Understanding options trading shemes that work

The NASDAQ Options Trading Guide. Equity options today are hailed as one of the most successful financial products to be introduced in modern times. Options have proven to be superior and prudent investment tools offering you, the investor, flexibility, diversification and control in protecting your portfolio or in generating additional investment income. We hope you'll find this to be a helpful guide for learning how to trade options. Understanding Options. Options are financial instruments that can be used effectively under almost every market condition and for almost every investment goal. Among a few of the many ways, options can help you: Protect your investments against a decline in market prices Increase your income on current or new investments Buy an equity at a lower price Benefit from an equity price’s rise or fall without owning the equity or selling it outright. Benefits of Trading Options: Orderly, Efficient and Liquid Markets. Standardized option contracts allow for orderly, efficient and liquid option markets. Options are an extremely versatile investment tool. Because of their unique riskreward structure, options can be used in many combinations with other option contracts andor other financial instruments to seek profits or protection. An equity option allows investors to fix the price for a specific period of time at which an investor can purchase or sell 100 shares of an equity for a premium (price), which is only a percentage of what one would pay to own the equity outright. This allows option investors to leverage their investment power while increasing their potential reward from an equity’s price movements. Limited Risk for Buyer.

Unlike other investments where the risks may have no boundaries, options trading offers a defined risk to buyers. An option buyer absolutely cannot lose more than the price of the option, the premium. Because the right to buy or sell the underlying security at a specific price expires on a given date, the option will expire worthless if the conditions for profitable exercise or sale of the option contract are not met by the expiration date. An uncovered option seller (sometimes referred to as the uncovered writer of an option), on the other hand, may face unlimited risk. This options trading guide provides an overview of characteristics of equity options and how these investments work in the following segments: Enter a company name or symbol below to view its options chain sheet: Edit Favorites. Enter up to 25 symbols separated by commas or spaces in the text box below. These symbols will be available during your session for use on applicable pages. Customize your NASDAQ. com experience. Select the background color of your choice: Select a default target page for your quote search: Please confirm your selection: You have selected to change your default setting for the Quote Search. This will now be your default target page unless you change your configuration again, or you delete your cookies.

Are you sure you want to change your settings? Please disable your ad blocker (or update your settings to ensure that javascript and cookies are enabled), so that we can continue to provide you with the first-rate market news and data you've come to expect from us. How Carbon Trading Works. ­The dramatic imagery of global warming frightens people. Melting glaciers, fre­ak storms and stranded polar bears -- the mascots of climate change -- show how quickly and drastically greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are changing our planet. Such graphic examples, combined with the rising price of energy, drive people to want to reduce consumption and lower their personal shares of global emissions. But behind the emotional front of climate change lies a developing framework of economic solutions to the problem. Two major market-based options exist, and politicians around the world have largely settled on carbon trading over its rival, carbon tax , as the chosen method to regulate GHG emissions. Renewing the Grid Image Gallery. Carbon trading, sometimes called emissions trading, is a market-based tool to limit GHG. The carbon market trades emissions under cap-and-trade schemes or with credits that pay for or offset GHG reductions. Cap-and-trade schemes are the most popular way to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) and other emissions.

The scheme's governing body begins by setting a cap on allowable emissions. It then distributes or auctions off emissions allowances that total the cap. Member firms that do not have enough allowances to cover their emissions must either make reductions or buy another firm's spare credits. Members with extra allowances can sell them or bank them for future use. Cap-and-trade schemes can be either mandatory or voluntary. A successful cap-and-trade scheme relies on a strict but feasible cap that decreases emissions over time. If the cap is set too high, an excess of emissions will enter the atmosphere and the scheme will have no effect on the environment. A high cap can also drive down the value of allowances, causing losses in firms that have reduced their emissions and banked credits. If the cap is set too low, allowances are scarce and overpriced. Some cap and trade schemes have safety valves to keep the value of allowances within a certain range. If the price of allowances gets too high, the scheme's governing body will release additional credits to stabilize the price. The price of allowances is usually a function of supply and demand.

