No one ever said that stock market trading is easy. Nothing worth doing is easy, right? If you want to be successful at anything, you need to learn how it's done.
The reason so many people fail at stock and options trading is that it's so easy to get started in. All you need to do is open an online account with a broker who supports stock market option trading and, wham, you're an instant trader, right?
No so fast. Having access to the options market is quite a bit different from knowing what to do with that access.
A stock or equity option is simply a contract giving you the right (but not the obligation) to purchase shares of stock (a Call option), or sell shares of stock (a Put option).