Exploiting Earnings Volatility: An Innovative New Approach to Evaluating, Optimizing, and Trading Option Strategies to Profit from Earnings Announcements Paperback – April 8, 2015

The options market is an interesting thing. One can go from rags, to riches, and back again if he or she lacks a disciplined, strong theoretical framework for success.Brian Johnson's latest book offers a thoroughly researched, accessible discourse that allows the reader to take advantage of the inevitable changes in Implied Volatility (or "price" of an option contract), and other phenomena that occur uniquely around earnings announcements. This information is particularly important, now that options on many stocks are available on a weekly, rather than just a monthly, basis. I actually shudder at some of the mistakes that I have made trading options around expirations, and wish that I had read this book –it certainly would've saved me money!Johnson's style is detailed, but readable. His spreadsheets are both easy to use and useful. And, I myself, as an individual investor, truly get the feeling that he is on the side of "the little guy."I truly mean it when I praise and thank Johnson for helping the individual investor...

Really unique take on volatility going into earnings events. However, I found the included spreadsheets very difficult to use. At minimum, you will want to be running MS Windows, have Excel, subscribe to OptionVue and likely subscribe to other (not his) services he mentions in the book. Combined with a fair bit of work on your part, you can then construct a very custom options trade on a stock with upcoming earnings.

Through original research, Brian delivers a comprehensive framework for trading options on equities around earnings announcements in this book. After using the spreadsheets that came with the book, I've identified both past trades and trades in real-time. My results are very promising so far.To potential buyers and practitioners:You won't need the math skills or Excel skills to reconstruct Brian's spreadsheets, but you will need the comprehension skills and background on implied volatility to accurately put the framework to work for you. I did have to re-read some sections many times, but I feel I've gained that comprehension. If you are anyone besides an advanced options trader, I would caution that you may need weeks to fully digest the framework.The framework in this book is ready to go. You'll need a reliable source of historical data and possibly the skills to reformat that data in Excel if you aren't using Optionvue, but Brian explains the data format needed so you can reliably use the spreadsheets.

Too complicated; I don't think you need to have so many equations and analysis to make money. I've been trading for 6 years and never had used so many complicated calculations. But to each its own.

This book examines how to profit from volatility during the earnings of stocks. The book relies heavily on using two spread sheets although I had difficulty finding the spread sheets till the very end of the book.First, the introduction does not say where the spreadsheets are, and I searched the author's website to try and find them. Only at the end of the book did I find a link to the spreadsheets which were hidden in the appendix section. I really have no idea why the author does not link to the spread sheets up front since the book is completely reliant upon them. The spreadsheets are password protected and seem intentionally hidden. Yet, appendix section also has affiliate links to some sites the author recommends and these sites are also cross promoting the book. This left a bad impression that the author is so secretive of these spread sheets, but wants you to sign up for affiliate links through him.The content itself is heavily math based on figuring out which stocks have a big discrepancy in volatility surrounding earnings reports. I found the approach to be complex in both the math and the reliance on the spread sheets. Since I was not able to find the spread sheets till the end of the book, it made following along difficult. This strategy is definitely not meant for novices, and you should already have experience trading options around earnings for this to be of much use.I found the big picture of the strategy to be completely missing. There was almost nothing about position sizing, how many companies to trade during earnings season, or what to do with the capital between earnings reports. I was also left wondering since the earnings report only happen 4 times a year, what will the expected profits be like.There was not a single graph or chart showing the author's performance using these strategies. Additionally, the book relies on three different paid sites which have a cross promotion with the book, and the author is hoping you will use his affiliate links.

Most books about trading are filled with generic ideas which might sound interesting in theory or but offer very little practical advice. I am delighted to report that this is definitely not the case for Brian Johnson's book. The author covers the material with the right mix of theory and practice so that every reader can get as much from this book as her or she is capable of absorbing at any given time. Granted, in order to make the most of Exploiting Earnings Volatility, it is essential to approach it as study material, rather than reading material, therefore requiring some investment of time in order to become proficient with the computational tools provided as free download by the author. In my experience, the author is very responsive and has helped me troubleshooting some Mac-related technical glitches. I will update this review as I progress in grasping the material covered in the book. Highly recommended.