New York-based brokerage firm Wall Street Access is to enhance its online options services with the introduction of complex options trading.
Using technology from IVolatility.com, the new system will enable dealers to enter spreads, buy-writes, married puts, straddles, butterfly spreads, box spreads and ratio spreads online, as well as single puts and calls.
Denis Kelleher, president and chief executive officer of Wall Street Access, comments: "Volatility data is a key component of what options traders need to trade effectively in these markets, and IVolatility provides superb information in this category."
New features of the enhanced service include:
* a databased of past market volatility statistics and current market estimates of all optionable stocks in the United States;
* an IV Index (implied volatility) which provides customers with the variances in implied volatility between strikes and expirations of the same stock;
* a tool for analysing the performance of common investor strategies including call writing, naked put writing and married / protective put analysis;
* the ability to rank stocks based on several criteria including volatitility skew, range of implied volatility and relationship of historical to implied volatility;and
* an options calculator which allows customers to perform their own theoretical value calculations and view all of the "greeks".