Hi everyone, I wonder if I can find a software/website which could do some basic options analysis. I'm trading spreads, therefore I want to be able to scan the market to find options that meet specific critiria. For example,if I trade calendars, I want to find a high IV front month option and a low IV backmonth option with same strike. I will be really grateful if you can recommend me such a software/website! Thank you
I am using Hoadley but specifically for what you are looking I think you should look at optionstar. It can use the IB datafeed and scan, analyse calendars (Hoadley is not the best for calendars) etc.
I took a quick look at optionstar. Would it be correct to say the scanning function is superior to Hoadley? Any aspects of Hoadley that you think are better?
It's strange that I can't open optionstar's website. I have download hoadley trial version and didn't find there any scan function. Can you do it with full version?
Hoadley doesn't provide the scanning function that the OP is looking for but it is very powerful with a lot of other functionality for the asking price. Except for the built-in applications there is a wide library of Excel functions available. For example I am not great with statistics but I managed to do a covariance matrix and even PCA (principal component analysis) and I still know very little about the maths behind those. One could argue that you can build even better functions on your own or download freely from the internet, but then you have to consider the amount of time you need to spend on writting the code, validating etc. And this assuming you are competent with programming and technically profficient. I mean just being a good programmer is not enough to write code on eg a Heston model
remember you might be able to acess functions .. but you can't dig through the hoadley code.. its behind a password.. anything across the term structure is really tough to model in Hoadley.. maybe i need to spend time with it.. or maybe i just did it wrong.. of course theres always think or swim.. i personally love hoadley.. quick and clean... i'm only just beginning to learn the holes and exploits in term structure (calender) trading with options.. so take what i say with a grain of salt.. just take a look at this see if it helps you figure out whats going to happen to this time fly.. <a target='_blank' title='ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting' href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/254/hoadlycalender.png/'><img src='http://imageshack.us/a/img254/7816/hoadlycalender.png' border='0'/></a><br>Uploaded with <a target='_blank' href='http://imageshack.us'>ImageShack.us</a>
or this.. hard to make time go by and mess with the individual implied volatility assumptions of each leg.. you know whatever happens..... nov will implode.. dec should flatten out a little.. the whole term structure curve will lay down in the front months.. poof vols gone!.. a sort of domino effect diminishing out into the second and third month.. <a target='_blank' title='ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting' href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/202/hoadleycalender2.png/'><img src='http://imageshack.us/a/img202/4637/hoadleycalender2.png' border='0'/></a><br>Uploaded with <a target='_blank' href='http://imageshack.us'>ImageShack.us</a>
if you are trading small. think or swim, ib, wex or itg or sterling would be options you should look at. they are all in the 250/month for basic quotes and executions
If you're options, thinkorswim is a very good platform and broker. In the past, I looked at trademonster. The name is horrible and the guy who runs it is a cnbc talking head, but the platform doesn't look half bad for options. Anyone on here use trademonster for options?
Speaking of bad names, you can wake up, make yourself a smoothie in your Ninja blender, watch some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons and then trade your way to prosperity with Ninja charts.