@Griffith @narada @tyler @Hoss @thegreatape This is not financial advice. This is for educational and information purposes only. Consult with a tax or investment professional. Don't believe strangers on the internet. I don't ever sell calls or puts. Ever.

Options: The right to buy or sell an investment at a specific price and date.

I'll keep it simple and focus on "right to buy", known as a "call" or long call (long means buy, short means sell). Imagine a voucher for 100 gallons of gasoline at $2 / gallon good for the 29th of March. Suppose you bought it for $110 when gasoline was $3.00 a gallon. You expect the price of gas to go up. Whoever sold it expects the price to go down.

If the price goes up to $4.00 a gallon, your coupon is now worth $190 and you could sell it for a $90. The seller of the coupon pays the difference. If gasoline prices fell to $1.95/gallon, the coupon you paid $100 is now worthless, because you could pay less than $2 a gallon without it. The seller of the coupon wins. You could also sell it beforehand, and more days means more price change potential.

The difference is stocks normally fluctuate a LOT more than gasoline, and options can play based on things like earnings, market news, rumors, etc. One contract is 100 shares, so the above example would be listed as something like:
>Gasoline Mar29 '24 2 call limit $1.1
So it's saying when it expires(Mar29 '24), what the strike price is ($2), what type of option (call), how much I ordered it for (limit = this price and no higher), (1.1x100 shares = $110 for the contract).