Credits are similar to carbon offsets except that they're often used in conjun­ction with cap-and-trade schemes. Firms that wish to reduce below target may fund preapproved emissions reduction projects at other sites or even in other countries. Related Content. Recommended. Get the best of HowStuffWorks by email. Keep up to date on: Options Basics: How Options Work. Options contracts are essentially the price probabilities of future events. The more likely something is to occur, the more expensive an option would be that profits from that event. This is the key to understanding the relative value of options. Let’s take as a generic example a call option on International Business Machines Corp.

(IBM) with a strike price of $200 IBM is currently trading at $175 and expires in 3 months. Remember, the call option gives you the right , but not the obligation , to purchase shares of IBM at $200 at any point in the next 3 months. If the price of IBM rises above $200, then you “win.” It doesn’t matter that we don’t know the price of this option for the moment – what we can say for sure, though, is that the same option that expires not in 3 months but in 1 month will cost less because the chances of anything occurring within a shorter interval is smaller. Likewise, the same option that expires in a year will cost more. This is also why options experience time decay: the same option will be worth less tomorrow than today if the price of the stock doesn’t move. Returning to our 3-month expiration, another factor that will increase the likelihood that you’ll “win” is if the price of IBM stock rises closer to $200 – the closer the price of the stock to the strike, the more likely the event will happen. Thus, as the price of the underlying asset rises, the price of the call option premium will also rise. Alternatively, as the price goes down – and the gap between the strike price and the underlying asset prices widens – the option will cost less. Along a similar line, if the price of IBM stock stays at $175, the call with a $190 strike price will be worth more than the $200 strike call – since, again, the chances of the $190 event happening is greater than $200. There is one other factor that can increase the odds that the event we want to happen will occur – if the volatility of the underlying asset increases. Something that has greater price swings – both up and down – will increase the chances of an event happening.

Therefore, the greater the volatility, the greater the price of the option. Options trading and volatility are intrinsically linked to each other in this way. With this in mind, let’s consider a hypothetical example. Let's say that on May 1, the stock price of Cory's Tequila Co. (CTQ) is $67 and the premium (cost) is $3.15 for a July 70 Call, which indicates that the expiration is the third Friday of July and the strike price is $70. The total price of the contract is $3.15 x 100 = $315. In reality, you'd also have to take commissions into account, but we'll ignore them for this example. On most U. S. exchanges, a stock option contract is the option to buy or sell 100 shares that's why you must multiply the contract by 100 to get the total price. The strike price of $70 means that the stock price must rise above $70 before the call option is worth anything furthermore, because the contract is $3.15 per share, the break-even price would be $73.15. Three weeks later the stock price is $78. The options contract has increased along with the stock price and is now worth $8.25 x 100 = $825. Subtract what you paid for the contract, and your profit is ($8.25 - $3.15) x 100 = $510. You almost doubled our money in just three weeks! You could sell your options, which is called "closing your position," and take your profits – unless, of course, you think the stock price will continue to rise. For the sake of this example, let's say we let it ride. By the expiration date, the price of CTQ drops down to $62. Because this is less than our $70 strike price and there is no time left, the option contract is worthless.

We are now down by the original premium cost of $315. To recap, here is what happened to our option investment: So far we've talked about options as the right to buy or sell (exercise) the underlying good. This is true, but in reality, a majority of options are not actually exercised. In our example, you could make money by exercising at $70 and then selling the stock back in the market at $78 for a profit of $8 a share. You could also keep the stock, knowing you were able to buy it at a discount to the present value. However, the majority of the time holders choose to take their profits by trading out (closing out) their position. This means that holders sell their options in the market, and writers buy their positions back to close. According to the CBOE​, only about 10% of options are exercised, 60% are traded (closed) out, and 30% expire worthless. At this point it is worth explaining more about the pricing of options. In our example the premium (price) of the option went from $3.15 to $8.25. These fluctuations can be explained by intrinsic value and extrinsic value, also known as time value. An option's premium is the combination of its intrinsic value and its time value.

