Recent content by Stan Freifeld

Today I'd like to talk about a strategy called the Vertical Spread. For those of you who are wondering how the terms Horizontal and Vertical came into common usage, ponder no more. In a typical options chain or montage, the options are typically displayed in the format shown here. Calendar...

I've recently written about the popular strategies of Straddles and Strangles. For the most part, they were discussed from the long side, in other words, buying the Straddle or buying the Strangle. Obviously, there is another side to this story, and that is the short side, selling the Straddle...

I've probably mentioned the term volatility in every article I've written about options trading. Everyone probably has an intuitive feel as to what volatility means, for example looking at the following charts of stocks ABC and XYZ, it's pretty clear which one is more volatile. If you think it's...

A question recently came up about the symbols that represent options and what seems like a relatively boring and mundane topic is actually filled with twists and turns and many surprises. Okay, so it probably won't make you rich knowing more about option symbols than 99 percent of the...

I'll bet you probably never considered how international options trading can be! We know there are American options, which can be exercised at any time from when they are bought until their date of expiration (we call that "early exercise.") There are also European options, which cannot be...

Since the introduction of exchange traded options in the 1973, they have become more and more popular. In fact, it seems that almost every month I get an email from the Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) announcing that a new record number of contracts have traded and showing the month to...

This week we'll learn about the Straddle's first cousin, the Strangle. Let's start off with a definition. Definition: A long (short) Strangle is the purchase (sale) of an out of the money (OTM) Put and an OTM Call on the same underlying stock with the same time to expiration. There's also a...

Over the last few months I've discussed a lot of the basics of trading options. It's like building a house; you start with the foundation. As far as actually trading, I've discussed Puts and Calls and a little bit about Covered Calls. Now we're going to start thinking about different types of...

Tomorrow, the 18th April 2008, is the 3rd Friday of the month, commonly referred to as expiration Friday. Coincidentally, this year it almost coincides with the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover. I therefore find it appropriate to ask "Why is this day different than other days?" (If...