Option Volatility and Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques by Sheldon Natenberg Read this book
I gave your first like and almost took it away because you are listening to Quanto. Many people have studied OI and volume but the results (at least publicly) aren’t very good. The reason is that you don’t know the motivation of the buyer and the seller. If both are directional then there will be no impact. If one is not directional there will be an impact (especially if the directional guy is buying). If both are not directional then there might be an impact but it won’t be perpetrated by the options trade itself. Further, you have to look at options in totality with their underlying as a lot of the risks generated from the OI is offset within other OI.
Then decoding options will be a snap. However,there is a big difference between understanding and decoding.
Getting historical options data is not easy, and is costly :-( Some companies offer historical options data, for example ORATS here (they have also special prices for ET users, just ask them). A budget solution for some few select tickers like SPX could maybe the following be (but I have no experience with them): https://www.optionsdx.com/shop/ Another possibility is to have an API access to your broker and load from there if they have historical data, OR create your own database (ie. store in directories and files, or in a real database) by making snapshot downloads via the API say every 15 minutes of the realtime options chain data. Another budget solution is YahaooFinance via API access: https://financeapi.net/pricing But I think they don't offer historical data, just current data 15 minutes or so delayed. You can also ask and also search in the "Data Sets and Feeds" forum here.
=) I listen to all and make judgment self. Like when I read every book there was to read about trading futures and fx...in the end 99.9% of books was good for fireplace to keep you warm on winter nights. =) And please do not remove the like - did not know there was a war going on in here, but my options are few ..lol Visited many discord channels and came to conclusion all was in the same category as the books I mentioned above. So here I am! And I like it!
I am not this person... Any fair/good trader can hold a 1/2 hour conversation about the below... Could you talk with yourself or to anybody about how market makers work and how dark pools work?? Something to chew on...
Read a decent book on options that's digestable,and look at a program like OptionStrat.I use Orats,but it's above your pay grade right now.. Optionstrat is great for beginners.. I wouldn't waste your time with OI and volume.Understand the option greeks , Vol and take it from there..