Intrinsic value is the amount in-the-money, which, for a call option, means that the price of the stock equals the strike price. Time value represents the possibility of the option increasing in value. Refer back to the beginning of this section of the turorial: the more likely an event is to occur, the more expensive the option. This is the extrinsic, or time value. So, the price of the option in our example can be thought of as the following: In real life options almost always trade at some level above their intrinsic value, because the probability of an event occurring is never absolutely zero, even if it is highly unlikely. If you are wondering, we just picked the numbers for this example out of the air to demonstrate how options work. A brief word on options pricing. As we’ve seen, the relative price of an option has to do with the chances that an event will happen. But in order to put an absolute price on an option, a pricing model must be used. The most well-known model is the Black-Scholes-Merton​ model, which was derived in the 1970’s, and for which the Nobel prize in economics was awarded.

Since then other models have emerged such as binomial and trinomial tree models, which are also commonly used. One Central Location for All Our Downloadable PDF Guides & Checklists to Help Keep You Organized. Truly valuable trading resources are meant to help, not confuse. Our short guides cut out everything except the absolute essential. Options method Guide. PDF version of our interactive method guide to help make sure you are always selecting the right option method to fit the current market situation when analyzing new trades. Earnings Trade Guide. Our ultimate guide to earnings trades including the top things to look for when playing these one-day volatility events, expected move calculations, best strategies to use, adjustments, etc. Expiration Calendars. A complete 3 year look at every monthly and quarterly stop trading date as well as physical expiration date for options.

Plus we add all the current major market holidays and closings. Defined-Risk method Adjustments. Your guide for making adjustments and hedges for any defined risk trades you make like credit spreads, iron condors, etc. We'll give you pricing guidelines and specific timing tips. 7-Step Entry Checklist. Our top 7 things you should be double-checking before you enter your next trading. This quick checklist will help keep you out of harms way by making sure you make smarter entries. IV Percentile Guide. A cool, simple visual tool to help you understand how we should be trading based on the current IV rank of any particular stock and the best strategies for each blocked section of IV. Optimal # of Trades. Do you know how many trades you need to make each year so that high probability odds work out in your favor? We'll break it down here so you know how active you need to be. Undefined-Risk method Adjustments. Naked or undefined risk trades have a higher probability of profit but also need to monitored more closely. We'll show you the best tactics for adjusting and protecting these trades. When to Exit Guide.

Broken down by option method we'll give you concrete guidelines on the best exit points and prices for each trade type in order to maximize your win rate and profits long-term. Trade Size & Allocation. Helping you figure out exactly how to calculate new position size as well as how much you should be allocating to your each position based on your overall portfolio balance. Let It "Roll" Guide. Considering rolling a position from one month to the next? Then this outline will help you make sure you are doing it for all the right reasons and that it actually makes sense to do so. Options Trading w IRA Accounts. A blueprint to the top strategies and tips for trading in a retirement account including some of the easiest ways to reduce margin requirements and trade synthetic strategies. "This is the best teaching program and trading system I’ve seen so far… and I’ve tried many in the past. I think the key is that you are generous with your information and you are repetitive in your approach to teaching. As a student, this is the best way to learn. The fact that you 'show your work' every day really makes a difference.

" - John Meneghini (Massachusetts) "It's amazing how different these trades feel when using a small position vs. betting the whole house on one transaction (how I used to trade). I really appreciate the learning process and how these courses are laid out and specifically how to roll positions, and approach markets moving the wrong way. I've had more than a couple chances cut short by emotional closing and won't do that again." - Brandon Hall (Washington) "I’ve been reading and researching stock and option trading for about 6 months so I'm starting to get a better grasp on the concepts. I found your youtube videos to be really helpful. There is a sea of people out there selling get rich quick schemes (esp. on youtube) and this is the only trading style that seemed appropriate for me." "I belonged to one of those $3000 training and trading groups . That, plus tons of self-education over the last 6 months has me rolling, however, with their trades, I was losing money at an alarming rate! Your training is better that theirs and it was FREE ! I learned more from you than I did from them! I quit them, joined your program in August and did make back a good chunk of the money ." - Lynette Odmark (San Francisco) Join More Than 47,345 Members.

