Options Trading Online

The Smart Profits Report: Issue #358
Monday, October 2, 2006

Options Trading Online: Power Up Your Options Trading With A Trio Of Top Options Web Resources
By Lee Lowell
Advisory Panelist, Mt. Vernon Research

If you want to get the most from your trades and maximize your gains, you need to start from the ground up.

That means getting your hands on as much research as possible and doing your due diligence before you trade. These days, the power of the Internet has made investing a lot easier for everyone - including options traders. And there’s a wealth of information at your fingertips. Best of all… it’s free. You just need to know where and how to get it.

That’s where I come in. Although I spend the majority of my time examining which options trades to execute, I also devote a big chunk of time to scouring the web looking for the best options trading online tools. And you’d be surprised how much is out there. So let’s take a look at the resources I’ve found most useful to my own trading, and show you how they can enhance your trading abilities.

A Trio Of Top Web Resources To Get You Started

Although I’ve used many other data sources in the past, I always come back to Futuresource because it boasts the quality of the data is first-class and the cleanest you’ll find. The site has charts available, along with many technical indicators to choose from. And, if you need to read market commentary, it has a news feed, too.

www.futuresource.com: Without a doubt, this is my favorite free site for commodities data. It has real-time (mostly e-mini markets) and delayed data for every futures and futures option market.

www.ivolatility.com: I use this site almost daily, because the options calculators and volatility charts are top-notch. If you’re serious about trading options, make it your priority today to spend some time surfing this site. It has several scanner services that scan the universe of stocks and options to find the best strategies based on your criteria.

www.888options.com: This is the website for the Options Industry Council (OIC), whose main goal is to spread the word to the general public about the benefits of options trading.

The firm offers free options help over the phone, and also has a free interactive CD called “The Options Investigator,” which I highly recommend. The CD allows you to input different option positions to see how they will perform over time. Check out the site - you’ll find plenty of good information there.

The Grand-Daddy Of Options Websites

No proper discussion of the options market should go very far without mentioning the biggest of all the options websites: www.cboe.com. This is the official site for the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, where millions of contracts are traded every day.

There is far too much information on the site to mention, but my suggestion is to take a look at the archived section of their free webcasts. These are online “webinars” approximately 45 minutes in length and cover a multitude of options trading topics, which you can get by going here:

http://www.cboe.com/LearnCenter/webcast/archive.aspx. The CBOE also has a free CD similar to the one offered by the OIC. It’s called the “Options Toolbox.”

Also, go to the Chicago Board Of Trade’s website: www.cbot.com. This is the home of many pit-traded commodity futures and options, and it has its own section of new and archived free webinars as well (http://www.cbot.com/cbot/pub/page/0,3181,1058,00.html)

How To Calculate Your Chances Of Success Before You Trade

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew what your chances of success were before you made a trade? Well, now you can.

OptionVue Research has a great probability calculator that allows you how to calculate this exactly. It’s something I use frequently in my brand new Triple-Zone Profits Trader service. Go here for all the details: http://www.optionvueresearch.com/marketvue.aspx#

Lastly, I have two volatility-based alternatives for you. The first is courtesy of the king of options trading, Larry McMillan. Hs website provides both historical and implied volatility data of every index, stock & commodity. It’s a huge page, but well worth a look. Best of all, it’s free: http://www.optionstrategist.com/free/analysis/data/index.html

In addition, here’s the website I use for free volatility data for the futures markets:

http://platinum.optionetics.com/cgi-bin/oamergef/www/tablesf/rank2yr

Not only does it rank the most actively traded futures markets from high to low according to their volatility numbers, but it also gives you a six-month and two-year implied volatility chart.

Getting Something For Nothing

With investing now more popular than ever, there are a plethora of companies fighting for your business. The bonus is that the Internet has leveled the playing field for investors and made the process much more cost-effective. So make sure you use the free tools available to you and give yourself a better chance of trading more successfully.

Great Trading,

Lee Lowell

Today’s Smart Profits Cribsheet

Now that you know where to go to get the best free options research, you need to make sure you get the best deals on your actual trades. I explained exactly how you can do this in Smart Profits #331: Online Broker Commissions: How to Get the Best Deal on Your Options Commissions.

For more information on all of Larry McMillan’s books, check out our Recommended Options Books area on the site as well as our Recommended Options Websites area.

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