Options Trading: Reading the Chain

Posted On June 15, 2018 2:13 pm
By: Steve Smith

FREE OPTIONS DATA

There are a number of free sources for options data if you don’t yet have a brokerage account set up. The main ones are Yahoo, CBOE and Nasdaq.

Typically, the prices shown in these tables are delayed by 15 to 20 minutes, but they can be a good place to start and to familiarize yourself with options tables.

If you’re looking at data after the market close, the table will be the same as what you would see in a brokerage account in any case.

I’ll use these sources occasionally because some are shown in a more user-friendly fashion than Interactive Brokers.

However, you wouldn’t want to be trading from delayed prices. It can be done, but you are much better off using a broker platform.

YAHOO

Yahoo displays option data in either List View or Straddle View. The screenshot below shows the Straddle View to keep it consistent with Interactive Brokers.

One distinct disadvantage you might notice here is that Yahoo only shows strikes in $5 increments whereas Interactive Brokers shows the full chain down to $1 strikes. They also don’t show implied volatility data or delta.

CBOE

Similar to Yahoo, the CBOE data does not show implied volatility or delta. Also, when showing the Near the Money data, it does not include a huge selection of strikes.

NASDAQ

The Nasdaq options table is very similar to the CBOE’s and also doesn’t show implied volatility or delta.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial, if you think other might also enjoy it, please take a minute to share it on social media.

Trade safe!
Gav.

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Tagged with: options trading

About author

Steve Smith

Steve Smith have been involved in all facets of the investment industry in a variety of roles ranging from speculator, educator, manager and advisor. This has taken him from the trading floors of Chicago to hedge funds on Wall Street to the world online. From 1987 to 1996, he served as a market maker at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) and Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). From 1997 to 2007, he was a Senior Columnist and Managing Editor for TheStreet.com, handling their Option Alert and Short Report newsletters. The Option Alert was awarded the MIN “best business newsletter” in 2006. From 2009 to 2013, Smith was a Senior Columnist and Managing Editor for Minyanville’s OptionSmith newsletter, as well as a Risk Manager Consultant for New Vernon Capital LLC. Smith acted as an advisor to build models and option strategies to reduce portfolio exposure and enhance returns for the four main funds. Since 2015, he has worked for Adam Mesh Trading Group. There, he has managed Options360 and Earning 360, been co-leader of Option Academy, and contributed to The Option Specialist website.