Membership is always free & you can upgrade anytime to unlock our live trades. Options Basics Tutorial. Nowadays, many investors' portfolios include investments such as mutual funds, stocks and bonds. But the variety of securities you have at your disposal does not end there. Another type of security, known as options, presents a world of opportunity to sophisticated investors who understand both the practical uses and inherent risks associated with this asset class. The power of options lies in their versatility, and their ability to interact with traditional assets such as individual stocks. They enable you to adapt or adjust your position according to many market situations that may arise. For example, options can be used as an effective hedge against a declining stock market to limit downside losses. Options can be put to use for speculative purposes or to be exceedingly conservative, as you want. Using options is therefore best described as part of a larger method of investing. This functional versatility, however, does not come without its costs.

Options are complex securities and can be extremely risky if used improperly. This is why, when trading options with a broker, you'll often come across a disclaimer like the following: Options involve risks and are not suitable for everyone. Option trading can be speculative in nature and carry substantial risk of loss. Only invest with risk capital. Options belong to the larger group of securities known as derivatives. This word has come to be associated with excessive risk taking and having the ability crash economies. That perception, however, is broadly overblown. All “derivative” means is that its price is dependent on, or derived from the price of something else. Put this way, wine is a derivative of grapes ketchup is a derivative of tomatoes. Options are derivatives of financial securities – their value depends on the price of some other asset.

That is all derivative means, and there are many different types of securities that fall under the name derivatives, including futures, forwards, swaps (of which there are many types), and mortgage backed securities. In the 2008 crisis, it was mortgage backed securities and a particular type of swap that caused trouble. Options were largely blameless. (See also: 10 Options Strategies To Know .) Properly knowing how options work, and how to use them appropriately can give you a real advantage in the market. If the speculative nature of options doesn't fit your style, no problem – you can use options without speculating. Even if you decide never to use options, however, it is important to understand how companies that you are investing in use them. Whether it is to hedge the risk of foreign-exchange transactions or to give employees ownership in the form of stock options, most multi-nationals today use options in some form or another. This tutorial will introduce you to the fundamentals of options. Keep in mind that most options traders have many years of experience, so don't expect to be an expert immediately after reading this tutorial.

If you aren't familiar with how the stock market works, you might want to check out the Stock Basics tutorial first. What Actually Happens At The End Of 'Trading Places'? What Actually Happens At The End Of 'Trading Places'? Feeling good. ParamountThe Kobal Collection hide caption. It's been 30 years since Trading Places came out. And, to be honest, I never really understood what happened at the end of that movie. Sure, Louis Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd) and Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) get rich, and the Duke brothers lose all their money. But what actually happens? How does it work? I recently talked to Tom Peronis, a guy who has spent years trading OJ options. He walked me through every step of Winthorpe and Valentine's plan.

1. Give The Duke Brothers Bad Information. The Duke brothers — two old, rich guys — have bribed someone to get an advance copy of a government report on the orange crop. This will give them inside information on what's going to happen in the market for frozen concentrated orange juice. But Winthorpe and Valentine find out what the Dukes are up to, and they manage to steal the crop report before the Duke brothers get it. The report says the orange crop is strong. When the rest of the world learns this, the price of OJ will fall. So Winthorpe and Valentine create a fake crop report that they put into the hands of the Duke brothers. The fake crop report says the crop was bad. The Duke brothers see this, and believe the price of OJ will rise. 2. Drive Up The Price Of Orange Juice Futures. The setting, the floor of the commodities exchange.

The Duke brothers have told their trader to buy orange juice futures, and to keep buying no matter how high the price goes. The market opens, and the Duke brothers' trader starts buying. Everybody else sees this and thinks the Dukes know something. Suddenly, everybody's buying. The price goes up and up and up, and the Dukes keep buying. Then comes the key line for the entire movie — a line that's almost unintelligible. Standing on the floor of the exchange, Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd) yells out: Sell 30 April at 142! Here's what that means: He wants to promise to sell orange juice in April for $1.42 per pound. The "30" in his line means he wants to start by selling 30 contracts. (One contract = many, many pounds of OJ.) (Also, that "30" might be some other number. It's hard to understand what he's saying.

