Podcasts about options house

Welcome to the Financial Freedom and Wealth Trailblazers Podcast! In this episode, we dive into implementing custom training programs to build strong teams to lead effectively. Vivian Campbell is a recognized leader in the hospitality industry with over 20 years of progressive experience in hospitality management, hotel openings and customer service training. Campbell is a highly effective and results driven leader in team development and client relations. She has a proven ability to deliver revenue, service and a high degree of client satisfaction. Vivian Campbell Consulting was founded in 2009. Leveraging Campbell's 20+ year career with several of the world's leading hotel brands and years of executive and management experience, Campbell is well positioned to offer relevant and actionable insights to help her clients enjoy success in the hospitality industry. Vivian Campbell Consulting recognizes that the dynamics of each development project and the motivations of each investor are unique. A Los Angeles native, Ms. Campbell, is involved with numerous community service organizations and has served as President of the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, Board member of LA Area Chamber, Chairman of Options House and Board member of LA's Best Friends. Connect with Vivian online here: IG @viviancampbellconsulting FB @viviancampbellconsulting linkedin.com/in/iamvcampbell X @VCConsult Grab the freebie here: www.viviancampbellconsulting.com =================================== If you enjoyed this episode, remember to hit the like button and subscribe. Then share this episode with your friends. Thanks for watching the Financial Freedom and Wealth Trailblazers Podcast. This podcast is part of the Digital Trailblazer family of podcasts. To learn more about Digital Trailblazer and what we do to help entrepreneurs, go to DigitalTrailblazer.com. Are you a coach, consultant, expert, or online course creator? Then we'd love to invite you to our FREE Facebook Group where you can learn the best strategies to land more high-ticket clients and customers. Request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitablecoursecreators QUICK LINKS: APPLY TO BE FEATURED: https://app.digitaltrailblazer.com/podcast-guest-application GET MORE CLIENTS: https://app.digitaltrailblazer.com/client-acquisition-accelerator-pdf DIGITAL TRAILBLAZER: https://digitaltrailblazer.com/ JOIN OUR FREE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/profitablecoursecreators

In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with Chris Larkin, Senior Vice President of Trading Product at E*Trade. They discuss: The acquisition and integration of Options House and E*Trade platforms Rebuilding the platform from the ground up Lowering the barrier to entry for new options traders What percentage of trades happen on mobile devices? Increasing the community offering Addressing the liquidity issue What about after hours options trading? And more..

In this episode, Mark is live at the 2018 Options Industry Conference where he caught up with Chris Larkin, Senior Vice President of Trading Product at E*Trade. They discuss: The acquisition and integration of Options House and E*Trade platforms Rebuilding the platform from the ground up Lowering the barrier to entry for new options traders What percentage of trades happen on mobile devices? Increasing the community offering Addressing the liquidity issue What about after hours options trading? And more..

Recorded live at the 2017 Options Industry Conference, Mark is joined by Joe Corso, Senior Vice President of Active Trader at E*Trade and Steve Claussen, Vice President and Chief Investment Strategist of Options House. They discuss: The details of the merger of the platforms How will things change for OH clients? Don't forget about the futures Feedback from customers on getting out of positions Why is volume down? The importance of education How does the industry address the market maker situation? The growing concentration of liquidity across a few names Moving towards sector and industry ETFs Millennials in the marketplace

Trading Block: New 52-week highs (132 new highs today): Amazon Inc. (AMZN + $2.62 to $889.16), Red Hat Inc. (RHT + $0.88 to $87.33), Veeva Systems Inc. (VEEV + $0.01 to $51.29), Tesla (TSLA + $11. 11 to $289.41). Tesla Inc is now more valuable than Ford Motor Company, and could very well surpass General Motors Company this week. General Motors Co. (GM - $1.55 to $33.81), Ford Motor Company (F - $0.34 to $11.30). Odd Block: Calls trade in iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index (EWH), puts trade in Fitbit Inc. (FIT) and calls trade in Carmax, Inc (KMX). Mail Block: #Options #BrokerMadness finals ARE ON! Who will claim the prize of your favorite broker: @OptionsHouse or @LSFinancial? The Winner is - Lightspeed Question from Game Day Dog - Aww man! My vertical put spread has gone bad. I have +3 options at 61.5 and sold -3 at 62.5 ... Yesterday it gapped down to 50. I now have +200 shares of LULU in my account +3 put options at 61.5 and -1 put option at 62.5. I thought it was a $300 max risk spread. Do I have to do anything? Do I sell the shares? Everything expires in 7 days. Please help. Thanks! So I learned about selling shares and back ratio spreads and even got an $19 credit. Around the Block/This Week in the Market: Apr 4: International Trade, Factory Orders Apr 5: FOMC Minutes Apr 6: Jobless Claims Apr 7: Unemployment

Trading Block: New 52-week highs (132 new highs today): Amazon Inc. (AMZN + $2.62 to $889.16), Red Hat Inc. (RHT + $0.88 to $87.33), Veeva Systems Inc. (VEEV + $0.01 to $51.29), Tesla (TSLA + $11. 11 to $289.41). Tesla Inc is now more valuable than Ford Motor Company, and could very well surpass General Motors Company this week. General Motors Co. (GM - $1.55 to $33.81), Ford Motor Company (F - $0.34 to $11.30). Odd Block: Calls trade in iShares MSCI Hong Kong Index (EWH), puts trade in Fitbit Inc. (FIT) and calls trade in Carmax, Inc (KMX). Mail Block: #Options #BrokerMadness finals ARE ON! Who will claim the prize of your favorite broker: @OptionsHouse or @LSFinancial? The Winner is - Lightspeed Question from Game Day Dog - Aww man! My vertical put spread has gone bad. I have +3 options at 61.5 and sold -3 at 62.5 ... Yesterday it gapped down to 50. I now have +200 shares of LULU in my account +3 put options at 61.5 and -1 put option at 62.5. I thought it was a $300 max risk spread. Do I have to do anything? Do I sell the shares? Everything expires in 7 days. Please help. Thanks! So I learned about selling shares and back ratio spreads and even got an $19 credit.  Around the Block/This Week in the Market: Apr 4: International Trade, Factory Orders Apr 5: FOMC Minutes Apr 6: Jobless Claims Apr 7: Unemployment

Trading Block: Vol skew gets dumped. Should technical analysis be applied to VIX? Stock-market fear threatens a return, as Dow stares at longest losing streak in 6 years. Odd Block: Puts trade in SPDR KBW Regional Banking (KRE), puts trade in GoldCorp (GG), puts trade in Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK) Mail Block: Quizzes, question and more. Options #BrokerMadness tournament going on now. Current #Options #BrokerMadness battle (Monday/Tuesday).@OptionsHouse v. @TradingBlock https://twitter.com/Options/status/846361692544024577 Question from Zanzibar - What is max pain? Does it matter? Comment from VoiceOfReason1 -Options seems far too complicated - too much thinking involved. I follow the penny stock community - they are usually dead accurate. Question from Symphox - If you trade options correctly, is it true you will always have the advantage over outright stock purchase/shorting? Around the Block: What's on our trading screens for the week to come?

