Knowing how options combinations work is essential for any financial professional, and spreads are a bit of a headache–that is, if you study them the way most people do. That can lead to costly mistakes, whereas understanding why these things exist and what they do won’t only help you master options questions on tests and at work, but it will also make you a much savvier investor and financial analyst.

Call and put options have ruined lives–they are, after all, some of the “weapons of mass destruction” that Warren Buffett famously called financial derivatives. The ruination of these powerful financial tools often comes from misunderstanding the logic behind them–which is surprising, because they are some of the most logical assets in financial markets! All it takes is a bit of time and thought to see the logic hiding behind them.

If you want to make a lot of money on Wall Street, you have to be good with numbers, right? Wrong. You have to have the skills needed to identify value, but are those math skills? It turns out that the real value in value creation on Wall Street isn’t about complex math but something else entirely.

Want to know how you can help clients avoid scams, make a lot of money helping them get richer, and avoid the rat race of the stock market? Many would be surprised to learn that Wall Street is a lot more than stocks, and smart analysts who can identify scams can find themselves getting a huge book of clients very quickly–as long as they know where to look.

Even if you think insurance is boring, you shouldn’t. The unfairness in insurance regulation boring. Why do regulators favor low-information, ill-informed investors? What does this say about our financial system, and about America? Believe it or not, examining the way variable annuities are treated by FINRA tells us a lot about fundamental theories in America about customer rights and duty of care–and it also tells us that America is quite different from many other countries in this respect.

How do you recommend a stock? Believe it or not, the rules on this are actually very strict–and you can get in trouble for doing it incorrectly.