Dean Cross

Dean Cross has been trading the markets since the 1990s — long before algorithmic trading, zero-commission brokers, and options education YouTube channels made the learning curve feel shorter than it actually is. What he learned, he learned the hard way: through real trades, real losses, and the kind of market education that only comes from having actual money on the line.

Over three decades of active trading, Dean developed a straightforward philosophy that runs through everything he writes: understand what you're doing before you do it, manage your risk before you manage your profits, and never let the market teach you a lesson you could have learned from a book.

That philosophy is what makes his books different.

Dean doesn't write to impress you with complexity or seduce you with promises of easy money. He writes to give you an honest, complete picture of each strategy — what works, what doesn't, when to use it, and when to walk away. If a technical indicator has limitations, he'll tell you. If an options strategy carries risks most books gloss over, you'll find them clearly explained here. His readers consistently say the same thing: this is the first book that told me the truth.

His catalog covers three areas he has traded personally for decades.

The first is technical analysis — specifically the indicators serious traders actually use: moving averages, MACD, the TTM Squeeze, and the Fibonacci levels that fail far more often than anyone selling them admits. These aren't theoretical tools for Dean. They're part of a real trading process refined over thirty years of watching markets open and close.

The second is options strategy, taken one strategy at a time and taken to the ground. The Options Strategy Series — Assigned, Called Away and Hedged — is written for the investor who would rather understand a single mechanism completely than collect a dozen he only half understands. Each title names the catch as plainly as the reward, on the principle that a strategy you half understand is a strategy that will eventually surprise you.

The third is the problem the first two ultimately serve: turning a finished nest egg into income that lasts. The Retirement Income Series comes at it from two directions. Harvested takes the options route — covered calls and cash-secured puts, run conservatively, inside an IRA or Roth. Built takes the ownership route — dividend-paying businesses chosen on whether the company can actually afford to keep paying. Two different mechanisms, one question: where does a monthly paycheck come from once the paychecks have stopped, and what makes it hold?

Dean writes for the investor who has worked a lifetime to build a nest egg and has no interest in losing it to a strategy they didn't fully understand.

Risk management is not a chapter in Dean's books. It's the foundation every other chapter is built on. Whether you're reading about a technical indicator, an options strategy or a dividend screen, you'll find that Dean consistently asks the same question before anything else: what can go wrong, and how do you protect yourself when it does?

He began writing to fill a gap he kept encountering in the market education space — books that were either too shallow to be useful or too complex to be readable, and almost never honest about the full picture. His goal with every title is simple: give the reader what they actually need to invest with confidence, not just what sounds good on a cover.

When he's not writing or trading, Dean can usually be found thinking about the next book.