Most Active Options

Discussion in 'Options' started by FarmerTed, Nov 6, 2008.

  1. Wondering if there is a tool out there that list the most actively traded options. I know interactive brokers has a tool that is okay, it just seems like it can be so much better. For example, say if a strike with lower volume all of a sudden starts trading back and forth for like 15 minutes and then stops for the most part. There was probably opportunity to make money but it never shows up on any active option chart. It would be nice if you can say filter the most active strikes over the past 2 minutes or 5 or even 1 minute. Maybe even filter out all the options that trade in pennies as well.

    A tool like this would just seem to make so much sense and I cannot find one out there anywhere.

    Does anyone know of anything like this that exists?

    Thanks in advance
     
  2. ammo

    ammo

    you can get live quotes with most traded options from cboe for a fee, www.CBOE.com
     
  3. There is a very useful 'REAL-TIME' service that provides volume flow with time and bid/ask sizes and much much more (for various underlying, sectors, indices), see: www.trade-alert.com . They also have an associated blog and an informative newsletter that you might want to also check out: www.WhatsTrading.com.

    Bben

    Wondering if there is a tool out there that list the most actively traded options. I know interactive brokers has a tool that is okay, it just seems like it can be so much better. For example, say if a strike with lower volume all of a sudden starts trading back and forth for like 15 minutes and then stops for the most part. There was probably opportunity to make money but it never shows up on any active option chart. It would be nice if you can say filter the most active strikes over the past 2 minutes or 5 or even 1 minute. Maybe even filter out all the options that trade in pennies as well.

    A tool like this would just seem to make so much sense and I cannot find one out there anywhere.

    Does anyone know of anything like this that exists?

    Thanks in advance
    [/QUOTE]
     
  4. Thanks for the whatstrading.com info, I like the trader alert stuff posted on theoptionsinsider.com, but didn't know they had a blog.

    Also consider http://www.optionsdoggy.com/

    For some reason, it doesn't display the posts for me when I go to the main site, now, so click on the "today" link directly under the calendar to bring up today's info.
     
  5. options doggy is funny stuff. The guys there dont really know whats going on with the volume they report, many times they report big volume as buyer or sellers and they're wrong. They dont know whose on what side nor do they know who is opening or closing its pretty useless stuff.

    Volume in general is not all that useful since you dont get to know if the volume is "buy to open" "buy to close" "sell to open" or sell to close" nor do you know what or who initiated the trade.

    If you were looking at XYZ and the volume in the options was pretty lite for a long time and then one day you saw 5000 out of the money puts traded. What do you think that tells you?
     
  6. I admit, I assumed when they were saying that the options were hit or lifted, that they were correct... Oh well... On another note it is possible to try to use the ISEE feed to figure out whether or not the trade was opening or closing.