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,…
Options sweeps that go off near the ask are usually signs of aggression and a possibility of a higher probability trade. This is due to the fact that a trade that goes off at the ask means that the trader thought it was more important to get into the trade, by hitting the ask, than…
A block trade is, as the name suggests, a single large order that hits the Unusual Options Activity Tape all at once. A Sweep is a large order that is broken up and hits the tape in many different small orders. Here is an example of Block Trade: And here is an example of a…