Trading Block: Vol skew gets dumped. Should technical analysis be applied to VIX? Stock-market fear threatens a return, as Dow stares at longest losing streak in 6 years. Odd Block: Puts trade in SPDR KBW Regional Banking (KRE), puts trade in GoldCorp (GG), puts trade in Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK) Mail Block: Quizzes, question and more. Options #BrokerMadness tournament going on now. Current #Options #BrokerMadness battle (Monday/Tuesday). @OptionsHouse v. @TradingBlock https://twitter.com/Options/status/846361692544024577 Question from Zanzibar - What is max pain? Does it matter? Comment from VoiceOfReason1 -Options seems far too complicated - too much thinking involved. I follow the penny stock community - they are usually dead accurate. Question from Symphox -If you trade options correctly, is it true you will always have the advantage over outright stock purchase/shorting? Around the Block:

Trading Block: The tumultuous presidential election could peak the VIX today. Emotional uncertain about the election? Stick to your investing plan. Odd Block: Calls trade in Metlife Inc. (MET), calls and puts trade in Holly Frontier Corp (HFC) and puts trade in Encana Corp (ECA). Mail Block/ Options #QuestionOfTheWeek: Special #Earnings, #Election, #WorldSeries edition $FB ATM strd=$7.30 $VIX=17.20. Which outcome is most likely? $VIX > 20 before election $FB beats ATM Straddle @realDonaldTrump wins @Cubs win World Series Listener questions Question from Nickel 45: Your talk of the P&G and COTY arb had my head spinning. So I did some research and came across terms like "put squeeze" and "GEX." Now my head is spinning even more. I included one of the links below for clarification. Is this stuff accurate or just noise? Thx. Question from PFC11: Whats up with $PG/Coty options arb? Any updates? Question from Barncat: I guess this is for the Options House crew. I am an Etrade customer but I am not happy with their platform. I have been thinking about making the switch to your firm for a few months. Will my account automatically switch over to Options House after the merger or I should I switch it manually now? Around the Block/Earnings Highlights this Week: Tuesday - Pfizer Wednesday - Alibaba, Facebook Thursday - Starbucks Friday - Berkshire Hathaway

Trading Block: The tumultuous presidential election could peak the VIX today. Emotional uncertain about the election? Stick to your investing plan. Odd Block: Calls trade in Metlife Inc. (MET), calls and puts trade in Holly Frontier Corp (HFC) and puts trade in Encana Corp (ECA). Mail Block/ Options #QuestionOfTheWeek: Special #Earnings, #Election, #WorldSeries edition $FB ATM strd=$7.30 $VIX=17.20. Which outcome is most likely? $VIX > 20 before election $FB beats ATM Straddle @realDonaldTrump wins @Cubs win World Series Listener questions Question from Nickel 45: Your talk of the P&G and COTY arb had my head spinning. So I did some research and came across terms like "put squeeze" and "GEX." Now my head is spinning even more. I included one of the links below for clarification. Is this stuff accurate or just noise? Thx. Question from PFC11: Whats up with $PG/Coty options arb? Any updates? Question from Barncat: I guess this is for the Options House crew. I am an Etrade customer but I am not happy with their platform. I have been thinking about making the switch to your firm for a few months. Will my account automatically switch over to Options House after the merger or I should I switch it manually now? Around the Block/Earnings Highlights this Week: Tuesday - Pfizer Wednesday - Alibaba, Facebook Thursday - Starbucks Friday - Berkshire Hathaway

Trading Block: Earnings today before the bell: Bank of America (BAC) leading off before the market opened Monday with a positive result. Earnings today after the bell: IBM: $154.50, ADV 23K; Today over 50k, ATM Straddle: $6.50, approx. 4% Resources mentioned in the show: OptionsHouse blog Options market sees Netflix as a coiled spring ahead of earnings CEO sold millions in Wells Fargo stock before fraud revelations Odd Block: Calls trade in SPDR KBW Bank (KBE), calls trade in Bank of America Corp (BAC) and calls trade in 3D Systems Corp (DDD) Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from Adam - Could you please explain what it means to "gamma scalp" and why this is not called delta scalping? Thanks and your show has saved me a lot of money now that I have come to the dark side! Question from Ian Wagner - Why trade volatility vs direction or income? Preference? More favorable risk/reward profile? Around the Block/Earnings Highlights this Week: Tuesday - Dominos, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth. Wednesday - Abbott Labs, American Express, eBay, Mattel Thursday - American Airlines, Dunkin Brands, E*Trade Financial Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, PayPal, Verizon Communications Friday - General Electric Company, Honeywell International, McDonalds Corporation

Trading Block: Earnings today before the bell: Bank of America (BAC) leading off before the market opened Monday with a positive result. Earnings today after the bell: IBM: $154.50, ADV 23K; Today over 50k, ATM Straddle: $6.50, approx. 4% Resources mentioned in the show: OptionsHouse blog Options market sees Netflix as a coiled spring ahead of earnings CEO sold millions in Wells Fargo stock before fraud revelations Odd Block: Calls trade in SPDR KBW Bank (KBE), calls trade in Bank of America Corp (BAC) and calls trade in 3D Systems Corp (DDD) Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from Adam - Could you please explain what it means to "gamma scalp" and why this is not called delta scalping? Thanks and your show has saved me a lot of money now that I have come to the dark side! Question from Ian Wagner - Why trade volatility vs direction or income? Preference? More favorable risk/reward profile? Around the Block/Earnings Highlights this Week: Tuesday - Dominos, Goldman Sachs, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth. Wednesday - Abbott Labs, American Express, eBay, Mattel Thursday - American Airlines, Dunkin Brands, E*Trade Financial Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, PayPal, Verizon Communications Friday - General Electric Company, Honeywell International, McDonalds Corporation

Trading Block: Vol begins to head north again after a big selloff in VIX on Friday. The debates are coming! Merkel has no love for Deutsche Bank. Golf loses a king, Arnold Palmer. What can investors learn from his endorsements? Are you seeing Trump in the rearview mirror? CBOE agrees to buy market operator Bats for $3.2 Billion. With a B. Interesting turn into exchange consolidation rather than fragmentation. Odd Block: Puts trade in EWG, calls trade in TCK and calls trade in DVAX. Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from @investor17 - Can you please highlight if PG puts were sold or bought? And give perspective on what these high Oct puts strikes 120 mean? (The information in question came from the Hot Options Report for 9.23.16.) Around the Block: Have you checked out the OptionsHouse blog? OPEC meeting coming up, and they invited Russia. Deutsche Bank aftermath? The Fed.

