I programmed out of necessity, but I hate coding... The only analysis I run is portfolio exposure at 1,2,3sigma in dollars, % and net greeks. I'll look at skews in dollars as well. I never had much use for the Newton app I wrote, but it was fun to know how much weekend decay I had coming in before I left on Friday afternoon. I'll agree that high-level math is wasted on options trading. I've never relied on anything but my knowledge of the basics; floor-locks(p/c parity) and box/roll dissection -- calculus+ is a waste of time/energy. arb.
I have heard good advance reports about this upcoming service from eSignal. One of the tools to be included, as I understand it, is a real time option strategy generator, that I have tested, that is BY FAR the simplest and most effective option tool I've ever used. Get ready!
Keith, Can you please give an example of a scan you can do on that product. When you say it's by far the most effective you've ever used I would like to see what your talking about. So far the best option scans I have seen have been on Optionvue and by far the most flexible. If I want to search for only backspreads on low volatility stocks priced under 50 with at least 1000 contracts trading a day with an expectation of a 10 tick move up in vol over the next 3 months and I don't want to risk more then 1000 I can get a list of the top 50 candidates for the trade in seconds in real time and not only that but I can leave it open and have it continuously updating and resorting that scan in real time. You can scan for any strategy or you can even program your own. So I would be interested in hearing if there is a product out there that can outperform this. As of yet, I have not found such a program. Would be happy to hear anything to the contrary.
Maverick74, Sorry about that ...loose fingers... I think OptionVue is a great product, especially for someone like yourself who understands enough about inputs to be able to ask the right questions of the program. And for historical analysis it is a very complete program. The product that I tested has a simplicity/effectiveness quotient that is quite remarkable and will help the average trader avoid entering into a trade simply because he is trying to impose the strategy he is used to onto the marketplace. As I recall you only enter around 5 parameters such as:symbol, outlook (bullish, bearish, volatile, non volatile, etc) capital commitment, Max % loss tolerance, time frame, etc, and it will find and rank the 10 best strategies in order of highest reward/lowest risk, highest probability, using real time prices. The cool thing about it is that the vocabulary of positions in its arsenal is quite sophisticated. It might recommend an iron butterfly, or an iron albatross, or other complex positions as the best way to achieve your investment goals. And if you like the position you are only a click away from execution as it can integrate with execution platforms. I looked at the recommendations that it came up with and was astounded to find that it did a better job than I could at finding the best strategy to take advantage of a market outlook. It is sort like a really good chess program (that always beats the pants off you.)