The Options Insider Radio Network

Options news you can use for Monday, May 7, 2018

Originally Posted February 20th, 2017 Topics this week include: WTI Skew Crude vol Eurodollars Lean Hogs Futures Options Feedback: Listener questions and comments Question from Tom Rios - How has Mexico threatening to buy corn from Brazil and Argentina, rather than the US, impacted corn volatility? Question from McTinney - Hello to the TWIFO team and guest! Can you give a little more color on the longer term calls you outlined in gold options last show? Is this the beginning of a trend or just a blip on the radar? Any similar action in silver? Thanks for the show. Comment from Jim Church - I like the rent concept. Was that Nick or Mark's idea? I think it should be a regular segment. Maybe "Who's paying the rent this week?"

Originally Posted February 8th, 2016 Volatility Review: CBOE to list SPX Wednesday-expiring weeklys options. CBOE to begin overnight dissemination of CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). VIX Options: Total 5.81m (3.93m Calls, 1.88m Puts) Earnings Volatility: LNKD after the bell: ATM straddle = $22, approx. 11.5%, after-hours move approx. $50. Crude Oil: Wall St. fluctuates as equities track oil prices. Is oil driving the stock market? And should traders care? Volatility Voicemail: Listener questions and comments Question from GBL - Stock splits are seen to be greatly beneficial to options volume. But do they also decrease volatility, which should hurt options trading? Around the Block: Prognosticating. Wild and reckless prognosticating.

In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with the Flowmaster himself, Henry Schwartz from Trade Alert. They discuss: State of the options industry Concentration of liquidity The optics of tight quotes versus thin liquidity Unintended consequences of auctions Volume data; where will the year end? Single stocks taking volume back from ETFs The controversey regarding VIX settlement What is coming next from Trade Alert? And more...

Originally Posted January 24th, 2017 Trading Block: The Trump Effect: President Donald Trump is set to unleash a cascade of stock-market anxiety - The day of reckoning for the Wall Street is here. McDonalds (MCD) earnings today. Friday close - $122.26; ATM Straddle - $3.52, approx. 3%; Open down $.75, Traded as low as $2.44; No more love for all-day breakfast. Odd Block: Calls and puts trade in Morgan Stanley (MS), calls trade in Home Depot Inc (HD) and calls trade in Lending Club Corp (LC) Mail Block: Questions, Comments, Polls, and more Options #QuestionOfTheWeek Earnings Season awakens! How do you play earnings using options? Are you an Earnings #Jedi or #Sith? 41% - Dark Side (Short Premium) 26% - Light Side (Long Premium) 25% - No Side - Avoid earnings 08% - Other (Reply/DM w/ideas) Options #QuestionOfTheWeek - Lots of earnings on the horizon. Which company will outperform their earnings straddle by the largest margin? Alphabet - $GOOGL Microsoft - $MSFT Intel - $INTC Starbucks - $SBUX Listener quest

In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with Kevin Kennedy, Senior Vice President of U.S. Derivatives at NASDAQ. They discuss: The trading floor at the PHLX The old floor versus the new floor What has been the 2018 trend for options so far? What a difference a year makes! What does Kevin anticipate for growth for the rest of the year? The trends in liquidity, and how to correct them How can we reverse the trend of people leaving the liquidity business? Thoughts on additional options exchanges Executing complex orders What are they doing in the volatility space? What's NASDAQ doing with crypto? And more...

In this episode, Mark is at the Options Industry Conference, where he caught up with JJ Kinahan, Chief Market Strategist and Managing Director at TD Ameritrade. They discuss: How has the integration with Scottrade gone? Focusing on options education with the new clients The evolution of options broker How options educational content is evolving How is the reception for TD Ameritrade's new content? How does TD Ameritrade build and foster a community? And more...

Mark and Brian are on location at the Options Industry Conference, the annual event that brings everyone in the options industry together. They discuss: Specifically: Launching new products to meet retail investor needs Liquidity concerns Exchanges fragmenting liquidity through extra strikes and expirations What about price improvement? Unlimited quoting What did they learn at this year's event? Do you have a question that you want answered on a future episode? Send them to Brian at theoptionsguy@invest.ally.com, or to the Options Insider at questions@theoptionsinsider.com.

Trading Block: Earnings! Monday - McDonalds Tuesday - Apple, Snap Inc. Wednesday - Tesla Thursday - Activision/Blizzard, WWE Friday - CBOE Odd Block: Jan 2020 50 "catastrophe" puts in Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA). Closing/rolling paper in ILG Inc. (ILG). Buying a put stupid in PowerShares DB US Dollar Index (UUP). Crazy put-paoolza in Sea Foods Co (DF) Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses ways in which to look at covered calls in a channeling market. Around the Block/Economic Reports: Apr 30: Personal Income, Chicago PMI May 1: Construction Spending May 2: FOMC Meeting May 3: Jobless Claims, International Trade, Factory Orders May 4: Unemployment

Options news you can use for Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Today's special guest is Jared Caplan, Head of Commodities Trading, Akuna Capital. Topics this week include: Corn Soybeans Futures Options Feedback: In which the listeners take over. Question from T Mal - Jared, What is your opinion on the current speculative interest in corn/beans? It seems large right now. What is your opinion on the extremely large open interest? Corn open interest in particular is very large. Question from Adam Coker - Can you explain the nature of options liquidity for the Ags. They seem to have a unique trading structure that's focused around the planting and harvesting cycle. Are those the months that generally have the most volume and volatility?