Trading Block: Vol begins to head north again after a big selloff in VIX on Friday. The debates are coming! Merkel has no love for Deutsche Bank. Golf loses a king, Arnold Palmer. What can investors learn from his endorsements? Are you seeing Trump in the rearview mirror? CBOE agrees to buy market operator Bats for $3.2 Billion. With a B. Interesting turn into exchange consolidation rather than fragmentation. Odd Block: Puts trade in EWG, calls trade in TCK and calls trade in DVAX. Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from @investor17 - Can you please highlight if PG puts were sold or bought? And give perspective on what these high Oct puts strikes 120 mean? (The information in question came from the Hot Options Report for 9.23.16.) Around the Block: Have you checked out the OptionsHouse blog? OPEC meeting coming up, and they invited Russia. Deutsche Bank aftermath? The Fed.

Trading Block: Big news! OptionsHouse is now the sponsor of The Option Block. Earnings today include CME, FORD, DOW. Ford off nearly 9% AMZN: $748.50. ATM Straddle approx. $50, 6.6% GOOG: $742. ATM Straddle approx. $38.50, 5%. Odd Block: Calls trade in ETSY Inc. (ETSY), calls trade in The Technology SPDR (XLK), calls and puts trade in Yandex NV (YNDX) Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from AWorth: Can the Options House guys explain how their short buyback program works? Is it only for outright shorts, or if I have a short leg of a spread that is near the money on expiration but trading under $.10, can I close that out without commission or do I have to close the whole spread? Question from Thomas Hatch: I like dividend yield stocks. I listened to an earlier show and you mentioned writing covered calls to generate dividends. Can I apply this strategy to dividend yield stocks? Any risks I should watch out for when doing this? Question from 777: Are you aware of any specific gold arb between chinese gold derivatives and their U.S. equivalents? Around the Block: Earnings on Friday include CBOE, Exxon-Mobil (XOM), Merck (MRK) and UPS (UPS). This weekin the market sees GDP, Consumer Sentiment on July 29.

Trading Block: Big news! OptionsHouse is now the sponsor of The Option Block. Earnings today include CME, FORD, DOW. Ford off nearly 9% AMZN: $748.50. ATM Straddle approx. $50, 6.6% GOOG: $742. ATM Straddle approx. $38.50, 5%. Odd Block: Calls trade in ETSY Inc. (ETSY), calls trade in The Technology SPDR (XLK), calls and puts trade in Yandex NV (YNDX) Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from AWorth: Can the Options House guys explain how their short buyback program works? Is it only for outright shorts, or if I have a short leg of a spread that is near the money on expiration but trading under $.10, can I close that out without commission or do I have to close the whole spread? Question from Thomas Hatch: I like dividend yield stocks. I listened to an earlier show and you mentioned writing covered calls to generate dividends. Can I apply this strategy to dividend yield stocks? Any risks I should watch out for when doing this? Question from 777: Are you aware of any specific gold arb between chinese gold derivatives and their U.S. equivalents? Around the Block: Earnings on Friday include CBOE, Exxon-Mobil (XOM), Merck (MRK) and UPS (UPS). This weekin the market sees GDP, Consumer Sentiment on July 29.

Trading Block: Today we have a specail co-host, Steve Claussen, Chief Investment Strategist, OptionsHouse. What do the all-stars discuss? Earnings today:  Alcoa Inc. ATM Straddle approx. $.65-6.5%. The S&P hits new all-time high, Nasdaq above 5,000. CBOE to list SPX Monday-expiring Weeklys Options. Pokemon Go craze sends Nintendo stock soaring. Odd Block: Short-term bulls go shopping at Macy's (M); calls trade in Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (SFM); calls trade in Lifelock Inc (LOCK), and; puts trade in Deutsche Bank AG (DB) Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses alternatives to covered call trading. Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Around the Block: Earnings! Wednesday: Yum! Brands, Inc. Thursday: JPMorgan Chase, Delta Air Lines Friday: Citigroup, PNC Financial Services, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo

Trading Block: Today we have a specail co-host, Steve Claussen, Chief Investment Strategist, OptionsHouse. What do the all-stars discuss? Earnings today: Alcoa Inc. ATM Straddle approx. $.65-6.5%. The S&P hits new all-time high, Nasdaq above 5,000. CBOE to list SPX Monday-expiring Weeklys Options. Pokemon Go craze sends Nintendo stock soaring. Odd Block: Short-term bulls go shopping at Macy's (M); calls trade in Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. (SFM); calls trade in Lifelock Inc (LOCK), and; puts trade in Deutsche Bank AG (DB) Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses alternatives to covered call trading. Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Around the Block: Earnings! Wednesday: Yum! Brands, Inc. Thursday: JPMorgan Chase, Delta Air Lines Friday: Citigroup, PNC Financial Services, US Bancorp, Wells Fargo

WWoO Show 31: Rolling Options Positions and OCC Advocacy Joe Burgoyne explores the topic of rolling options positions with Steve Claussen from OptionsHouse. Then he connects with Joe Kamnik from the OCC to discuss its role as an advocate for the industry.

WWoO Show 31: Rolling Options Positions and OCC Advocacy Joe Burgoyne explores the topic of rolling options positions with Steve Claussen from OptionsHouse. Then he connects with Joe Kamnik from the OCC to discuss its role as an advocate for the industry.

Trading Block: Today we have a special guest co-host: Steve Claussen, Chief Investment Strategist, OptionsHouse. What's going on: VIX/VVIX surging ahead of FOMC - VIX Cash over 20, VVIX: 117. Suspicious options activity in LNKD/MSFT ahead of deal A group from Silicon Valley has a serious plan for creating a totally new US stock exchange. Options Question of the Week Results: How are you prepping your portfolio for #BREXIT: 23% Buying S&P / Index Puts 27% Buying Vol -VIX, VXX, etc 15% Moving to Cash 35% BREXIT will not happen was the winner, but down from 50% earlier in the week. Odd Block: Calls trade in JPMorgan Alerian MLP (AMJ), calls trade in SunPower Corp. (SPWR), calls trade in Barclays PLC (BCS) Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses being a bull ahead to the FOMC and Brexit. Around the Block: What are the all-stars thinking about? Earnings This Week: The Kroger Co, Rite Aid Corporation, Oracle Corporation. Federal Reserve Meeting on Wednesday.

Trading Block: Today we have a special guest co-host: Steve Claussen, Chief Investment Strategist, OptionsHouse. What's going on: VIX/VVIX surging ahead of FOMC - VIX Cash over 20, VVIX: 117. Suspicious options activity in LNKD/MSFT ahead of deal A group from Silicon Valley has a serious plan for creating a totally new US stock exchange. Options Question of the Week Results: How are you prepping your portfolio for #BREXIT: 23% Buying S&P / Index Puts 27% Buying Vol -VIX, VXX, etc 15% Moving to Cash 35% BREXIT will not happen was the winner, but down from 50% earlier in the week. Odd Block: Calls trade in JPMorgan Alerian MLP (AMJ), calls trade in SunPower Corp. (SPWR), calls trade in Barclays PLC (BCS) Strategy Block: Uncle Mike Tosaw discusses being a bull ahead to the FOMC and Brexit. Around the Block: What are the all-stars thinking about? Earnings This Week: The Kroger Co, Rite Aid Corporation, Oracle Corporation. Federal Reserve Meeting on Wednesday.

