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Taking advantage of market data can help traders anticipate where a trade may go. This video discusses the interaction between SPX index options expiration and S&P 500 futures. The SPX options open interest tonight may dictate how futures trade at the open in the morning on Friday. As off-the-floor traders in our HFT chatroom, we use this data to trade the S&P emini futures during the opening hour. The data from OCC shows huge open interest at 1275.00 strike on SPX January options. Meanwhile, the S&P cash closed at 1280. There is a 5 point spread that's expected tomorrow morning for the market open.
The Admiral, a former CBOE designated primary market maker, runs through a checklist to both master various option strategies and expertly analyze the market to determine which option strategy is the best for a particular stock at a particular time. Having gone through 8 Options Education Sessions in this "Trade Options Like a DPM" series, students should have enough tools in their toolbox to take advantage of any stock move and the possible scenarios.
An options strategy in which an investor simultaneously holds an unequal number of long and short positions. A commonly used ratio is two short options for every option purchased. A ratio spread would be achieved by purchasing one call option with a strike price of $45 and writing two call options with a strike price of $50. This would allow the investor to capture a gain on a small upward move in the underlying stock's price. However, any move past the higher strike price ($50) of the written options will cause this position to lose value. Theoretically, an extremely large increase in the underlying stock's price can cause an unlimited loss to the investor due to the extra short call.
ABOUT "THE ADMIRAL"
The featured speaker, whom we affectionately call "The Admiral," was a Designated Primary Market Maker (DPM) on the floor of the CBOE for five years. Although we're not using his real name (so don't ask!) suffice it to say that we consider him to be one of the most knowledgeable option traders on the planet. As a floor trader in the '80s and '90s he did the opening options rotation for 5-25 stocks the old-fashioned open outcry way—meaning he opened each option strike price for each of these stocks within the first 30 minutes of trading, both calls and puts.
That meant he had to price more than 500 option strikes, plus as a market maker he traded and kept the markets current. As a DPM, technology brought forth auto-quoting of option series, but pricing of those quotes remained his responsibility. Trading 1 million shares of stocks and 50,000 options contracts was a normal day for him. In 27 years at CBOE, he has traded through the crash of '87, the smaller crash of '90 and the tech bubble in 2000. He has traded three-digit volatility and seen every possible market environment imaginable. So, if you're going to learn options, it might as well be from the very best.
Volatility is a key component of any options strategy. Understanding volatility can mean the success of a trade or a total disaster, painting oneself into a corner. In this excerpt from the Q&A session of "Ratio Spreads," the Admiral gives several tips and experienced insights on how to analyze volatility and some common traps. Also, he explains how news and seasonality may affect volatility in ways that is unintuitive, debunking some options trading myths that may have endangered traders.
An options strategy in which an investor simultaneously holds an unequal number of long and short positions. A commonly used ratio is two short options for every option purchased. A ratio spread would be achieved by purchasing one call option with a strike price of $45 and writing two call options with a strike price of $50. This would allow the investor to capture a gain on a small upward move in the underlying stock's price. However, any move past the higher strike price ($50) of the written options will cause this position to lose value. Theoretically, an extremely large increase in the underlying stock's price can cause an unlimited loss to the investor due to the extra short call.
ABOUT "THE ADMIRAL"
The featured speaker, whom we affectionately call "The Admiral," was a Designated Primary Market Maker (DPM) on the floor of the CBOE for five years. Although we're not using his real name (so don't ask!) suffice it to say that we consider him to be one of the most knowledgeable option traders on the planet. As a floor trader in the '80s and '90s he did the opening options rotation for 5-25 stocks the old-fashioned open outcry way—meaning he opened each option strike price for each of these stocks within the first 30 minutes of trading, both calls and puts.
That meant he had to price more than 500 option strikes, plus as a market maker he traded and kept the markets current. As a DPM, technology brought forth auto-quoting of option series, but pricing of those quotes remained his responsibility. Trading 1 million shares of stocks and 50,000 options contracts was a normal day for him. In 27 years at CBOE, he has traded through the crash of '87, the smaller crash of '90 and the tech bubble in 2000. He has traded three-digit volatility and seen every possible market environment imaginable. So, if you're going to learn options, it might as well be from the very best.
This clip from the latest "Trade Options like a DPM" Options Education Class with a full lesson on Call Ratio Spreads. As with the "Backspreads" class, the Admiral teaches the details of putting together a Ratio Spread Options Strategy by doing an example from beginning to end. The Admiral starts with the basic concepts for a Ratio Spread, breaking out each Options Greek variable. Then, he analyzes the various scenarios for stock price movement and volatility to determine if Ratio Spreads are a good strategy choice for this particular stock at this particular time. The stock in this example was Amgen (AMGN).
An options strategy in which an investor simultaneously holds an unequal number of long and short positions. A commonly used ratio is two short options for every option purchased. A ratio spread would be achieved by purchasing one call option with a strike price of $45 and writing two call options with a strike price of $50. This would allow the investor to capture a gain on a small upward move in the underlying stock's price. However, any move past the higher strike price ($50) of the written options will cause this position to lose value. Theoretically, an extremely large increase in the underlying stock's price can cause an unlimited loss to the investor due to the extra short call.
ABOUT "THE ADMIRAL"
The featured speaker, whom we affectionately call "The Admiral," was a Designated Primary Market Maker (DPM) on the floor of the CBOE for five years. Although we're not using his real name (so don't ask!) suffice it to say that we consider him to be one of the most knowledgeable option traders on the planet. As a floor trader in the '80s and '90s he did the opening options rotation for 5-25 stocks the old-fashioned open outcry way—meaning he opened each option strike price for each of these stocks within the first 30 minutes of trading, both calls and puts.
