A Box Spread is simply a combination of two vertical spreads. These spreads are used by professional Options traders who are trying to take advantage of a situation where the cost of the spreads (both verticals) is less than what the verticals would be worth when they expire. They consider this to be a type…
This is a large equity trade consisting of 100,000 or more shares.
This is the difference between the current bid price and the current asking, or offering price. For example, if you see a quote that looks like this: 2.05 x 3.10 – what this means is that the bid is 2.05 and the ask is 3.10. Therefore the bid-ask thread is 1.05 i.e the difference between…
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…