But it doesn't really matter — they sell a lot of contracts.) All the other traders think the price in April will be higher than $1.42. The traders mob Winthorpe and Valentine, agreeing to buy lots and lots of OJ from them at $1.42 a pound. 4. Wait For The Other Shoe To Drop. A minute later, everything on the trading floor goes quiet. Everybody looks at the TV. On the TV, the secretary of agriculture walks up to a podium and reads the orange crop report. The guy tells the world that the orange crop is fine. 5. Buy Low, Get Rich And Bankrupt Your Enemies. To the traders, this means that the price of OJ is not going to go through the roof. All those traders who, a minute ago, were buying all they could, now suddenly need to sell. So the price starts falling. When the price hits 29 cents a pound, Winthorpe and Valentine start agreeing to buy orange juice in April. In other words, Winthorpe and Valentine have contracts allowing them to buy millions of pounds of orange juice in April for 29 cents a pound, and to sell it for $1.42 a pound. They sold high and bought low. They're rich.

The Dukes made the opposite bet and went broke. Bonus: The Eddie Murphy Rule. One interesting kicker to the story: Trading commodities on inside information obtained from the government wasn't actually illegal when the movie came out, but it's illegal now. It was banned in the 2010 finance-overhaul law, under a special provision often referred to as the Eddie Murphy Rule. Note: This story was originally posted on July 12. It was updated on July 19 to add audio from the radio version. Planet Money. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening. That's what we're going for at Planet Money . Want to know more?

Check out our "about" page. Want to connect with the Planet Money team? Send us an email. US Search Desktop. We appreciate your feedback on how to improve Yahoo Search . This forum is for you to make product suggestions and provide thoughtful feedback. We’re always trying to improve our products and we can use the most popular feedback to make a positive change! If you need assistance of any kind, please visit our community support forum or find self-paced help on our help site. This forum is not monitored for any support-related issues. The Yahoo product feedback forum now requires a valid Yahoo ID and password to participate. You are now required to sign-in using your Yahoo email account in order to provide us with feedback and to submit votes and comments to existing ideas. If you do not have a Yahoo ID or the password to your Yahoo ID, please sign-up for a new account. If you have a valid Yahoo ID and password, follow these steps if you would like to remove your posts, comments, votes, andor profile from the Yahoo product feedback forum.

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Transliteration 29 ideas Yahoo! TV 19 ideas YAHOO!7 Finance 548 ideas Yahoo!7 Games 9 ideas Yahoo!7 Safely 19 ideas Yahoo7 Finance Mobile DF iOS 12 ideas Yahoo7 Finance Mobile iOS 216 ideas Yahoo7 Homepage 2,535 ideas Yahoo奇摩Local 344 ideas Yahoo奇摩旅遊使用意見分享 34 ideas Yahoo奇摩遊戲使用意見分享 40 ideas Yahoo奇摩電影使用意見分享 49 ideas Ελλάδα Celebrity 6 ideas Ελλάδα Homepage 0 ideas Καιρός Y! (iOS) 55 ideas Ομάδες Yahoo 0 ideas - 6 ideas فنتازي كرة القدم 3 ideas 足球經理人 153 ideas 足球經理人 21 ideas 雅虎天气手机版 2,429 ideas 雅虎香港 Homepage 10 ideas 雅虎香港Local 19 ideas 雅虎香港Safely 144 ideas 雅虎香港STYLE 51 ideas 雅虎香港地圖 0 ideas 雅虎香港天氣報告 33 ideas 雅虎香港娛樂圈 0 ideas 雅虎香港字典 197 ideas 雅虎香港搜尋 建議討論區 1 idea 雅虎香港搜尋KG 建議討論區 0 ideas 雅虎香港新聞 348 ideas 雅虎香港旅遊 1 idea 雅虎香港知識+ 0 ideas 雅虎香港財經 (iOS) 347 ideas 雅虎香港財經 Android 2 ideas 雅虎香港電影 1 idea 雅虎香港首頁 84 ideas 雅虎香港體育 30 ideas. Your password has been reset. We have made changes to increase our security and have reset your password. We've just sent you an email to . Click the link to create a password, then come back here and sign in. Introduction to Options Trading. Puts, calls, strike prices, premiums, derivatives, bear put spreads and bull call spreads — the jargon is just one of the complex aspects of options trading. But don’t let any of it scare you away. Options can provide flexibility for investors at every level and help them manage risk. To see if options trading has a place in your portfolio, here are the basics of what options are, why investors use them and how to get started. An option is a contract to buy or sell a stock, usually 100 shares of the stock per contract, at a pre-negotiated price and by a certain date. Just as you can buy a stock because you think the price will go up or short a stock when you think its price is going to drop, an option allows you to bet on which direction you think the price of a stock will go. But instead of buying or shorting the asset outright, when you buy an option you’re buying a contract that allows — but doesn’t obligate — you to do a number of things, including: Buy or sell shares of a stock at an agreed-upon price (the “strike price”) for a limited period of time.

