Option charts/history

[madcowdisease]

Are any of you aware of a site one can go to get the historical price action for options?

So far I have been constrained to simply writing the daily prices flucuations on a ledger but this severely limits the time available to act on thse things due to the necessity to track them over an extended period of time to get an accurate picture of their behavior.

Thanks in advance

[Florida]

OptionsXpress has historical prices on options, but only if you have an account with them. tradestation also has it for their customers, and in addition has the charts on the individual options.

As for a "free" site, I am not aware of one.

[netwrangler]

MCD, there are some data relevance problems with historical option prices:

You can get high/low/open/close prices, but these prices have meaning only when paired with the prices of the underlying asset. Sure, you can get HLOC prices for the underlying asset, but you lose a lot by not seeing how one varied with the other.
Moreover, a given option has a limited life. Some live 90 days or less from creation to expiry. That limits the value of option prices for time series analysis.

That is not to say that option price history is of no value. You can certianly learn, for example about the tendency of a stock to 'pin' at an option strike price near expiry.
For my money, though, I'd rather track implied volatility. And having said that, I'd like to track the historic volatility of the stock over the same time period. I think I would learn more from that information than from the option price itself.

Why do you want option price history? What did you plan to do with that information? [Note, this isn't a 'loaded' question. "I just wanted to see what the data looked like," is a valid answer.]

[madcowdisease]

MCD, there are some data relevance problems with historical option prices:

You can get high/low/open/close prices, but these prices have meaning only when paired with the prices of the underlying asset. Sure, you can get HLOC prices for the underlying asset, but you lose a lot by not seeing how one varied with the other.
Moreover, a given option has a limited life. Some live 90 days or less from creation to expiry. That limits the value of option prices for time series analysis.

That is not to say that option price history is of no value. You can certianly learn, for example about the tendency of a stock to 'pin' at an option strike price near expiry.
For my money, though, I'd rather track implied volatility. And having said that, I'd like to track the historic volatility of the stock over the same time period. I think I would learn more from that information than from the option price itself.

Why do you want option price history? What did you plan to do with that information? [Note, this isn't a 'loaded' question. "I just wanted to see what the data looked like," is a valid answer.]

Thank you both for your replies. Florida, that is pretty much what I figured since it seems ot be what I am up against.

Netwrangler, I wouldn't have a problem with simply the HLOC and being able to historically chart this much like that of a stocks. If I had this information I could couple it with the copious price charts of the underlying security littered all over the web and get a feel for the premium one can expect to pay for the options. Obviously the intent here would be to catch Wall St. napping and get a crack at a few options trading with minimal premium. Also, I'd like to see exactly how the derivitive behaves when the underlying moves up or down. Do you know of such a site that provides this for free?

[netwrangler]

Thank you both for your replies. Florida, that is pretty much what I figured since it seems ot be what I am up against.

Netwrangler, I wouldn't have a problem with simply the HLOC and being able to historically chart this much like that of a stocks. If I had this information I could couple it with the copious price charts of the underlying security littered all over the web and get a feel for the premium one can expect to pay for the options. Obviously the intent here would be to catch Wall St. napping and get a crack at a few options trading with minimal premium. Also, I'd like to see exactly how the derivitive behaves when the underlying moves up or down. Do you know of such a site that provides this for free?
Peter Hoadley has a fair amount of tools available for free on-line use. The full Excel add-in package is not free, however. The current price is $110AUD [Hoadley is based in Australia and prices in Australian Dollars.]

I bought the package and made back the price easily and quickly.
Still, you can learn a lot with the free on-line tools. Here is a link to the Hoadley site. (http://www.hoadley.net/options/options.htm)

I think you are on the right track. You just have to get hip-deep in the data to understand and internalize how options behave relative to the underlying stock and relative to market conditions.
On the Hoadley site, follow the on-line calculators link. That takes you to the free stuff.
When you understand the information those calculators are giving you, you will be in the top 1% of options experts on the Online Traders Forum.

[madcowdisease]

Peter Hoadley has a fair amount of tools available for free on-line use. The full Excel add-in package is not free, however. The current price is $110AUD [Hoadley is based in Australia and prices in Australian Dollars.]

I bought the package and made back the price easily and quickly.
Still, you can learn a lot with the free on-line tools. Here is a link to the Hoadley site. (http://www.hoadley.net/options/options.htm)

I think you are on the right track. You just have to get hip-deep in the data to understand and internalize how options behave relative to the underlying stock and relative to market conditions.
On the Hoadley site, follow the on-line calculators link. That takes you to the free stuff.
When you understand the information those calculators are giving you, you will be in the top 1% of options experts on the Online Traders Forum.

Thank you , sir.

[Imperator]

TD Ameritrade's new Options 360 platform gives you historic charts on options, including volatility, open interest, volume, along a time series.

[netwrangler]

But you gotta love Hoadley.

Peter Hoadley Site Link (http://www.hoadley.net/options/options.htm)

IMHO - If you don't understand what is going on at the Hoadley site, you really have to question why you are getting into options.

Options offer great trading opportunities.
That said, the opportunities are available for those who are 'informed'.

But, how can you be 'informed' if you don't understand options?

Hoadley's site gives you all kinds of information about options.
Lot's of this information is free.
So you get this information:
[B]Do you understand what it means?
This is the point.

Options are great vehicles for trading — but you need to be able to pass the driver's test for those vehicles.
Time to do some homework before taking that test with real money.

My Advice: - Go to the Hoadley site and try to understand what that site is telling you.

If you can do that, I'll bet you make money.

[lisascott]

I found a site that gives free historic data

http://www.optionistics.com

[peter518]

IMO, http://www.stockwatch.com/ provides very good service for options data, charting, as well alerting...with only 10$/month.

Good luck.

Peter

=============

example:

Option for GOOG - 500.00 Call expires Jan 2009

1 Year Chart for O:OUPAXhttp://www.stockwatch.com/images/red_arrow.gifJust the Image For Printing (http://www.stockwatch.com/swnet/charts/charts_histproc.aspx?symbol=O%3aOUPAX&region=U)
http://www.stockwatch.com/swnet/charts/charts_histproc.aspx?symbol=O%3aOUPAX&region=U

[rbart48]

I use the ThinkorSwim desktop application for trading. They have recently added a feature on their trading platform call ThinkBack which allows you to view the equity and any of the options for previous days. I believe that the quotes are for the close of the day (except for the current day which is a live quote).

While this may not provide all the information you may want, it gives you some historical closing prices and it is free for ThinkorSwim account holders.