In the stock trading world, speculators buy stocks at a lower price in the hope of selling them at a higher price later in order to make a profit. Sadly, a buyer cannot know what the market price of a stock will be when the time comes to dumb it. This is why many investors […]
Options and futures contracts are both derivatives, created mostly for hedging purposes. In practice, their applications are quite different though. The key difference between them is that futures obligate each party to buy or sell, while options give the holder the right (not the obligation) to buy or sell. Options Example Jim thinks he might […]
What Is An Option? An option is a contract between two parties: the writer and the holder. In the stock market, the writer is often referred to as the seller, and the holder is referred to as the buyer. In our Options Trading Guide we pointed out that the holder of the option the right, […]
Trading options has exploded in popularity over the last couple of decades, and option trading in particular has become a major force in contemporary finance. The ability to create sophisticated and nuanced trading positions using options and other derivatives is incomparable when contrasted with traditional securities trading. Out of the many advanced trading techniques used […]
The term out of the money refers to a strike price on a vanilla equity option that is above the current market price for the underlying stock in the case of a call option and below in the case of a put option. Out of the money options have no intrinsic value, as they are […]
In the money is a term from options trading used to describe an option that would create value, but not necessarily profit, if exercised. It is not necessarily profitable because a trader needs to account for the premium spent to purchase the option, which being in the money has no bearing on. It just means […]
A position is delta neutral when the change in the value of one or more securities is exactly offset by a corresponding change in the value of the associated derivatives within the position. Traders use delta neutral positions either as a hedge in securities trading or as a strategy to profit from alternate sources of […]
Due to the inherent leverage in options and the counter-party risk involved in writing options, brokers have developed a tiered system of option approval levels for traders that limits their access to options trading. There are 4 option approval levels, each of which allows additional access to various forms of options trading based on the […]
Options trading is one of the most exciting and rewarding areas in contemporary finance. While options started as a highly technical and specialized derivative used mainly for placing small hedges on major equity positions, they have blossomed into extremely popular trading tools used for the creation of highly complex and sophisticated positions in every market, […]
Options trading is already complex enough but when you start looking at margin trading with options you are adding a whole new dynamic to it. However, once you have a solid understanding on how options work with margin then you will be in a position to execute strategies that have a statistical advantage like credit […]
