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    Cost to crush a bushel of soybean

    I don't think that correlation is correct. Canola (rapeseed in Europe) is an oilseed and competes with other oilseeds like soybeans, palm, peanuts and to a lesser extent cottonseed and corn (the latter two aren't grown primarily for their oil, but they do produce some). All of these veg oils...
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    What is the best method to sell Options on low volume stocks?

    JesseJames - Be sure to talk to OX about commissions once your free trade credits are depleted. If they say no, wait a month or two and try again. My accounts there have never been all that active (mostly retirement $) and they budged quite a bit from the posted rates on the website. I...
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    OptionTiger IncomeMAX Strategies

    Hats off to "Uncle Bob" for taking the road less traveled when coming up with a name for his business. I was getting tired of the old ones: OptionAnimal, OptionMonster and OptionTiger. I wish (Stock)OptionAssassin would take them all out. But maybe the trend is changing. If so, I better...
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    What is the best method to sell Options on low volume stocks?

    Yes, but according to the email, it's for equities options only. I haven't used it; most of my activity at OX is in retirement accounts - long term, infrequent transaction stuff. Re futures and futures options at OX: Their rates are better than they used to be, but they're still quite high...
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    What is the best method to sell Options on low volume stocks?

    A data point/anecdote related to the above: I received a marketing email today from OptionsXpress touting their enhanced "walk limit" feature. Of note is the 2 to 60 second time increment before the system will cancel and replace. ----Snip from the email-------- Walk Limit now supports all...
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    CBOT corn option pit trader talk

    Xandman, I don't know who he is. I occasionally see his messages if someone re-tweets them. Maybe he's building a big social media following to mine for mentoring/education customers when pit trading eventually dies. Or maybe he just likes to chat about sports, politics and celebrities...
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    CBOT corn option pit trader talk

    I found this kind of funny for two reasons. 1) Contrary to what we sometimes hear on ET, even the big traders, including those scorned option sellers, will adjust/roll when things don't work out according to plan. 2) I realize floor brokers have been yakking about big orders since 1848...
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    Cost to crush a bushel of soybean

    The CME site describes the components of the spread/crush which is also referred to as a "board margin." From this calculation you get the gross margin but you have no idea if it's a negative margin or extremely profitable for a plant (or the industry) unless you know something about...
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    America's Biggest Infomercial Conman Owes The FTC $37 Million

    Remember Don Lapre? Read the "charges" and "death" sections. What an awful way to die... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lapre
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    Straddle as a volatility buying strategy

    Here's why you should look at the real/raw ATM IV for a specific month(s) before you make a trade, and of course the IV of the contracts you're interested in. My sample shows four out of five firms use what appears to be the same 30-day composite. And then there's Interactive Brokers. I'd be...
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    Straddle as a volatility buying strategy

    Alex - The chart below might help explain why the composite index (which is often 30 days) spiked, but didn't help your deferred position. I don't know where IB gets their ATM IV data that you can display on a chart, but I suspect it's also a composite of some sort. FWIW, the 30 day IV index you...
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    What are the drivers of oil price?

    Thanks for the recommendations for "Oil 101." I would add "The Prize" by Yergin if someone is starting out or just wants a fuller understanding of oil's history and importance. Some say that Yergin is now just a shill for his Big Oil clients, but back in the day, he wrote a darn good book and...
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    Probability Lab

    Thank you. On a related note, are there plans to make some of the recently released options tools work for futures options?
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    CME NG and CL option volume and OI

    For the benchmark CL and NG contracts, the most recent option open interest: NG 219,000 option contracts American style NG 5.1 million option contracts European style CL 2.9 million option contracts American style CL 136,000 option contracts European style First, is there a reasonably...
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    CQG Qtrader

    Some news: CQG Trader is now available via Deep Discount Trading Trading/Crossland. www.deepdiscounttrading.com/TradingPlatforms.html (if a CQG rep is reading this, a good deed for the day would be to send Howard at Deep Discount a higher-resolution image for each of the CQG offerings)
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    Good software for Volatility Cones

    If you stay on the page long enough and then leave, a message pops up offering the program for $147, a $50 discount. I'm not crazy about the sales letter and they ought to give you at least a one week trial, but if the product lets you save a list of stocks, price charts, plus the added vol...
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    cheapest to do Option Spreads. size 50

    Thanks, SLE, that's a good tip. Another thing to be wary of is whether these retail platforms get the dividend dates and payouts right, esp. with smaller and less liquid names. I learned the hard way selling some options on a Master Limited Partnership (MLP). After my fill (immediate, of...
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    cheapest to do Option Spreads. size 50

    According to the ad that's showing up at the top of this page, OptionsHouse is $8.50 for a ticket charge plus 15 cents a contract, so the cost per side is $4 less than in your example. Here's the thing that makes an apples v. apples comparison with IB difficult: the rebate you receive for...
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    Coffee- JO

    Here's a freebie from Moore Research that goes back to the Nixon administration. http://www.mrci.com/pdf/kc.pdf
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    Coffee- JO

    The IVs are quite low, with ATMs about 22%, so you're not getting paid much to sell puts. Pull up a long term monthly chart that goes back to the late 1980s. I don't know a lot about TA, but call it the 'round number thing' or re-visiting previous support, resistance & congestion and $1.00...
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