That meant he had to price more than 500 option strikes, plus as a market maker he traded and kept the markets current. As a DPM, technology brought forth auto-quoting of option series, but pricing of those quotes remained his responsibility. Trading 1 million shares of stocks and 50,000 options contracts was a normal day for him. In 27 years at CBOE, he has traded through the crash of '87, the smaller crash of '90 and the tech bubble in 2000. He has traded three-digit volatility and seen every possible market environment imaginable. So, if you're going to learn options, it might as well be from the very best.
Fari Hamzei is frequently quoted by Benzinga, StocksNJocks, CNBC, Bloomberg, FoxBusiness and RealMoney. His book, Master Traders: Strategies for Superior Returns from Today’s Top Traders, published by John Wiley & Sons in October 2006, immediately become a bestseller on Amazon trading books space. Three times, Fari has been the featured advisor on Timer Digest monthly newsletter when each time he was ranked FIRST in the Nation for the previous 12 months among 150 market timers. More recently, in August 2015, he was ranked SECOND in the country, then moved to FIRST place in October 2015. In December, he briefly was ranked SECOND and since first week of January 2016, he has been ranked ONE in the Nation till present.
From 2006 to 2011, once or twice per year, Fari has taught his Proprietary Sentiment Indicators at The Options Institute of CBOE. And, he often shares his methodology on CBOE Options Hub.
Fari is a graduate of Princeton University with a BSE degree in financial engineering, and studied financial derivatives with Options Theory luminaries such Jack Shelton, Ed Thorp, Robert Geske, Richard Roll & Robert Whaley (inventor of original VIX) at UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. He was manager of the Operations Analysis Dept and then was promoted to the director of Strategic Planning at Northrop Grumman Corporation's Aircraft Group after being recruited only 5 years earlier from college. He also served for eleven years on the Board of Directors of Electronic Clearing House (ECHO), now an Intuit company (INTU). Read Fari's Recent Posts Steve Shobin, the former Vice Chairman & Chief Investment Strategist for AmeriCap Advisers, LLC, is a veteran of more than four decades on Wall Street where he was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, Inc. and a First Vice President at Merrill Lynch. Mr. Shobin was a senior member of the research divisions at both firms. During his tenure, he developed unique methodologies for projecting the long term trends of stocks and industry groups, incorporating various techniques for controlling risk. Mr. Shobin has advised some of the world's largest mutual funds, hedge funds, and institutional investment managers on stock selection and portfolio structuring. Steve has been a member of the Institutional Investor All-American Research Team in 1997, 1998, 1999, and received a #1 ranking in the year 2000 just as he was leaving Lehman to join AmeriCap Advisers.
Jason Goepfert is President of sentimenTrader.com. He has been trading stocks, stock and index options, index futures, currencies and commodities for over 15 years. He holds several securities licenses and has most recently managed the operations of a $3B hedge fund and top-10 online brokerage (Gomez rankings). Jason founded sentimenTrader in 1998, and began a web presence in 2001. Currently, the site has subscribers in all 50 states and 40+ foreign countries. In 2004, Jason was awarded the prestigious Charles H. Dow Award for Excellence in Technical Analysis by Market Technicians Association. Read Jason's Recent PostsJeffrey Spotts, CMT, a contributor to Master Traders, is a hedge fund manager for Prophecy Funds. He has more than 16 years of experience providing portfolio management to corporations, institutions, and high-net-worth clients. He began his career in 1989 at Merrill Lynch Private Advisory. He was responsible for over $500 million of client assets under management. In May 2001, he launched Prophecy Asset Management, a technically managed hedge fund catering to institutions, pensions and family offices. He also teaches a behavioral finance segment of a graduate studies course for several colleges.
Read Jeffs's Recent PostsFil Zucchi is the founder and manager of Zebra Investment Advisors LLC, a Virginia registered investment advisor, and Zebra Fund, LLC, a long/short hedge fund. Before founding the Zebra companies, Fil managed individual long/short accounts. Prior to that, he was a bankruptcy and commercial litigation attorney in a Washington, D.C. law firm. Fil was a contributor to theStreet.com Street Insights. Fil is also currently involved in his family’s commercial real estate development and management operations. Read Fil's Recent PostsDavid Miller, a contributor to Master Traders, is the CEO and co-founder of Biotech Stock Research, LLC, publisher of Biotech Monthly. Launched in October 2001, Biotech Monthly combines a monthly newsletter format with alerts on breaking news on more than two dozen development-stage biotechnology companies under coverage. His firm is one of the few independent research firms in that it accepts no money from the companies it covers, does no outside consulting in the biotech space, runs no mutual or hedge fund, and is 100 percent subscription-supported. In addition, David was CEO of a successful technology company and a university professor. Read David's Recent PostsFrank Barbera, CMT, a contributor to Master Traders, is a co-manager of the Caruso Fund, a $35 million hedge fund that seeks to make gains trading precious metals, stocks, and currencies. He began his career in the early 1980s working with John Bollinger, Bill Griffith, and Susan Herrera at Financial News Network in Los Angeles. After FNN, Frank spent 10 years as an on-air market analyst for KWHY-TV in Los Angeles. His first money management position was at the Kavanaugh Fund in Santa Monica, a hedge fund subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. His technical work in gold and gold stocks is considered among the best in the industry. Read Frank's Recent Posts Tim Ord, a contributor to Master Traders, is the president, editor and publisher of The Ord Oracle, established in 1990, which is an electronic advisory newsletter that recommends S&P, NASDAQ, and gold stocks trades. He is frequently listed in the top 10 market timers in the country. Timer Digest ranked Tim No. 5 in gains for the S&P and No. 2 for gold timer in 2004. He has more than 25 years of trading experience and placed fourth nationally in the option division in the United States Trading Championship in 1988. Read Tim's Recent Posts