Sell the contract to another investor. Let the option contract expire and walk away without further financial obligation. Options trading may sound like it’s only for commitment-phobes, and it can be if you’re simply looking to capitalize on short-term price movements and trade in and out of contracts — which we don’t recommend. But options are useful for long-term buy-and-hold investors, too. Investors use options for different reasons, but the main advantages are: Buying an option requires a smaller initial outlay than buying the stock. An option buys an investor time to see how things play out. An option protects investors from downside risk by locking in the price without the obligation to buy. If there’s a company you’ve had your eye on and you believe the stock price is going to rise, a “call” option gives you the right to purchase shares at a specified price at a later date. If your prediction pans out you get to buy the stock for less than it’s selling for on the open market. If it doesn’t, your financial losses are limited to the price of the contract. You also can limit your exposure to risk on stock positions you already have. Let’s say you own stock in a company but are worried about short-term volatility wiping out your investment gains.

To hedge against losses, you can buy a “put” option that gives you the right to sell a particular number of shares at a predetermined price. If the share price does indeed tank, the option limits your losses, and the gains from selling help offset some of the financial hurt. How to start trading options. In order to trade options, you’ll need a broker. Check out our detailed roundup of the best brokers for options traders, so you can compare commission costs, minimums, and more. Or stay here and answer a few questions to get a personalized recommendation on the best broker for your needs. More about options and trading. Here are some more of our articles on the ins and outs of trading options: Dayana Yochim is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website: Email: dyochim@nerdwallet. com. Twitter: @DayanaYochim. This post has been updated. Options Trading 101. How to Trade Options.

How to Trade Options. Options trading can be complex, even more so than stock trading. When you buy a stock, you decide how many shares you want, and your broker fills the order at the prevailing market price or at a limit price. Trading options not only requires some of these elements, but also many others, including a more extensive process for opening an account. Indeed, before you can even get started you have to clear a few hurdles. Because of the amount of capital required and the complexity of predicting multiple moving parts, brokers need to know a bit more about a potential investor before awarding them a permission slip to start trading options. Opening an options trading account. Brokerage firms screen potential options traders to assess their trading experience, their understanding of the risks in options and their financial preparedness. Before you can start trading options, a broker will determine which trading level to assign to you. You’ll need to provide a prospective broker: Investment objectives such as income, growth, capital preservation or speculation Trading experience, including your knowledge of investing, how long you’ve been trading stocks or options, how many trades you make per year and the size of your trades Personal financial information, including liquid net worth (or investments easily sold for cash), annual income, total net worth and employment information The types of options you want to trade. Based on your answers, the broker assigns you an initial trading level (typically 1 to 4, though a fifth level is becoming more common) that is your key to placing certain types of options trades. Screening should go both ways.

The broker you choose to trade options with is your most important investing partner. Finding the broker that offers the tools, research, guidance and support you need is especially important for investors who are new to options trading. For more information on the best options brokers, read our detailed roundup to compares costs, minimums and other features. Or answer a few questions and get a recommendation of which ones are best for you. Consider the core elements in an options trade. When you take out an option, you’re purchasing a contract to buy or sell a stock, usually 100 shares of the stock per contract, at a pre-negotiated price by a certain date. In order to place the trade, you must make three strategic choices: Decide which direction you think the stock is going to move. Predict how high or low the stock price will move from its current price. Determine the time frame during which the stock is likely to move. 1. Decide which direction you think the stock is going to move. This determines what type of options contract you take on. If you think the price of a stock will rise, you’ll buy a call option. A call option is a contract that gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a predetermined price (called the strike price) within a certain time period. If you think the price of a stock will decline, you’ll buy a put option. A put option gives you the right, but not the obligation, to sell shares at a stated price before the contract expires.