Trading Block featuring guest co-host Todd Rich, President of OM Media (an affiliate of OptionsHouse). Crude oil and energy stocks It is that time of the month - volume time. OCC announced that cleared contract volume in May reached 319,533,636 contracts, a four percent increase from the May 2015 volume of 308,639,215 contracts. YTD average daily cleared contract volume is also up four percent from 2015 with 16,734,689 contracts. Odd Block: Calls trade in Xilinx Inc. (XLNX), calls trade in iShares MSCI UK (EWU), calls and puts trade in Macys Inc. (M), and calls trade in Marriott International Inc. (MAR). Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from Niles - Are there any triple witching levels coming soon? If so, how do they influence the options market and expiration? Question from Fred - I kind of hit a wall in my options development. Maybe my focus was too split between learning about futures and learning about options. Are you familiar with the books by Jim Dalton? He wrote a book about options trading but he does not like the greeks and he does not like many conventional options trading strategies. He only uses them when necessary. I guess this is a long way to asking when I should use options vs. futures Question from Jack - Have you ever used the PREM indicator? It is for arbitrage traders. If so, how does it play out in the options market? Around the Block: Non-Farms on Friday (to be released at 7:30 a.m. CDT Friday)

Coming to you live from the 2016 OIC Conference, Mark is catching up with all the usual suspects to bring you the latest options news. In this episode, he is joined by Joe Corso, Senior VP of Brokerage at Options House. They discuss: What are the new developments at Options House? What is going on with the Otions House mobile app? Moblie charting Idea generation What about futures and futures options? New entries into the options brokerage space After hours trading: pros and cons How many exchanges are too many exchanges?

Coming to you live from the 2016 OIC Conference, Mark is catching up with all the usual suspects to bring you the latest options news. In this episode, he is joined by Joe Corso, Senior VP of Brokerage at Options House. They discuss: What are the new developments at Options House? What is going on with the Otions House mobile app? Moblie charting Idea generation What about futures and futures options? New entries into the options brokerage space After hours trading: pros and cons How many exchanges are too many exchanges?

WWoO Show 28: Panel Discussion: What Greeks Can Teach You About Options Take a deep dive into options Greeks and join a panel of options professionals, including Steve Claussen from Options House and Dan Passarelli from Maker Taker Mentoring, for an advanced discussion of some mechanics behind the pricing of an option.

Trading Block: March Madness Poll -  Vote today for TradeKing or E*Trade to find out who will go to the finals against Interactive Brokers, who beat OptionsHouse to make the final round. Stocks higher as the end to a rocky quarter nears. Yellen killed the strong dollar rally. Stocks to watch: Tesla – new electric Model 3 unveiled today. A modest rally for Tesla – up only 5% intraday. Lululemon – earnings announced yesterday and stock looks good, trading up about 10% post-earnings. Odd Block: Calls and puts trade in Dynavax Technologies Corp. (DVAX), calls trade in SPDR Homebuilders ETF (XHB), and calls and puts trade in Pure Storage, Inc. (PSTG). Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from Gabe Rich: Mark, this is weird; huge buys for $INTC Apr 33 calls and the IV goes down?! I thought the market makers will push the price up when more buyers are around demand/supply. Thanks, I thought you might explain this since you are a former $INTC market maker. Question from 777 - with commodity based ETF options - anyway to trade roll risk? Question from Flyguy - If I sold a put $1 on Jan 16 with a current trading price of $.50 and stock goes to $5 -what happens and what is my risk? Around the Block: What's coming up in the week ahead? Thursday - The USDA Prospective Plantings report will provide the official estimate on what farmers across the United States are planting this year. Friday, April 1 - The biggest economic release of the month, the Employment Situation Report, will hit newswires before the market opens on Friday. Earnings: Blackberry

Trading Block: March Madness Poll - Vote today for TradeKing or E*Trade to find out who will go to the finals against Interactive Brokers, who beat OptionsHouse to make the final round. Stocks higher as the end to a rocky quarter nears. Yellen killed the strong dollar rally. Stocks to watch: Tesla – new electric Model 3 unveiled today. A modest rally for Tesla – up only 5% intraday. Lululemon – earnings announced yesterday and stock looks good, trading up about 10% post-earnings. Odd Block: Calls and puts trade in Dynavax Technologies Corp. (DVAX), calls trade in SPDR Homebuilders ETF (XHB), and calls and puts trade in Pure Storage, Inc. (PSTG). Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from Gabe Rich: Mark, this is weird; huge buys for $INTC Apr 33 calls and the IV goes down?! I thought the market makers will push the price up when more buyers are around demand/supply. Thanks, I thought you might explain this since you are a former $INTC market maker. Question from 777 - with commodity based ETF options - anyway to trade roll risk? Question from Flyguy - If I sold a put $1 on Jan 16 with a current trading price of $.50 and stock goes to $5 -what happens and what is my risk? Around the Block: What's coming up in the week ahead? Thursday - The USDA Prospective Plantings report will provide the official estimate on what farmers across the United States are planting this year. Friday, April 1 - The biggest economic release of the month, the Employment Situation Report, will hit newswires before the market opens on Friday. Earnings: Blackberry

