Lets say Im bullish Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) and I create a bull call spread as in the attached screenshot. There is a 'size' column which shows: Buy = 288 x 273 Sell = 2 x 109 Bull call = 109 x 2 And then when I look at the profile chart it tells me that the size is 117 x 2 What do these mean?
As gaussian said those number represent the bid size and the ask size. I would suggest a couple of things and that is find a symbol to trade that has more volume and open interest since the Royal Dutch Shell PLC American Depository Shares (RDS.B) are very thinly traded. I looked at the OCC 's data from last week and there isn't much volume or open interest for some of the strike prices or the symbol as a whole. Secondly i would recommend that before you trade anything that you become more familiar with some of the basics like Understanding the Numbers After Bid/Ask Prices. Lots of sources for that on the Internet including Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/bidasknumbers.asp as well as the exchanges (e.g. CBOE, CME, etc.)themselves. best
Thanks JBuck Im certainly not going to trade any options at the moment. Just trying to familiarize myself with IB workstation whilst also attempting to understand options using mainly the following resources: https://www.theoptionsguide.com/ https://www.optionseducation.org/ https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/ Thanks for your suggestion.
I'm borrowing your thread for a question, hope its fine! Do you or someone else know something equivalent for optionsprofitcalculator for options on European markets like eurex, euronext?
I use the OCC website for a number of things; Review the Open Interest at various strike prices for a particular symbol I might be trading. Review the Volume for a particular symbol or all symbols I might be trading. Review the Volume for all symbols and down load a csv file to sort them by vol size. The OCC also has some pretty decent albeit abbreviated education materials. Something I always recommend to any new options trader. https://www.theocc.com/market-data/ https://www.optionseducation.org/ And so on................... Best