[Nick1984]

Learn the Greeks! Thats probabbly one of the things options users would say. Look into Black Scholes cause its an options pricing model that actually won them a model. You can create ceratin spreads with options to capture moves in different types of market conditions. You can take bull spreads, bear spreads, butterflies, straddles etc... It's much more complicated than futures and its more pricey cause you have to pay the premium to buy a contract.

You could play a very risky game and write naked puts or calls and rake in some quick cash but thats a highly risky game and you'll probabbly loose out on that.

For hedging personally I think futures are better! If your stock matches the movements of an index very closely than hedge with a futures contract! Options may be a bit easier to use for hedging however depending on the size of the portfolio you want to hedge.