Michael: Hello readers and listeners, this is Michael Gross of optionsellers.com, I have a very special guest for you today. Today we have with us John “Dr. J” Najarian, for any of you that watch CNBC you’ll see Jon on Closing Bell and also as a feature trader on Half Time Report. He’s also co-author with his brother Pete of the book “How We Trade Options”, he’s co-founder of optionmonster.com and trademonster.com. For those of you who don’t know John he was a floor trader at the CBOE for 23 years before founding these enterprises. For those of you that trade stock options, Jon has some deep insight into that form of trading he’s going to share with some of those with us today. John welcome to optionsellers.com, guest expert series. John: Well it’s my pleasure Michael, thank you very much for having me. Michael: Sure, John you’ve got a pretty rich background in the industry, one thing many of our listeners might not know is that your resume includes a job as a linebacker with the Chicago Bears. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how you got started with your career in trading? John: Sure, well I was lucky enough back in 1981 to come out of college and go right to the Chicago Bears, and unfortunately even though I picked a good team I think too, – because I was a free agent, I was not drafted – so it was my choice because several teams had contacted me Michael, and the Bears looked like they were probably my best chance. So I went there but unfortunately Michael Singletary ended up being a number two pick that year and obviously a future Hall-of-Famer, it was not long before they figured out that they’d rather have him at middle linebacker than me. So at least it got me to Chicago and that’s what I always thank Mike Singletary about. Michael: That’s some pretty tough competition. John: Yup it is, and he’s a really tough guy and a good guy, so my mother is the only one that resents him. I instead admire him, and I'm sure if my mom had met him she’d admire him too. Michael: Okay, so you were in Chicago and then you ended up on the floor of the CBOE, can you tell us how that got started and what you did there? John: Sure, basically my agent was a trader and a money manager, and he was on the floor of the Chicago Board Option Exchange, managing money for clients. And when he asked me what I was going to do, and I told him that I thought I’d go into the markets, from being around so many interesting people up at our training camp. Bears training camp at that time was up at Lake Forrest, a suburb on the northern edge of Chicago. So he said “well if you’re even interested in that, you’d much rather be on the floor John, trust me”, so he gave me a job and I did that with him for about six months and worked with another trader for about six months, and then went off and started trading my own money out on the floor. Michael: Wow that’s a great story, now when you first started trading Jon, were you trading options, were you trading or were you selling options, were you buying options, what type of trading were you doing? John: Basically as a market maker, so I would have to do both, buy and sell, but I was primarily I guess a premium buyer. Because most traders you will find that are on the floor end up having long premium positions I think, but the primary reason is that they’re scalping throughout the trading day. In other words that long gamut, the fact that you’re long on option contracts, and that it gets longer as it goes higher, and shorter as you go down, means that scalping can be a very lucrative way to make a living. So basically scalping gamma is what most traders do, and obviously the further you get from the trading floor, the more it favors the strategy like what you guys do where you’re and options seller rather than an options buyer. Because a combination of people just don’t have a full time access to the markets like a floor trader does, and the time decay can just eat you up as an off floor trader that trades a couple times a day or a couple times a week or a couple times a month. That’s different from a floor trader who probably trades hundreds of times per day. So again I think the closer you are to the pits and being in there and trading, the more likely you are to be a long gamma trader, and the further you are – more upstairs, which is what I am now like you Michael – the more you are an options seller I think. Michael: Well that’s a great observation. In your opinion John is there still as much activity on the floor or is most of this going online now? John: Of course the volumes show up attributed to a floor, but most of the volume really occurs down in the data centers of Mahwah New Jersey, Carteret New Jersey, Chicago or wherever, in other words at the CME or at the CBOE, at Arca, wherever it might be. The traders are still on the floor but most of the volume is really transacted by people on computer via remote, so long winded explanation I guess, most of the volumes coming in trading electronically rather than in open outcry in the pits. Michael: Okay I'm sure a lot of our listeners and readers are interested to hear that because we do get a lot of questions of “is floor trading what it used to be”, you read a lot now about things going online and a lot of people are curious about that. John, so you spent a lot of time with the CBOE, 23 years, you eventually went on to found trade monster and option monster, and trade monster recently rated best for option traders by Barons. Can you tell us a little bit about those two enterprises, who they’re for and what they offer to investors? John: Sure, well the trade monster was something that my brother Pete and I created to be an online trading platform similar to offering over at Pinker Slim or Charles Schwab with their option express purchase. So we basically sought out to create a venue for people to give them a lot of tools so that they could trade using various types of analysis of both options and stocks, and technical analysis for charts and all the rest on one platform, so that they wouldn’t have to download something. They could just use it as a web based service from wherever they were on mobile or sitting at a desktop. So we did that, and that became known as trade monster. Then we did a deal with a private equity firm a year ago, that private equity firm bought a majority of the firm from us. And we immediately rolled up another firm and now call it Options House. So options plural, house, that’s our technology on that much bigger and much more widely distributed trading platform. Michael: Okay so options house is based primarily on technology that you’ve developed or you and your team have developed? John: Yes exactly, we developed the technology and the tools to both analyze trades and for investors to be able to see where the heat was. We can’t really redistribute the heat seekers that we do because the bandwidth it requires is just too large, so instead we give a slimmed down version for free to many of the clients of Options House so that they can see where there are unusual calls or push. And many times those are signals that somebody is getting involved, somebody’s buying and is establishing {unintelligible 12:22-12:24} that particular equity. Michael: Okay, Jon now you’ve also authored a book with your brother Pete called “How We Trade Options”, and that’s based on your experience on trading stock options. I know one of your key concepts is looking for options with unusual activity. Can you explain what that means and talk a little about the approach you recommend taking in the book? John: Sure, well we start to give a basic primer if you will Michael for people understanding how options work and then how they could apply various strategies to either enhance yield for selling options for instance against stocks that they own, or to instead of investing in stocks at all, perhaps stimulating a long position through the use of options, either buying in deeper in the money call or a lead, or by putting in a call vertical spread, a one by one spread, they can simulate the long stock that have far less risk than the open ended down side of purchasing Chipotle or Apple or any of the other high fliers that people tend to want to trade. But could have a considerable downside if there is a negative event that impacts both stocks like of course this just happened over the last month or so in Chipotle. Michael: Okay so a lot of the strategies you’re looking at are what some people call synthetic positions? Is that – am I on the right track there, or am I off somewhere else? John: You sure are, no you guys know your options, so I'm not going to correct you Michael, you’re exactly right. Many of these synthetics are ways that people are getting long and expressing that bullish outlook – or short – for instance right now because of some of the things that I've seen in the market, I am long a lot on put spreads in the Spider, the SPY. And I expressed that bearish position not by shorting but by owning the put at for instance the 205 strike and being short of goods at the 195 strike in the SPY therefore putting on a position whereby I make money if the market drops and you know `that kind of spread, that vertical spread is the way that I probably trade 70% of the time either being bullish or bearish through calls Michael: Ok. Excellent I’m sure a lot of our listeners will certainly understand what you’re doing there. John many of our listeners here either trade or are interested in both stock and commodities options; however many of the option strategies are the same. Do you have any individual option strategies other than- I know you said your favorite here is the vertical type of long spreads, any other strategies that you favor that you like that you would recommend to investors? John: Well I think for investors that are just learning the course many of them will be better served since they probably own stocks learning about the writing of calls- covered calls against stocks that they own. And then perhaps as they're learning about options eventually they’ll want to understand insurance which is of course a good option collecting a premium for a call can help offset some of the pain that you feel if the market moves to the downside but it can only provide the perfection up to that premium that you've collected so I think the next step is that people tend to understand putting on a put versus their stock and then perhaps writing a call against it and that's something that traders refer to as Callers? And that's a very popular way for people to invest because it can really cut off at downside risk of owning upstart through that put option and then hopefully pay for it by selling them upside call the truncate are upside but it seems like a reasonable trade-off to most of us when you see some of the rapid decline that we’ve seen in 2015 I can’t remember a year where we've seen more of these Michael. Michael: Well that's an interesting observation. I'm going to ask you something, shift gears here a little bit John; many of our listeners, readers here, they've read our book: The Complete Guide to Option Selling some of them sell options on commodities, a lot of them sell stock options. One of the tenets that we always preach is hey look this isn’t the only way to trade options... there's hundreds of ways you can trade options this is one way that works for us it's what we recommend. Obviously you have some ways that work for you; what’s your opinion of selling options as a strategy and do you use the strategy at all in your trading? John: I use it all the time in my trading, I would say that for our clients over on the wealth management side in particular for foundations and endowments and thing, that’s why people come to us; they want somebody to prudently manage a covered write or an option overwrite and I think that’s the same sort of appeal that you guys in your department have Michael is that people seek that additional yield and one of the ways that you can do it most on efficiency- efficiently rather, is through those option strategies; listed options, prices every night there’s nothing over the counter that is in our portfolios for folks just basically writing listed options form or in some cases options that are created select options where you can basically call strike price for American or European exercise and all that sort of thing that's extremely popular for us with the larger accounts that we do because you're not necessarily impacting the market the same way as if you tried to go in and basically put a market in between the bid and the offer or something like that, you’re asking for a quote for specific strategy and most of those big trading desks are more than willing to accommodate that. Michael: Ok, now these strategies when you’re-- when you are doing these rights for clients, these are equity options these are stock options. Is that correct? John: That's correct, yeah. They are equity options that we're establishing for those clients. Michael: And these are primarily clients that are – are they just looking for high returns or they hedging other portfolios- or what’s their primary draw? John: On the wealth management side, they tend to be either like I say pensions, endowments... foundation and things like that when they have their own portfolio of stocks they haven’t asked us to pick those and instead we are putting on positions for them to enhance the yield and/or to cut the risk of