Volatility Viewpoint: Today we are joined by Jonathan Molchan, Portfolio Manager, Horizons ETF Management. He discusses: What does Horizons ETF Management do? Horizons ETF products Why are there so few options-oriented ETFs? Volatility Review: A look back at the week from a volatility perspective. VIX Cash - 16.50 VVIX - 95 VIX Options - ADV: 943k, VIX call/put: 2.6/1, Total 7.06m (5.11m Calls, 1.96m Puts) VXX - 42.32 Earnings Volatility - AMZN, MSFT, INTC & GOOGL Volatility Voicemail: Otpions question of the week. We dig up many strange options positions at the Options Insider. Some seem credible while others are just head scratching. Which of the following open options positions do you think has the best chance of actually becoming a winner? 32% - 49K TSLA Jan 2019 50 P 32% - 197K VXX Jan 2019 10 P 25% - 65K GLD Jan 2019 200 C 11% - 146K SPY Dec 2019 150P Listener questions and comments: Question from Illir -So VXX Jan 10 puts are worth about .03. But VXX2 (or VXXB -not sure which) Jan 10 puts wi

Options news you can use for Monday, April 30, 2018

In this episode, Mark is joined by Tom Sosnoff, Co-CEO at Tasty Trade. They discuss: Winning the Options Broker Madness tournament in their first year participating What sets Tasty Trade apart from the competition? The first year in the live of Tasty Trade New entrants shaking up the options space No charge for closing trades! Is there any intention of going public? The challenge of creating compelling content Listener questions: When can I trade futures options in an IRA account on Tasty Works? Does Tasty Works offer portfolio margin and API access? What is his option of portfolio margining? What about the lack of after-hours trading for options? Tom talks about Market making Liquidity Naked calls in an IRA

Trading Block: Earnings: AMZN - 1460, ATM straddle 90, approx. 6% MSFT - 92, ATM straddle 4, approx. 4% INTC - 51.38, ATM straddle 2.40, approx. 5% GOOGL - ATM straddle 54, approx. 5% Odd Block: More Jan 2019 50 "catastrophe" puts in Tesla Motors (TSLA). Apr 12.5 Puts in CNH Industrial NV (CNHI). Line in the sand puts in L Brands Inc. (LB). Line in the sand puts in Dicks Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS). Mail Block: Options question of the week We dig up many strange options positions at the Options Insider. Some seem credible while others are just head scratching. Which of the following open options positions do you think has the best chance of actually becoming a winner? 49K TSLA Jan 2019 50 P 197K VXX Jan 2019 10 P 65K GLD Jan 2019 200 C 146K SPY Dec 2019 150P Listener questions and comments: Question from BTavares -Hey great show. I'm looking at this chart from FT and it makes me wonder if I should concentrate my trading in the last 30 minutes of the day to increase the liquidity for my options trades. I wo

Options news you can use for Friday, April 27, 2018

We are in the tech portion of earnings season, so let's take a look at Facebook. You can find more in The Options Playbook, which is always available on OptionsPlaybook.com, or on the Amazon Kindle edition. Specifically: Where is FB trading right now? What is the situation with FB? Can we sell the put spread for enough of a credit to buy a call? Setting up the put spread Selecting strikes Looking to buy a call from the proceeds Selecting the strike What do we want to happen? What is the risk? Reward? How you can double up to catch up Some rationale on time frame Do you have a question that you want answered on a future episode? Send them to Brian at theoptionsguy@invest.ally.com, or to the Options Insider at questions@theoptionsinsider.com.

Options news you can use for Thursday, April 26, 2018

Options news you can use for Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Trading Block: VIX down. Vol futures down. Gold vol is very low. 10-year yield at 3%. Metals get the crap kicked out of them. Earnings: GOOGL - ATM straddle: 54, approx. 5%. More tech earnings to come. Odd Block: More Jan 2019 50 "catastrophe" puts in Tesla Motors (TSLA). Puts trade in Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CBI). Calls trade in D. R. Horton Inc. (DHI). Puts trade in CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. (CBL). Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses hedging during earnings. Mail Block: Options question of the week VIX is back in the mid-teens. Are you buying this Volatility reprieve or is this merely calm before the storm? Quite simply - Where do you think VIX will end the week? 24% - Here: 16-18 19% - Higher: 18-20 18% - Even Higher: 20-25 39% - Lower: 14-16 Options Flash Poll: The proposed third exchange from @MIAXexchange will raise the total number of U.S. Options Exchanges to 16. Is this a good thing for the options market? Is it the straw that finally breaks the camel's back? Or are yo