Options

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After matching Thursday's high (3.3565) and trading as high as 3.3595, the contract is trading just off Thursday's low (3.311) trading at 3.32. If that low is breached there be limited support down to 3.30.

Strap yourselves in folks, it's going to be a wild one!   As I told you on Wednedsday morning, we were getting way too overbought to keep going much higher.  This stuff isn't complicated folks, it's just physics.  When the Market did pop after the Fed at 2:30 on Wednesday, I said to our...

Well, Big Bad Ben certainly creamed the shorts yesterday with his completely unexpected statement that massive bond buying will not "taper" but will continue full speed ahead.That gives me an opportunity about discussing another insurance use of options. We all know that puts are useful for...

Given all that is going on in the world I am surprised at how low implied volatility is now. Fed today, triple witching Friday, continuing world political unrest, market close to all time highs (despite today's small pullback), all reasons to think a large and unpredictable market move can happen...

After testing Tuesday's low (104.34) and trading as low as 104.54, Crude futures rebounded to trade as high as 105.72. This level was .11 cents shy of Tuesday's high of 105.83. Minor intraday support may be found at 105 level.

Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble. (the three witches chanting)Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1 Triple witching hour refers to the quarterly expiration of index futures, index future options and stock options on the third Friday of March, June, September and December.  This...

By Bryan Wiener, Sang Lucci contributor When the US option exchanges, headed by the CBOE, ISE and PHLX, set out to expand the US equity options market via the introduction of the mini-option classes in Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), SPDR Gold (NYSE: GLD), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)...

Besides being an outstanding vehicle for hedging investments or speculation, options offer a number of ways to act as a barometer for market sentiment. We have discussed the volatility skew as an indicator of complacency (8/26/13) and the volatility index, VIX (7/25/13) as an indicator of market...

Markets continue to be choppy amid continued Syria worries. S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) has shown the ability to chop left and right and really burn traders looking for moves a bit longer than usual. Traders should be very careful of the SPY 170 level. Breakout traders are bound to attempt this area,...

TheOptionPlayer.com recommends a Netflix (NasdaqGS: NFLX) short-term (8-day) option strategy. Investors could simultaneously: Sell the Sept. week-three expiration NFLX $320 call for $1.40 (yesterday's closing price) AND Buy the $325 call at $.86 (yesterday's close) The...

The Dow has just had three triple digit up days in a row. If it does that today it will be the first time there were 4 100+ point days since.... Never! The Dow has never been up triple digits 4 days in a row. Can we say overbought?However, market prognostication is not my thing. Options education...

American style options, unlike European style, may be exercised at any moment in their lifetime. Stock options are American style and it's good to know when an option is likely to be exercised ahead of its expiration. This is of particular importance if you are short these options.When thinking...

Japanese authorities have recently announced that they would begin regulating binary options trading most likely during the year. TheFinancial Futures Association of Japan revealed that it would soon devise a set of rules that binary options brokers would have to respect in order to attain...

Investing in options is better than investing in stocks. On August 20 of this year, we touched on how to minimize risk in options vs. stocks. In the story, the point was made that options offer a safer and more efficient way of investing in today's markets. Today's post will show how there is...

What do I mean by that rather arresting phrase? Simply phrased, options make it possible for investors of even modest means to invest in a stock that they think will move higher (or lower) within a 12-15 month  time frame.Let's look at Apple (AAPL). At this writing (9:00 CDT) the stock is moving...