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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.
Brad Sullivan owns seats on both MERC & CBOT Exchanges, and trades for his own hedge fund in Chicago. His comments posted in our HFT Premium Chatroom, is read each day by many active index, debt and commodity futures traders. Read Brad's Recent Posts George Cavaligos, has a B.A. from North Central College. He started his futures career in 1980 with Drexel Burnham Lambert and rose from a runner to a large sales desk manager in the Eurodollar and T-bill futures pits with DBL until it met its untimely demise in 1990. A member of the CME and CBOT since 1984 with DBL, Banque IndoSuez, Carr Futures, Bear Stearns and previously a full service Institutional Futures Broker with MF Global, George has provided futures and cash based technical analysis to a wide range of domestic and foreign customers. Read George's Recent Posts
After receiving his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Illinois, Jim Iuorio has been a 25 year veteran of Chicago trading floors. Much of that career has been spent brokering and trading financial futures and options contracts for large institutional investors or for his personal account. Beginning in 2005 Jim began providing commentary for global financial television stations and is now a contributor for CNBC. Read Jim's Recent Posts Ashraf Laidi, Chief Global Strategist at City Index / FX Solutions, oversees the analysis and forecasting functions of key currency pairs as well as decisions and trends of the major global central banks. Mr. Laidi is also responsible for education and informing clients on the essential dynamics underpinning the FOREX markets. Prior to joining CMC, Mr. Laidi has worked for such varied organizations as the United Nations, the World Bank, and Reuters. Mr. Laidi regularly provides expert opinion to various electronic, print and the broadcast media outlets. Mr. Laidi has appeared regularly on CNBC, Bloomberg, the BBC and PBS' Nightly Business Report. His insights also appear in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, The New York Times, CBS Marketwatch, TheStreet.com, Futures Magazine and a host of other international publications. Read Ashraf's Recent Posts Steve Shobin, Vice Chairman & Chief Investment Strategist for AmeriCap Advisers, LLC, is a veteran of more than three 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 Fari Hamzei is frequently quoted by CNBC, Bloomberg and RealMoney. His book, Master Traders: Strategies for Superior Returns from Today’s Top Traders, published by John Wiley & Sons in October 2006, has already become a bestseller on Amazon trading books space. On January 29th, 2007, Timer Digest ranked Fari tied for THIRD place for the past THREE YEARS in its "Timer of the Year Competition." As of September 13, 2008, Fari was ranked 3rd in the Nation by Timer Digest among approximately 150 market timers in the last 12 months. Once a year, Fari teaches Proprietary Sentiment Indicators at The Options Institute of CBOE. Fari is a graduate of Princeton University with a BSE degree in financial engineering, and was a director of strategic planning at Northrop Grumman Corporation's Aircraft Group and served for eleven years on the Board of Directors of Electronic Clearing House (ECHO), now an Intuit company (INTU). Read Fari's Recent Posts
