Reccomendation: Hoadley Trading & Investment Tools

[Marco]

I found a quite nice collection of option tools if you want to price options in your own Excel spreadsheet (Windows only, no Mac) It's an Excel Addin and comes with plenty of (sample)sheets how to use the formulas in your own spread sheets and tools (spreadsheets)

http://www.hoadley.n...ons/options.htm

I particularly like and use the 'Option Strategy evaluation tool' (described here) which lets you price up combos and shift vol and time to expiration, lets you do probability and STDEV analysis (based on IV though) and a number of other gimmicks.

Probably not for you if you are a total Excel or option newbie. But a great set of tools for the intermediate+ user. The free version has quite a few tools but for the best stuff you need to purchase the full version (132 AUD ~ 135 US$, one off fee no subscription etc. needed)

I'm in no way affiliated with these guys, just like the tool.

Marco.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Marco

[Guest listolyman]

I came across this web site last week and was wondering if it was a good value. I was intrigued by the amount of time that Chris spends manually crunching data in search of a good deal and wondered if some of this info was available in a tool.

[Marco]

well that tool will help you get some data from yahoo finance (even though I use another Addin for that which is free and better for the purpose of importing data from yahoo finance. Check this yahoo group: http://finance.group...group/smf_addin/)

I use that tool more to price options (and option combos) and either create my own spreadsheets with the formulas from the AddIn or use some of the tools that this guy build. I suppose if can be very useful for the sort of number crunching Chris does but I haven't discovered any back testing tools as such (still looking though all the functions it has to offer) so you would still have to build your own spreadsheets.

The toll i use the most is the one where you can price up an option (combo) and shift spot, vol and time to expiry to quickly answer questions like

"What's this RIC worth if I hold it through earnings, stock moves x%, vol drops y points and I keep it for another week after that" or

"I sold this RUT IC, what will it be worth if RUT drops x% vol rises y% and 2 weeks from now have passed" etc.

download the free version it will give you a good feeling for what the tools can do and what not.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Marco

[tjlocke99]

I found a quite nice collection of option tools if you want to price options in your own Excel spreadsheet (Windows only, no Mac) It's an Excel Addin and comes with plenty of (sample)sheets how to use the formulas in your own spread sheets and tools (spreadsheets)

http://www.hoadley.n...ons/options.htm

I particularly like and use the 'Option Strategy evaluation tool' (described here) which lets you price up combos and shift vol and time to expiration, lets you do probability and STDEV analysis (based on IV though) and a number of other gimmicks.

Probably not for you if you are a total Excel or option newbie. But a great set of tools for the intermediate+ user. The free version has quite a few tools but for the best stuff you need to purchase the full version (132 AUD ~ 135 US$, one off fee no subscription etc. needed)

I'm in no way affiliated with these guys, just like the tool.

Marco.

Great tip. Thanks Marco! I think I see you are using it in the VXX calculations!

[Marco]

Great tip. Thanks Marco! I think I see you are using it in the VXX calculations!

yeah exactly that's a screen shot from that tool