Upcoming Meetings
The next meeting will take place on a date to be determined.
Note that the link for the webinars will be distributed by email. Please email Chapter email hidden; JavaScript is required Bruce Ennis to be included on the group mailing list. A link to the meeting (if it is on Zoom) will be provided by e-mail to everybody on the options trading mailing list. Contact Bruce Ennis (contact info below) if you need to be added to the options trading mailing list or if you want to make sure you are on the list.
For more information about this sub-group, please contact Chapter email hidden; JavaScript is required Bruce Ennis.
Previous Meetings
Note: The opinions of speakers are their own and not necessarily those of AAII. It is not the policy of AAII or its local chapters, officers or directors to promote any specific investments or techniques of analysis. Presentations are provided solely for informational purposes and should not be construed as solicitations. There are no representations or warranties of any kind, expressed or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability or suitability of meeting information. Investment information presented may not be appropriate for all investors and should be independently verified. For some speakers, html links are provided to their businesses, but AAII and this chapter do not necessarily endorse the products of those businesses.
On Saturday, November 16, 2024, Dan Sheridan presented a strategy for trading calendar spreads. | Recording
On Saturday, June 1, 2024, Larry McMillan presented his insights on Options. Larry is a professional trader and the author of the bestselling Options as a Strategic Investment. He operates the Options Strategist website. | Slides | Recording
On Saturday, March 16, 2024, Option Trader Himanshu Raval explained how he does calendar spreads and discussed various aspects of option trading. | Recording | Transcript
On Saturday, November 18, 2023, Chapter Vice President and Options Trading SIG Leader Bruce Ennis presented “Calendar Spreads II“. | Slides | Recording
On Saturday, July 22, 2023, Chapter Vice President and Options Trading SIG Leader Bruce Ennis presented “Calendar Spreads“. | Slides | Recording
On Saturday, April 22, 2023, Chapter Vice President and Options Trading SIG Leader Bruce Ennis presented “Option Basics II: Buying and Selling Options“. | Slides | Recording
On Saturday, February 18, 2023, Chapter Vice President and Options Trading SIG Leader Bruce Ennis presented “Option Basics: Terminology and Fundamentals“. | Slides | Recording
On Saturday, October 15, 2022, “Spread Trading with Options Part 2” was presented. Emphasis in this session was on put credit spreads. | Slides | Recording
On Saturday, August 20, 2022, “Spread Trading with Options” was presented. | Slides
On Saturday, April 23, 2022, Option Trading Group Leader Bruce Ennis presented “22 Ways to Enhance Your Portfolio in 2022 Using 22 Option Strategies”. | Slides | Recording | Chat
On Saturday, February 5, 2022, Option Trading Group Leader Bruce Ennis explained the Wheel Strategy of trading options and illustrated how to do it with the Think Or Swim trading platform. | Slides | Recording | Chat
On Saturday, December 18, 2021, Dan Sheridan of Sheridan Options Mentoring continued discussion in a webinar of options trading. He showed how to handle a diagonal spread. | Recording
On Saturday, October 23, 2021, Dan Sheridan of Sheridan Options Mentoring presented “How to Make $3K Monthly with $25K Capital”. | Recording
On Saturday, August 28, 2021, group member Daniel H. Miller presented “Python access to TD Ameritrade’s options data using application programmer interfaces”. This talk presented background and specific examples of how to use the Python programming language to access option chains, like the ones on TD Ameritrade’s ThinkOrSwim platform, using application programming interfaces (APIs) accessed via the REST-style (REpresentational State Transfer) protocol. The presentation provided an overview of REST-style API’s in general, specific APIs provided by TD Ameritrade, and finally a few Python code examples that use options data for specific illustrative trading methods. Access to this programmatic data is available for free to TD Ameritrade customers. Likewise, Python and the programming environment (Anaconda) are open source and freely available for multiple operating systems. | Text from material presented | Python code | Recording
On Saturday, June 26, 2021, group leader Bruce Ennis presented characteristics and properties of calendar spreads and demonstrated the popular trading platform ThinkOrSwim in analyzing possible calendar spreads. Also discussed were some of the Market Wizard Lessons from Jack D. Schwager’s recently published book, “Unknown Market Wizards”. | Recording
On Saturday, April 10, 2021, group leader Ryan McKeon presented “What Does the Data Say About That?” Although often written in complex, impenetrable language, much research exists into options and various option trading strategies. So … what does this research say about options trading? Ryan reviewed a few of the most prominent, consistent results from academic research on options so that attenders could see which theories survive the cold, hard facts and which ones don’t. | Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, February 20, 2021, group member Vijay Pujar covered basic definitions, and reviewed his diagonal call trades with AMZN and NFLX as examples to seed a discussion of how we may use this strategy for better outcome. Vijay shared some of his lessons learned on what worked well, and not so well. | Recording
