Today we are joined by:

• Mike Tosaw from St. Charles wealth management
• Sean Smith, Managing Director of Derivatives Licensing at FTSE Russell
• Ron Bundy, CEO of Benchmarks, North America at FTSE Russell

Topics this week include:

• Equities
• Indices/Russell
• Crude/WTI
• Metals/Silver
• Winners: Oats, Nat Gas, Iron Ore
• Losers: Rough Rice, WTI, Lumber

Futures Options Feedback: Listeners weigh in

• Question from Dolamite - What's the best way to harvest the higher levels of volatility in the Russell 2000?
• Question from Leevy - Is this a favorable environment for metals collars - looking at mostly gold and silver not copper or industrial.

Options news you can use for Friday, August 10, 2018

As earnings season winds down, we are looking at strategies before, during, and after announcements. Last week, we did a skip-strike butterfly in GOOGL. Let's follow up on how that went. You can find more in The Options Playbook, which is always available on OptionsPlaybook.com, in on the Amazon Kindle edition.

Specifically:

• A review of the skip-strike butterfly
• What has happened to GOOGL since then?
• BKNG (formerly Priceline) is about to announce earnings
• Setting up the trade
• Selecting strikes, expiration
• What is the cost?
• What do we want to happen?
• Why a butterfly versus a skip strike butterfly?
• And more...

Do you have a question that you want answered on a future episode? Send them to Brian at [email protected], or to the Options Insider at [email protected].

Options news you can use for Thursday, August 9, 2018

In this episode, Mark is joined by Jim Toes, President of the Security Traders Association

They discuss:

• The Wisconsin STA Conference
• Working with FINRA
• The DC STA Conference: October 3-5
• What do they have for options traders?
• And more

Options news you can use for Wednesday, August 8, 2018

Sometimes technology gets the best of us. This was one of those cases.

We were able to discuss:

• Picard vs. Kirk
• VXX breaking the 30-handle
• OCC volume numbers for July
• Options question of the week
• How to handle the fixed time aspect of trading options?

Options news you can use for Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Volatility Review: A review of the week from a volatility point of view, featuring guest co-host David Lincoln of The Short Vol Show.

• VIX Cash - 11.83, down slightly from last week.
• VVIX - 88, three-points lower than last week.
• VIX Options - ADV: 440k, VIX call/put: 2.9/1, Total 6.44m (4.79m Calls, 1.64m Puts)
• VXX - 30.5, half a point lower than last week.
• Earnings Volatility: Apple, Tesla, Activision/Blizzard, Shake Shack, Blue Apron, Go Pro and Cboe

Volatility Voicemail: Listners take over

Options question of the week: Earnings season is still in full swing. Which names will dominate your #Options trading this week?

• 46% - Apple, $AAPL
• 40% - Tesla, $TSLA
• 8% - GoPro, $GPRO
• 6% - CBOE, $CBOE

Listener questions and comments:

• Question from Nils - You guys buying any more of those VXX puts?
• Question from Roxy -Explain to me again how buying thousands of worthless January puts in VXX is a good trade?
• Question from Elan - My broker doesn't list the $VIX futures alongside the options. It's damn confusing! Why don't they all just post them so I can see what I'm trading my options on? Instead I have to pull up a separate platform with the futures quotes so I can make sense of it all.

Crystal Ball: Wild and reckless prognostication

Last week:

• Mark L. -12.45
• Andrew -13.25

This week:

• Mark L. -11.45
• Mark S. -12.76
• David - 12.05

This rebroadcast of OIC's webinar panel discussion covers why implied volatility levels drive options premiums and why it's important to trading and strategy session