Optionetics Platinum has three "Find Trades" functions. The first will identify trades for a particular underlying while the second and third are more flexible (e.g., allowing you to identify trades based on a stock list).
First you select your opinion about the underlying (bullish, bearish, neutral) and the implied volatility (high, low, neutral). Based on your selections you are then given a choice of up to eight strategies from which to choose (in Find Trades I) or you can select them directly from a grid (in Find Trades II or III).
Here are the choices available in Find Trades I (with the choices available in the free Yahoo Options Analysis tool show in []):
Bullish/High - [Sell Put], [Covered Call], Call Vertical, Put Vertical, Buy OTM Call Butterfly, Buy ITM Put Butterfly, Sell ITM Call Calendar, Sell OTM Put Calendar
Bullish/Low - [Buy Call], Buy Stock/Buy Put, Call Vertical, Put Vertical, Sell ITM Call Butterfly, Sell OTM Put Butterfly, Buy OTM Call Calendar, Buy ITM Put Calendar
Bullish/Neutral - Long Call/Short Put (Synthetic Long), Forward Hedge Wrapper
Bearish/High - [Sell Call], [Covered Put], Call Vertical, Put Vertical, Buy ITM Call Butterfly, Buy OTM Put Butterfly, Sell OTM Call Calendar, Sell ITM Put Calendar
Bearish/Low - [Buy Put], Sell Stock/Buy Call, Call Vertical, Put Vertical, Sell OTM Call Butterfly, Sell ITM Put Butterfly, Buy ITM Call Calendar, Buy OTM Put Calendar
Bearish/Neutral - Long Put/Short Call (Synthetic Short), Reverse Hedge Wrapper
Neutral/High - Sell Straddle, Sell Strangle, Buy ATM Call Butterfly, Buy ATM Put Butterfly, Call Ratio, Put Ratio, [Buy ATM Call Calendar], [Buy ATM Put Calendar]
Neutral/Low - [Buy Straddle], Buy Strangle, Sell ATM Call Butterfly, Sell ATM Put Butterfly, Call Backspread, Put Backspread, Sell ATM Call Calendar, Sell ATM Put Calendar
Neutral/Neutral - Condor, Iron Butterfly, Long Synthetic Straddle, Short Synthetic Straddle
Obviously, the choices available in Yahoo are limited enough to make the function really weak. The available strategies should meet most of your needs. Find Trades III allows you to search a list and control a number of parameters like strike variation, liquidity (volume, open interest), implied volatility, etc. You can create your own list or go with, DJ 30, DJ Transports, DJ Utilities, S&P 100, or Index Options.
OK, the Find Trades function is starting to grow on me but I still have a couple of issues. First, it appears that trades are based on last price rather than on bid/ask prices. Second, while you can sort the results and have different viewing options you can't modify the viewing options so I'm stuck with multiple tables that include a lot of stuff I don't want instead of one nice table of things that I do want. Third, you can't pick the results that you like and dump the rest. Fourth, you can't search a stock list based on market activity (e.g., most actives, biggest gainers, biggest losers, etc.).
Mark |
