The vocabulary

Learn the words.

Eight words do most of the work in this corner of the market. Each one gets a page: what it means, why anybody cares, and what it looks like when it happens. No prior knowledge assumed anywhere.

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Calls and puts What are calls and puts? A call is a bet that a stock goes up. A put is a bet that it goes down. Both are contracts with an expiry date attached, which is the thing that makes them different from simply owning the stock. Read it Options flow What is options flow? The running list of every options trade as it happens. Very large trades are hard to hide, so the flow is the closest you can get to watching what big investors are doing with their money right now. Read it Premium What is premium in options trading? The actual dollars spent on a trade. We lead with it because it is the honest measure of how much somebody was willing to put at risk — a thousand cheap contracts can be a smaller bet than ten expensive ones. Read it Unusual activity What is unusual options activity? A trade far bigger, faster or stranger than that stock normally sees. Almost everything that happens in a day is routine; this is the small part that is worth a second look. Read it A sweep What is an options sweep? One buyer in a hurry, taking contracts from every exchange at once instead of waiting for a better price. Paying up for speed usually means somebody thinks the clock matters. Read it Dark pool What is a dark pool? Large trades arranged privately, away from the public exchanges, and reported afterwards. They are often the reason a stock moved when nothing visible happened. Read it Implied volatility What is implied volatility? How much movement the market is currently pricing in. High means options are expensive, low means they are cheap — and we always show you where it sits against that stock's own past, because the number alone tells you nothing. Read it Open interest What is open interest? How many contracts are still being held rather than already closed out. Where it piles up tends to act like a magnet on the price as expiry approaches. Read it

Then what

Where to go next.

Once the words make sense, these are the two things worth doing before you spend anything.

Free Watch today's market How much was spent on options today, whether traders are leaning up or down, and the biggest single trades on the board. No account, no card. Open the board Free Read our public record Every trade idea we have published, winners and losers, with the number of ideas behind every percentage. Read the record

New to all of this?

The beginner's page walks through the whole thing in order — what the market is, what to look at in your first week, and what to leave alone.

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