5KOptions

Sell & Sell Short, one of Dr. Alexander Elder's books, outlines how he uses MS Outlook as his trading journal. I know many people are not fans of MS but Outlook works. Many successful companies organize all their activities using Outlook including mine.

I've read the book. Bought 3 copies so far for friends and family. I recommended reading this book first before any other. Then I have a list to follow if you are still interested in trading. I am by no means a expert on trading books but of the 20 plus I've read this is the single best overall.

Read this book first, simple, direct, starts at the beginning... buy a stock then what... Trade Your Way to Wealth, by Bill Kraft ISBN 978-0-470-12979-1. Then read this one, Come into My Trading Room, by Alexander Elder ISBN 0471225347. Elder will help you get control of yourself and help you keep this simple. The others mentioned are good also.

Think or Swim is the best trading platform for options available today. I've traded with CyberTrader, ScotTrade, Fidelity, OptionXpress, TradeStation... You will want the desktop, downloaded software. The web based version is good but the speed compared to the desktop version will kill you, but when away from your computer it will do. Stock trading is very simple also as you can create an order from any screen you are on, buy or sell, opening or closing. You can trade any product from an account. The one warning I'll give is the first time you open it up you may not know what to do with what you see. They have numerous toutorials which help. You can also use a "paper account" to practice and learn to use it and test your trading ideas before risking money. It's designed by and for porfessional floor traders and they don't look at trading like we do. They also offer free or almost free classes. It has great charting with all the usual indicators. The charts are "detachable" and you can have many open at once and create trades right off the chart. They have a trade desk you can call for help and they will tell you what they think about a trade your are in or thinking about entering. They can and will give advise, as all are qualified and traders themselves. You will have to begin opening an account to get a trial of the software. This can be done all over the net. Check it out you won't be disappointed. They will match or beat anyone's pricing except IB and those like IB.