I'm new to options trading. Is there any way to access charts for individual options to see how the price reacted to changes in the underlying over the last few months? Also, to see a visual of the time decay. Preferably free web-based. I saw that on Market Watch it shows a one week chart when you click on an individual option, but I would like to be able to look back further. Any suggestions?
Options are not stocks and charting is NOT going to help you. Many factors go into the price of an option, and stock price movement is often NOT the most iportant. Mark
think or swim demo, tradestation, not sure about ib. you can create your own graph in excel if you can get the closed data. You should use a line chart as every price is not going to be traded at in the more illiquid options. post a chart when you figure it out.
To answer your question without adding an opinion you didn't ask for; Yes there is. It depends on your software/platform. Ex: Scottrade does not, Tradestation does. No idea about free web-based.
tradestation allows you to plot your option and underlying stock as well, makes it easier to watch, not sure what other platforms offer this. I find it very useful to chart options.
In marketwatch, when you're on the page with the summary and 5-day chart of the option, click on the option symbol, and it'll take you to another summary page where you can then get more extensive charts. But marketwatch charts only show the trades. Many options do not trade all that frequently. When a chart shows an option's closing price for the day, that trade may actually have occurred at 2PM and is far away from what the closing bid/ask was. You'll probably need to use a broker's own charting, or a commercial data feed, to get bid/ask charts.
If you cant chart an option, how do you figure out where to put stops? can anyone give an example?..right now i paper trade options and have 1 feb DLTR 35 call @ .75