owning what they own and that's probably 60/70% of our business. The rest is for us to {inaudible} put stock and/or ETF and then put on the protected strategies or enhance yield around a particular portfolio that we have selected. So we do it either way {inaudible} goes 'cause they have already put on their stocks or we will be happy to set what we think is a representative portfolio that hopefully outperforms the broader market. We have someone within capital this past year, created a unit investment trust that either people buy as an investment trust or UIT or you can either buy stocks without that unit investment trust {inaudible} depending on the portfolio they pick and then we'll do overwrites or call {inaudible} to come enhance that Michael: okay that does sound like some complex strategies that you’re obviously very good at and it’s very interesting to hear how you’re doing it because we were we just do the commodities on this side and hearing what the you’re doing with the equities is - sure be fascinating to a lot of our listeners. John: cool. Well Thank you. Michael: Sure... John I’m going to shift gears here just for a minute and ask you about some your views of the market and the world right now. There seems to be a lot of anxiety about the state of the world, the markets as of late; are you seeing that reflected in stock option values you follow, the Vicks, those types of things? John: We absolutely are seeing that risk or that fear and you can smell it. When you've been in this as long as I have you definitely can smell it. Here is something that is either fear or greed that are the 2 primary drivers and the greed you can tell by how euphoric voices sound when you're on a trading floor, you can probably even tell it when you're watching some of the talking heads on TV discussing various stocks and how the market reaction, for instance, after the jobs report we saw just a dramatic jump to November jobs report- reported on I believe December 4th or 5th. You saw Mario Grogey come on and explain that the market's up a hundred, 200 points, 300 points, nearly 400 points on the day; that kind of euphoric buying is that greed that I’m speaking up and also sent it downside; and you have a 200 point sell off and you are definitely hearing more of the fear in that trade and with the commodity meltdown that is going on and most of 2015 you can certainly see why at the end of the year we've seen a lot of tax lost harvesting at the end of the year. Michael: OK, that’s fascinating you- I'm probably kind of guessing that your answer to this based on your- when you were talking about writing put spreads earlier but as far as your thoughts on the market for 2016 I know no one can predict the future but do you have an Outlook right now? John: Well overall I think that again, we're sort of lucky on one side that the prices had come down and since crude oil which almost everybody - in one way or another - a Tesla driver probably impacted a little in a positive way by lower energy prices; whether it's the energy to basically power that Tesla by plugging it in or the natural gas in their homes or whatever it might be. Crude oil as a form of eating oil on the East Coast, any of these are imports that are less in 2015 than they were in 2016 and that number has basically still dropped throughout the year... and I believe we're at almost half the United States 24 stock- of 24 States where gasoline is less than 2 dollars a gallon. I think that's a positive I think some of the negative impacts to stocks and stock market will be mitigated by the fact that less participation as I said think we said earlier in the broadcast that these energy stocks are now only about six and a half percent of the SEP 500 previously they were closer to 15% so they've been cut in half their impact on the SEP. So some of the downward pulls that those {inaudible} prices have on the economy or at least on the stock market I think will be lessened just because of that percentage of the SEP 500 that is in load stock and represented by those stocks; on the other hand, everybody from Amazon, people from UPS or whomever is delivering packages I keep seeing a positive from these energy prices being cheaper. I think that one of the dangers in the early part of next year, 2015 is that if Grogey and the ECB move too quickly to increase the equity and basically increase their buying European gas that we can see a dramatic drop in the value of the Euro, it would correspond to of course the big rise in the dollar. I think they're going to be very measured about the way they do that, 'cause as I said everything's going to be measured in the way that the moved rate goes on our side of the globe. So if I’m right about then I think these 2 factors could be much less of a negative impact on US stocks and on our market and the outlier which is if either go up faster on our side than anticipated Again I think that a 20% chance not an 80% chance and I think that Grogey is 80% chance to move slowly and measured with the increases to quantitative using overseas. So in other words my overall outlook is that the market grade is higher although probably only 5 or 6% higher in 26 weeks and I think given that he has said there'll be a fire of European debt through March of 2017 means it should not really be much of a paper roll for their overseas until the end of next year; so again I think all that we will likely see equity prices higher without too much of a drag from either [[28:00]] {inaudible} quantitative using here which too fast of or the acceleration which key fast of quantitative using over there Michael: OK. Now you mentioned earlier that you had some long put spreads on, are you more bearish in the short term and bullish in a longer-term or what- okay John: that’s exactly it. I am not necessarily off bearish but I wanted to vote-- most time Michael when I get here the same if I’m talking about what people quote unquote should do I’m probably doing that. I’m not one of those guys that says 'Oh you guys should do this' but I'm doing the opposite. Michael: sure John: but for my account and for my clients we are protecting portfolios and we're only put and/or volatility and there's a way to do both with the Spider I think. I literally preyed the volatility EPS because I think they’re very inefficient in how they express my view. I would rather say if I think volatility is going to move up that means 99 times out of 100 the market is going to go down. Given that I’d rather have a put spread like the one I described earlier - the 205 195 that $10 put spread I'd much rather have that on than I would buy a bunch of VXX or VXY or any of the EPS that allegedly cracks the volatility because I found that those are inefficient ways to prey because the other just sprayed out access to the short side of the market through a Spider or an SPY put spread is a much more efficient way for them to express that same opinion that I have so that’s why I’m more likely to do that. Michael: Ok. John it's refreshing to hear your Outlook as compared to-- not a lot of analysts in people that discuss the market seldom have extreme views right now. You seem to have a very measured reasonable view of the markets and going forward 2016. Do you have any favorite stocks or sectors that you think might be better than others in the upcoming year? John: Well I’ve got to think that many of the sectors that people can get exposed to either stocks or commodities playing right into your strength. I think these guys -- I think commodities can't and I mean cannot be as big a problem for the market in 2016 as they have been in 2015. I can’t imagine that we're going to see copper for instances that basically are down to $2 and change have a similar fall in 2016. Nor can I see crude oil down from the 60s into the 50s into the 40s and now in the $37 range; I can't see a similar percentage drop there. I just really can't. I think there's just too many other factor that would be to have a man slack dramatically to have either of those have as big an impact as a negative impact on the media in those sectors or on the support mechanisms for them. Support meaning like Caterpillar, for instance, for like Acres News or Slumber Jays depending on if we're talking about mining or going global. We're talking about crude oil and extraction or exploration of natural gas and crude oil. I can't imagine the same sort of negative pull there so those two sectors mining oil and gas, those two sectors would be what I would have in focus. I think that the early part of next year, technology will probably be a significant driver; something that will unfortunately commodities probably don't give you as much access to but I think the rest of the year could be pretty significantly impacted by a turnaround in commodity prices even if it's not a dramatic move to the upside, even if it’s just stabilization I think that's going to be something that happens in 2016. Michael: Yeah that's a great point and maybe one that not a lot of traditional investors get is when you're over on the option side you don’t necessarily need to be outright bullish marketer, guns blazing bullish or even guns blazing bearish just maybe you’re not so bearish on something. There’s an option strategy that you can take advantage of that viewpoint. It doesn’t have to be outright black or white and I’m sure you’re very familiar with that, in fact some of the strategies you just discussed target exactly that. John: Yup. That’s right. I think doing what you and I do Michael gives an investor some confidence that they can own a particular asset, commodity asset or stock exchange created asset and there are ways that you can protect it from the downside, because the world really is about risk versus reward; how much risk am I willing to take for that additional reward? And if the reward is too small for the risk, then I think that's not really an asset that I want to own. On the other hand if I could either do a bearish expression or bullish, have exposure to the market that's exactly what these products are so good at and why I want to be in them. Michael: Excellent and just to quick summarize John and correct me if I’m wrong but just to summarize some of the things you've said, your bullish tech early on 2016 as far as sectors you're leaning towards 2016. You think the mining and energy sectors may not be all out bullish but you think the downside could be somewhat limited in 2016? Did I get that right, was it mining and energies? John: Yup. You're spot on. I think just to summarize technology I believe leads out of the gate in 2016 but by the end of the year the commodities will have their day again and that many of the prices that we'll see as tax loss selling carries us into the end of 2015 people will see gains from those levels by the second half or maybe even before that of 2016 and some of these will be silly how cheap they will have looked in hind sight. Michael: That’s a great point. John I know you’re not a commodities guy per se but you do follow obviously have to follow world asset prices oil certainly something I know you’re familiar with, do you know of-- I know you talked a little bit about this earlier as far as oil goes we just had OPEC come out and they are not going to cut production in the near term, do you have an opinion on that right now? Do you see us heading to a major bottom here over the next 1 to 2 months early 2016 here or do you see things leveling out? Or what's kind of your gut feeling right now? John: Yeah I do, I think that the-- I think overall we will but I don’t know that it's a V-shaped bottom so that’s why I said that I don’t think the first half of 2016 is necessarily off to the races for those sectors {inaudible} I think it’ll take a little while to that mindset and to that pain to be-- fall out of people's minds; but then at some point greed will kick in when they realize that enough production has come off-line in the way that we've seen rig-counts coming down every week now. Early in 2015 Michael they were coming down 23 straight weeks then as commodity prices and energy states rebounded, we saw them build back up. It never got to where they were in 2014 but they nonetheless build back up and now they've been leading off to the last 2 almost 3 months every single week. I think that continues and that cutback of that swing delivery of energies will be one of the reasons that we actually see prices move up. Michael: Ok, case of low prices curing low prices. John: Yup Michael: John this has been some great information and everybody listening out there I'm sure you probably want to go back through and listen to this again or read it John has really given you some great strategies here, some great insight into the markets. John if investors want to learn more about you, your strategies, your firm, where do you recommend that they go? John: Well if they could go to optionmonster.com or howwetradeoptions.com either of those two sites they could learn a lot more about it and have some pretty good free tools available to them as well... Michael: Perfect. That’s optionmonster.com and howwetradeoptions.com. John- John: Well thank you Michael it's been a pleasure. Michael: thank you John it’s been some great information we're glad to have you hopefully you'd like to come back again sometime and- John: I’m sure I would. Michael: It's been a pleasure to have you, I'm going to stop the recording here at this point John: Ok.

