Making money trading options has been easy for a long time. Anyone who picked a hot stock, then bought a call or sold a put, tended to succeed.

All that could change when Donald Trump returns to Washington. His second administration is widely expected to benefit markets, but dealers and investors are likely to struggle, at least initially, to determine how tariffs and other protectionist policies will impact earnings -- and thus stock prices. Another wild card: sending illegal immigrants en masse back to where they came. As they often work for less money, they are thought to reduce inflation.

Stocks have advanced for so long that many investors have only known bull markets. Investor overconfidence -- which almost always precedes rough reckonings -- is likely even frothier than the stock market. Trump's policies could challenge that confidence and, in the process, change options market dynamics.

The long stock bull market has popularized options and made the options market tantamount to the private door used by VIPs at an exclusive club. The experience of turning small amounts of money into big paydays has made the options experience addictive for many.

All anyone has really needed to win at options were rising stock prices. Trading volumes reflect this. About 48 million options now trade each day, up from 3.6 million in 2008.

For a long time, it was possible to successfully trade options without any special knowledge of their inner workings, including implied volatility, which is so important to put and call values.

Many people don't even know that implied volatility reveals how the options market thinks a stock will behave. They simply bought and sold options to express views on stock momentum.

Now, Trump's advertised policies represent a significant departure from the globalized economy. No one really knows how tariffs might impact the earnings of multinational companies or the global supply chain. In response, stock options' implied volatility might be higher than merited and slower to decline.

That's because options dealers must learn how to value securities under a new regime. They might increase implied volatility to protect themselves by creating a margin of safety. Investors would thus be paying more money to buy options without even knowing it, which means the associated stock would have to make a sharper move than in the past for the trade to prove profitable.

In the pre-Trump era, for example, an option may have been priced with an implied volatility of 60%, which suggests the associated stock will move 3.75%, up or down, each day. But the implied volatility could be increased when Trump returns if dealers struggle to price new policies. At an 80% implied volatility level, for example, the same stock would be priced for 5% moves. (To gauge stock moves, follow the Rule of 16: Divide implied volatility by 16 and you will get the expected stock move.)

For many years, implied volatility has concerned only professional traders. Now it might impact everyone, as stocks may have to move more than people expect for option trades to prove profitable. Be sure to check volatility levels before trading because the stock may not behave exactly as anticipated. That options volatility could set a high bar that the stocks cannot surpass.

If you cannot see stock volatility on your brokerage website, ask the trading desk how to make it visible. You should have an opinion about the volatility level of your puts and calls. Is it high or low, and what does that mean for the stock price?

In 2025, options investors will likely need a greater knowledge of complexities that are hidden beneath the market's surface if they want to succeed.