2. Predict how high or low the stock price will move from its current price. An option remains valuable only if the stock price closes the option’s expiration period “in the money.” That means either above or below the strike price. (For call options, it’s above the strike for puts it’s below the strike.) You’ll want to buy an option with a strike price that reflects where you predict the stock will be during the option’s lifetime. For example, if you believe the share price of a company currently trading for $100 is going to rise to $120 by some future date, you’d buy a call option with a strike price less than $120 (ideally a strike price no higher than $120 minus the cost of the option, so that the option remains profitable at $120). If the stock does indeed rise above the strike price, your option is in the money. Similarly, if you believe the company’s share price is going to dip to $80, you’d buy a put option (giving you the right to sell shares) with a strike price above $80 (ideally a strike price no lower than $80 minus the cost of the option, so that the option remains profitable at $80). If the stock drops below the strike price, your option is in the money. You can’t choose just any strike price. Option quotes, technically called option chains, contain a range of available strike prices. The increments between strike prices are standardized across the industry — for example, $1, $2.50, $5, $10 — and are based on the stock price. The price you pay for an option has two components: intrinsic value and time value.

The price you pay for an option, called the premium, has two components: intrinsic value and time value. Intrinsic value is the difference between the strike price and the share price, if the stock price is above the strike. Time value is whatever is left, and factors in how volatile the stock is, the time to expiration and interest rates, among other elements. For example, suppose you have a $100 call option while the stock costs $110. Let’s assume the option’s premium is $15. The intrinsic value is $10 ($110 minus $100), while time value is $5. This leads us to the final choice you need to make before buying an options contract. 3. Determine the time frame during which the stock is likely to move. Every options contract has an expiration date that indicates the last day you can exercise the option. Here, too, you can’t just pull a date out of thin air. Your choices are limited to the ones offered when you call up an option chain. Expiration dates can range from days to months to years.

Daily and weekly options tend to be the riskiest and are reserved for seasoned option traders. For long-term investors, monthly and yearly expiration dates are preferable. Longer expirations give the stock more time to move and time for your investment thesis to play out. A longer expiration is also useful because the option can retain time value, even if the stock trades below the strike price. An option’s time value decays as expiration approaches, and options buyers don’t want to watch their purchased options decline in value, potentially expiring worthless if the stock finishes below the strike price. If a trade has gone against them, they can usually still sell any time value remaining on the option — and this is more likely if the option contract is longer. More about the types of options trades. Find the best broker for options traders. Dig into options trading strategies. Learn the essential options trading terms.

James F. Royal, Ph. D., and Dayana Yochim are staff writers at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: jroyal@nerdwallet. com, dyochim@nerdwallet. com. Twitter: @JimRoyalPhD, @DayanaYochim. This post has been updated. Options Trading 101. 5 Tips for Choosing an Options Broker. 5 Tips for Choosing an Options Broker. Options trading can be complicated. But if you choose your options broker with care, you’ll quickly master how to conduct research, place trades and track positions. Here’s our advice on finding a broker that offers the service and the account features that best serve your options trading needs. 1. Look for a free education. If you’re new to options trading or want to expand your trading strategies, finding a broker that has resources for educating customers is a must.

That education can come in many forms, including: Online options trading courses. Live or recorded webinars. One-on-one guidance online or by phone Face-to-face meetings with a larger broker that has branches across the country. It’s a good idea to spend a while in student-driver mode and soak up as much education and advice as you can. Even better, if a broker offers a simulated version of its options trading platform, test-drive the process with a paper trading account before putting any real money on the line. 2. Put your broker’s customer service to the test. Reliable customer service should be a high priority, particularly for newer options traders. It’s also important for those who are switching brokers or conducting complex trades they may need help with. Consider what kind of contact you prefer. Live online chat? Email? Phone support?