On Saturday, December 12, 2020, Ryan presented “Volatility ETFs”. This talk provided ideas for insuring against drawdowns. | Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, October 24, 2020, James McCollum talked about trading weekly options. Then Vijay Pujar and Bruce Ennis talked about calendar options. | Jim’s Presentation | Bruce’s Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, August 29, 2020, Ryan presented “What to Make of Models”. This talk provided an introduction to option models and explained limitations that they have. | Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, June 27, 2020, Group Leader Prof. Ryan McKeon conducted a webinar discussing his experience trading options. He disclosed techniques that worked for him and other techniques that did not work so well. | Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, May 23, 2020, Group Member Bruce Ennis presented in a webinar the All Put Flat Fly option trading strategy. | Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, April 25, 2020, Group Member Dan Miller led a discussion on “Frustrations of a Well Intentioned Trader” in a webinar. An alternative title is “Seeing Both Sides of Every Trading Issue”. | Presentation | Recording
On Saturday, February 1, 2020, Lu Marcelino showed the group how to use https://marketchameleon.com/ to screen for option trades.
On Saturday, December 14, 2019, the group developed ideas for discussion and presentations during 2020.
On Saturday, November 2, 2019, group member Alfredo Holguin discussed his Margin of Safety approach for selecting strike prices for options trading.
On Saturday, October 5, 2019, Ryan presented “Recent Adventures in Options Trading: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” that he made. Dan Miller recommended reading this paper: “Easy Volatility Investing” by Tony Cooper.
On Saturday, July 27, 2019, group member Dan Miller discussed “Use of advantage math to boost profits in Options trading.”
On June 22, 2019, Andrew Giovinazzi of Option Pit spoke about using VIX to help trade options.
On April 27, 2019, David Timber delivered a presentation on his strategies for covered call trading, and Luis Marcelino discussed his strategies for implementing butterfly spread trades.
On March 9, 2019, Ryan McKeon talked about ten different ways to trade volatility.
On February 23, 2019, Dan Passarelli, author of Trading Option Greeks, spoke to us about his system for covered call trading.
On December 1, 2018, we had a lightning round of questions about option trading. People attending the meeting exchanged ideas on trading options for profit (and perhaps also for fun).
On October 6, 2018, John Dobosz gave a talk on covered calls and put writes.
On September 1, 2018, Ryan McKeon discussed how he uses the Greeks to protect his investments.
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, June 16, 2018, at the La Jolla Library. Website resources were identified and presented.
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, May 5, 2018, at the La Jolla Library. The presentation was Trading Strategies for After the Bull Market.
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, March 17, 2018, at the La Jolla Library. Bruce Ennis presented Risk Management in Option Trading.
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, January 20, 2018, at the La Jolla Library. Ryan McKeon presented Writing Puts.
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, December 2, 2017, at the La Jolla Library. Ryan McKeon presented Where Does Volatility Go From Here.
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, September 30, 2017, at the North Clairemont Library. Discussion centered around material on this website: http://www.cboe.com/micro/buywrite/wilshire-2016-benchmarks-30-years.pdf
People new to options trading can get information from: http://www.optionseducation.org/en.html
People new to options trading can experiment with “fake money” at: http://www.cboe.com/tradtool/virtualtrade.aspx
How the VIX is Computed
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, August 26, 2017, at the La Jolla Library. Ryan McKeon explained how the Black-Scholes model is used to estimate option prices and how it is also used to calculate implied volatility. The implied volatility in SPX options determine the level of the VIX.
Using the Greeks to Trade Options
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, March 25, 2017, at the North Clairemont Library. Ryan McKeon delivered a presentation on the Greek “letters” (delta, theta, vega, and gamma) that are used in valuing options.
Ryan also talked about a web site for virtual options trading (i.e., a place to trade options without using real money). The URL for this site is www.cboe.com/trading-tools/virtual-trading-tools/virtual-trade.
Think Or Swim
The Options Sub-Group met on Saturday, June 11, 2016, at the La Jolla Library. Group member Bruce Ennis delivered a presentation on the mechanics of the ThinkOrSwim (TOS) trading platform and walked through spread and iron condor trading strategies. The websites listed below were identified as of potential interest to group members: