This is a measure of a stock’s volatility relative to the S&P 500 Index. High Beta stocks have high volatility. Stocks that have a beta reading of 1.00 or greater tend to move faster or are more volatile than the S&P index. And stocks that have a beta less than 1.00 tend to move slower…
This is when you buy a Put and sell another Put with a lower strike price. You would only use this spread if you are expecting the underlying stock to move up moderately because it will help you to benefit from the time decay. For example, let’s say you are anticipating a moderate rise in…
This is when you sell a call and buy a call with a higher strike price. A Bear Call Spread is used when you have a bearish outlook on a stock and you want to bet against it by going short but you don’t want to shirt the stock because it theoretically has unlimited risk….
These are the Options with the most time left until expiration. Or, simply, the most distant expiration months. As you can see in the image below, the Jan 2024 and the Jun 2024 expiration would be considered the “back months” because they have 570 and 724 days to expiration, respectively.
Options with intrinsic value, or in-the-money options, are automatically exercised at expiration so that option holders don’t inadvertently leave money on the table. Since June 2008 , all options that are a penny or more in-the-money at expiration are exercised at expiration.
When the price of the underlying stock is equal to the strike price of the option, the contract is At The Money. In the image below you can see that the current price of APPL is 139 and the red rectangles are highlighting the fact that the JUL 15th 139.00 Calls & Puts are currently…
When an option seller or writer receives an exercise notice, assignment has occurred. When assigned, writers must deliver the goods (shares or cash). For example, let’s say you sold 1 AAPL 145.00 CALL and the buyer decides to exercise the contract at expiration because AAPL is now trading at 146, you would need to deliver…
This is also known as the offer. The asking price is the current market price at which an investor can buy the option in the market.
This is an options contract, put or call, that can be exercised at any time prior to expiration. Stock, exchange-traded funds, and some index options also settle American-style. The alternative is the European Style Option which can only be exercised at expiration.
Tracking Options Flow can be very useful if you know how to take advantage of it. It basically allows you to see what the big traders are doing in real time. The common thinking is that these big traders know something that others don’t and are taking a position in anticipation of a move. However,…
