Just as the new year brings a variety of personal goals, don’t forget to include some for your options education.
On Wednesday, the Options Industry Council (OIC) announced its seminar schedule for the winter and spring, offering something for investors of all levels. The seminars will focus on basic, intermediate and advanced options, volatility and a new 2013 offering, the Greeks.
The educational seminars are free. They are taught by experienced instructors from the different options exchanges and OIC professionals in a classroom-style setting. Their goal is to educate investors and financial advisors on the responsible use of options.
The seminars run from 6-9 p.m. and advanced registration is required by either visiting??OIC?s website?or phoning Investor Services at 1-888-OPTIONS (1-888-678-4667). ?
The winter and spring schedule covers seminars from January 23 through May 16 in the following cities:?Atlanta, GA; Bellevue, WA; Boca Raton, FL; Boston/Cambridge, MA; Chicago, IL; Irvine, CA; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Parsippany, NJ; Richardson, TX; Santa Clara, CA; Tempe, AZ; and Troy, MI.
Seminar descriptions include the following:
Basic: Getting Started with Options
- Options fundamentals, essential concepts and terms of options contracts as well as their risk/reward characteristics are covered. Attendees will learn about buying and selling calls and puts, how to work with an expected up or down movement in a stock’s price with limited risk, and how to revive a stock already owned that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. A basic knowledge of stocks, and some experience with stock investing, is recommended.
?Intermediate: Managing Your Portfolio with Options
- Extending past buying or selling calls and puts, topics include the world of spread strategies such as vertical spreads and time spreads. This class will demonstrate how truly flexible options are, and how these limited risk spreads might fit into even the most conservative portfolios. Participants will learn about straddles and strangles, and the nature of volatility and ways to repair existing stock positions.?An understanding of the basics, as well as limited experience trading options is recommended.
?Volatility: Measuring Volatility and Understanding Its Significance
- Starting where the Basic and Intermediate seminars left off, the complexities of volatility and any misconceptions about this will be discussed. Investors will learn how volatility is measured, what that measurement means, and why it is a factor in an option’s price. They will also gain an understanding of implied volatility and its impact on various options strategies. A solid understanding of option fundamentals, comprehension for options pricing, and experience with both buying and selling options is recommended.
?Advanced Strategies
- The mechanics of spreads for both calls and puts will kicks things off but a discussion of more advanced multi-leg options strategies such as debit and credit spreads and how they can be employed to construct Butterfly, Iron Butterfly, Condor and Iron Condor strategies will be explained. This seminar is for experienced traders. An intermediate understanding of options, coupled with practical experience with both option and stock investing, will be necessary to fully benefit and understand the material that will be presented.
?Greeks – NEW
- This new seminar covers the options pricing model and the inputs (Greeks) that help determine the price of calls and puts. The seminar is recommended for experienced investors with an advanced understanding of both option and stock investing. Newly designed excel graphs will assist attendees in visualizing how each Greek in isolation contributes to the price of an option, and how simple strategies are affected by changes in these inputs.