of actual trades good book if you're into trading calls already and want to teach someone what you do in addition to yakking out loud about time and intrinsic values in summary you wanna to to pay as little as possible for time value It really is about trading time for money, which had a different meaning for me before retirement. That is .... retirement means i can stop trading my time for money I recommend this book