WWoO Show 22: Popular Retail Options Strategies and Trading the Calendar Joe Burgoyne chats with Peter Bottini, from OptionsHouse to discuss the popular options strategies his firm sees retail traders employing. Then, in Looking Back, Joe takes a deep dive into the months of the year to see if you really should “Sell in May.”

Trading Tech Talk 12:  The Markets Are Out of Sync Hot Topics in Tech: Regulators challenged by clock synchronization. Flash Boys continues to spur debate and some change, though the government will ultimately have to address the stock market's structure. Thomas Peterffy, one of the founding fathers of high-frequency trading, has offered the SEC a plan to keep HFTs from taking advantage of investors. Warren Buffett, business partner Charlie Munger, and Bill Gates slammed HFT on CNBC.  They are no fans of high-frequency trading. Both brokers and investors are testing new ways to cope with the sheer volume of data the stock market produces. Goldman Sachs fined in dark pool debacle. It's not just the U.S. - Bombay Stock Exchange halted by network glitch.     The Inbox: Listener questions and comments Question from Hawkeye - Just wanted to share an observation. You guys have been saying that the HFT latency issues have not hit the options market, but I have been seeing otherwise. A couple weeks ago, I was trying to add some back month Oct slightly OTM VXX puts (-30 delta - they were not THAT far OTM) to add some contango protection to a spread position. The bid asked spread was about .40 cents wide so I split it with my limit order thinking I would have a reasonable chance of getting filled as the market moved around. (I use Tradestation, a direct access broker.). It showed that Tradestation auto-routed my order to the NASDAQ. It sat for a while without being filled, I happened to look at the market depth screen and sure enough, a bunch of other bids from other exchanges were showing with timestamps slightly ahead of my order. I cancelled and all the other bids backed down to where they were before I placed my order. I entered it again, same thing. I cancelled again, they moved back. Then I reentered the same bid, this time I specified it route to BOX, which was the one that went first in the queue the other times. Sure enough, I was first in the queue this time. This is where the retail guy gets screwed. The market makers do not seem to want to make a real market, but they are more than willing to block me from getting filled if someone else were to come in with a bid at my price. The other way we seem to get screwed over when I correctly pick a position and the underlying goes significantly my way, but the market makers decide that they only want to move one side of the spread. I end up looking to get out but the market is bid something stupid like bid 0.75, at 1.50 whereas when I got in when it was bid 0.52 at 0.58. I only trade penny pilot symbols with good option volume. I never buy in front of an implied volatility crush. Yet, this sort of action seems to happen way more often than it should. I just want the damn market makers to make an honest market. They want to be market makers but don't want to make markets. Thoughts? Love the shows. Hawkeye Question from Elsa74 - Hello tech stars. Like the new direction for the network with this program. It's about time someone tackled trading tech on a show and Options Insider Radio Network is a great place to do it. Great guests so far, particularly Blair Hull. That guy has a lot of insight into the markets. I am looking forward to the next guests on the program. Now for my question. It might sound strange but I would like to know if the hosts think trading tech may have gotten too good. The options market is a good example. The recent mergers of brokers like Options House and Trade Monster was driven in many ways by the fact that they need to spend millions to keep their platforms cutting edge and they simply cannot afford it. They need economies of scale to be viable and continue to offer that level of functionality to the consumer. Do you think options customers are hurting ourselves by demanding too much from our brokers and therefore driving them out of the business - depriving ourselves of choice at the end of the day? I personally would much rather have a dozen brokers to choose from with different platforms rather than two or three monoliths controlling the entire business. Thanks again for this insightful program. Any chance we're going to see a weekly TTT going forward? Question from Indigo: You have said on the program several times that dark pools do not exist in the options market. Why is that? Is there some technical limitation preventing dark pools from launching in the options market vs. the equities market?