Does the broker have a dedicated trading desk on call? What hours is it staffed? Is technical support available 247 or only weekdays? What about representatives who can answer questions about your account? Even before you apply for an account, reach out and ask some questions to see if the answers and response time are satisfactory. 3. Make sure the trading platform is easy to use. Options trading platforms come in all shapes and sizes. They can be web - or software-based, desktop or online only, have separate platforms for basic and advanced trading, offer full or partial mobile functionality, or some combination of the above. Visit a broker’s website and look for a guided tour of its platform and tools. Screenshots and video tutorials are nice, but trying out a broker’s simulated trading platform, if it has one, will give you the best sense of whether the broker is a good fit. Some things to consider: Is the platform design user-friendly or do you have to hunt and peck to find what you need? How easy is it to place a trade? Can the platform do the things you need, like creating alerts based on specific criteria or letting you fill out a trade ticket in advance to submit later?

Will you need mobile access to the full suite of services when you’re on the go, or will a pared-down version of the platform suffice? How reliable is the website, and how speedily are orders executed? This is a high priority if your method involves quickly entering and exiting positions. Does the broker charge a monthly or annual platform fee? If so, are there ways to get the fee waived, such as keeping a minimum account balance or conducting a certain number of trades during a specific period? 4. Assess the breadth, depth and cost of data and tools. Data and research are an options trader’s lifeblood. Some of the basics to look for: A frequently updated quotes feed. Basic charting to help pick your entry and exit points. The ability to analyze a trade’s potential risks and rewards (maximum upside and maximum downside). Screening tools. Those venturing into more advanced trading strategies may need deeper analytical and trade modeling tools, such as customizable screeners the ability to build, test, track and back-test trading strategies and real-time market data from multiple providers.

Check to see if the fancy stuff costs extra. For example, most brokers provide free delayed quotes, lagging 20 minutes behind market data, but charge a fee for a real-time feed. Similarly, some pro-level tools may be available only to customers who meet monthly or quarterly trading activity or account balance minimums. 5. Don’t weigh the price of commissions too heavily. There’s a reason commission costs are lower on our list. Price isn’t everything, and it’s certainly not as important as the other items we’ve covered. But because commissions provide a convenient side-by-side comparison, they often are the first things people look at when picking an options broker. A few things to know about how much brokers charge to trade options: The two components of an options trading commission are the base rate — essentially the same as thing as the trading commission that investors pay when they buy a stock — and the per-contract fee. Commissions typically range from $3 to $9.99 per trade contract fees run from 15 cents to $1.25 or more. Some brokers bundle the trading commission and the per-contract fee into a single flat fee. Some brokers also offer discounted commissions based on trading frequency, volume or average account balance. The definition of “high volume” or “active trader” varies by brokerage. If you’re new to options trading or use the method only sparingly you’ll be well-served by choosing either a broker that offers a single flat rate to trade or one that charges a commission plus per-contract fee. If you’re a more active trader, you should review your trading cadence to see if a tiered pricing plan would save you money.

Of course, the less you pay in fees the more profit you keep. But let’s put things in perspective: Platform fees, data fees, inactivity fees and fill-in-the-blank fees can easily cancel out the savings you might get from going with a broker that charges a few bucks less for commissions. There’s another potential problem if you base your decision solely on commissions. Discount brokers can charge rock-bottom prices because they provide only bare-bones platforms or tack on extra fees for data and tools. On the other hand, at some of the larger, more established brokers you’ll pay higher commissions, but in exchange you get free access to all the information you need to perform due diligence. Dayana Yochim is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website: Email: dyochim@nerdwallet. com. Twitter: @DayanaYochim. Disclaimer: NerdWallet has entered into referral and advertising arrangements with certain broker-dealers under which we receive compensation (in the form of flat fees per qualifying action) when you click on links to our partner broker-dealers andor submit an application or get approved for a brokerage account. At times, we may receive incentives (such as an increase in the flat fee) depending on how many users click on links to the broker-dealer and complete a qualifying action.