Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and ...

In Wednesday’s unusual options activity, there were 1,025 calls and puts, with Vol/OI (volume-to-open-interest) ratios ...

We recently published a performance review of at-the-money (ATM) NDX straddles with between one and five days left to expiration. One finding was that consistent sellers of 3-Day, 4-Day, and 5-Day NDX ...

A few months ago, we explored trying to smooth out performance of consistently shorting straddles with a buying dated long straddle using NDX options. We found that a consistent strategy selling NDX 3 ...

An option gives traders the right, but not the obligation, to trade the underlying asset that it is linked to. Whether the underlying asset moves up or down in value, an options straddle is a trading ...

A straddle can be considered a volatility spread, as the trader who puts on the straddle is speculating on the volatility, or degree of movement of the underlying, not necessarily the direction of ...

This options strategy profits from big moves -- in either direction. Options strategies can seem complicated, but that's because they offer you a great deal of flexibility in tailoring your potential ...

Finding optimal swing trades can be tricky when the stock market is chopping in a range. However, volatility option strategies that benefit from time decay can be a great choice, especially if implied ...