Trading Tech Talk 12: The Markets Are Out of Sync Hot Topics in Tech: Regulators challenged by clock synchronization. Flash Boys continues to spur debate and some change, though the government will ultimately have to address the stock market's structure. Thomas Peterffy, one of the founding fathers of high-frequency trading, has offered the SEC a plan to keep HFTs from taking advantage of investors. Warren Buffett, business partner Charlie Munger, and Bill Gates slammed HFT on CNBC. They are no fans of high-frequency trading. Both brokers and investors are testing new ways to cope with the sheer volume of data the stock market produces. Goldman Sachs fined in dark pool debacle. It's not just the U.S. - Bombay Stock Exchange halted by network glitch. The Inbox: Listener Questions & Comments Question from Hawkeye -Just wanted to share an observation. You guys have been saying that the HFT latency issues have not hit the options market, but I have been seeing otherwise. A couple weeks ago, I was trying to add some back month Oct slightly OTM VXX puts (-30 delta - they were not THAT far OTM) to add some contango protection to a spread position. The bid asked spread was about .40 cents wide so I split it with my limit order thinking I would have a reasonable chance of getting filled as the market moved around. (I use Tradestation, a direct access broker.). It showed that Tradestation auto-routed my order to the NASDAQ. It sat for a while without being filled, I happened to look at the market depth screen and sure enough, a bunch of other bids from other exchanges were showing with timestamps slightly ahead of my order. I cancelled and all the other bids backed down to where they were before I placed my order. I entered it again, same thing. I cancelled again, they moved back. Then I reentered the same bid, this time I specified it route to BOX, which was the one that went first in the queue the other times. Sure enough, I was first in the queue this time. This is where the retail guy gets screwed. The market makers do not seem to want to make a real market, but they are more than willing to block me from getting filled if someone else were to come in with a bid at my price. The other way we seem to get screwed over when I correctly pick a position and the underlying goes significantly my way, but the market makers decide that they only want to move one side of the spread. I end up looking to get out but the market is bid something stupid like bid 0.75, at 1.50 whereas when I got in when it was bid 0.52 at 0.58. I only trade penny pilot symbols with good option volume. I never buy in front of an implied volatility crush. Yet, this sort of action seems to happen way more often than it should. I just want the damn market makers to make an honest market. They want to be market makers but don't want to make markets. Thoughts? Love the shows. Hawkeye Question from Elsa74 - Hello tech stars. Like the new direction for the network with this program. It's about time someone tackled trading tech on a show and Options Insider Radio Network is a great place to do it. Great guests so far, particularly Blair Hull. That guy has a lot of insight into the markets. I am looking forward to the next guests on the program. Now for my question. It might sound strange but I would like to know if the hosts think trading tech may have gotten too good. The options market is a good example. The recent mergers of brokers like Options House and Trade Monster was driven in many ways by the fact that they need to spend millions to keep their platforms cutting edge and they simply cannot afford it. They need economies of scale to be viable and continue to offer that level of functionality to the consumer. Do you think options customers are hurting ourselves by demanding too much from our brokers and therefore driving them out of the business - depriving ourselves of choice at the end of the day? I personally would much rather have a dozen brokers to choose from with different platforms rather than two or three monoliths controlling the entire business. Thanks again for this insightful program. Any chance we’re going to see a weekly TTT going forward? Question from Indigo: You have said on the program several times that dark pools do not exist in the options market. Why is that? Is there some technical limitation preventing dark pools from launching in the options market vs. the equities market?

Options Playbook 3: Volatility, Part 1 Options prices are based partly on volatility.  Brian discusses: Implied volatility The interconnectedness of probability and volatility Factors beyond price that help determine whether to trade an option Send your questions to questions@theoptionsinsider.com and maybe we will answer them on the air. Options involve risk. Please refer to tradeking.com/ODD to review additional risks involved with trading options.

Options Insider Radio: Options House CEO George Ruhanna In this episode, Mark is joined by George Ruhanna, CEO of Options House They discuss: Upgrade progression to the Options House platform The focus on security Margin, including portfolio margin Premium harvesting vs. premium buying Market structure and some of the challenges it creates Working with advisors And more...

Options Insider Radio: Options House CEO George Ruhanna In this episode, Mark is joined by George Ruhanna, CEO of Options House They discuss: Upgrade progression to the Options House platform The focus on security Margin, including portfolio margin Premium harvesting vs. premium buying Market structure and some of the challenges it creates Working with advisors And more...

On Profiles & Perspectives, Joe speaks with John Denza and Jeromee Johnson of BATS about the exchange's entrance and evolution in the options marketplace. Also, Joe will cover the ins and outs of LEAPs with Steve Claussen of OptionsHouse and then wrap up with some listener questions.   LEAPS® and Long-term Equity Anticipation SecuritiesSM are trademarks of Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated.

On Profiles & Perspectives, Joe speaks with John Denza and Jeromee Johnson of BATS about the exchange's entrance and evolution in the options marketplace. Also, Joe will cover the ins and outs of LEAPs with Steve Claussen of OptionsHouse and then wrap up with some listener questions. LEAPS and Long-term Equity Anticipation Securities are trademarks of Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated.

Options Insider Radio 110: Interview with George Ruhana, CEO of OptionsHouseIn this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by George Ruhana, CEO of OptionsHouse.They discuss: OptionsHouse's platform overhaul Various apps available from Options House As a client, Chris makes a request Prodigio app Why choose OptionsHouse Why trading options makes sense The implications of weeklys expirations And a lot more.

Options Insider Radio 110: Interview with George Ruhana, CEO of OptionsHouseIn this episode, Mark and Chris are joined by George Ruhana, CEO of OptionsHouse.They discuss: OptionsHouse's platform overhaul Various apps available from Options House As a client, Chris makes a request Prodigio app Why choose OptionsHouse Why trading options makes sense The implications of weeklys expirations And a lot more.