Option Pricing Website

This text and CD-ROM tutorial provides traders with an accessible, interactive approach to understanding and using the Black-Scholes approach to options pricing. Integrating text and interactive computer animation, it teaches readers the basics of good options trading.

This comprehensive guide offers traders, quants, and students the tools and techniques for using advanced models for pricing options. The accompanying website includes data files, such as options prices, stock prices, or index prices, as well as all of the codes needed to use the option and volatility models described in the book. Praise for Option Pricing Models & Volatility Using Excel-VBA "Excel is already a great pedagogical tool for teaching option valuation and risk management. But the VBA routines in this book elevate Excel to an industrial-strength financial engineering toolbox. I have no doubt that it will become hugely successful as a reference for option traders and risk managers." —Peter Christoffersen, Associate Professor of Finance, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University "This book is filled with methodology and techniques on how to implement option pricing and volatility models in VBA. The book takes an in-depth look into how to implement the Heston and Heston and Nandi models and includes an entire chapter on parameter estimation, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone interested in derivatives should have this book in their personal library." —Espen Gaarder Haug, option trader, philosopher, and author of Derivatives Models on Models "I am impressed. This is an important book because it is the first book to cover the modern generation of option models, including stochastic volatility and GARCH." —Steven L. Heston, Assistant Professor of Finance, R.H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland

Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... "all pricing formulas, with VBA code and ready-to-use Excel spreadsheets and 3D charts for Greeks (or Option Sensitivities)."--Jacket.

Select and execute the best trades—and reduce risk Rather than teaching options from a financial perspective, How to Price and Trade Options: Identify, Analyze, and Execute the Best Trade Probabilities goes back to the Nobel Prize-winning Black-Scholes model. Written by well-known options expert Al Sherbin, it looks at the basis for probability theory in option trading and explains how to put the odds in your favor when trading options. Inside, you'll discover how anyone can "operate their own casino" if they know how through proper option strategies. Plus, a supplemental website includes videos that walk you through various probability scenarios, pre-formatted spreadsheets, and code. All investors should have a portion of their portfolio set aside for option trades. Not only do options provide great opportunities for leveraged plays, they can also help you earn larger profits with a smaller amount of cash outlay. With the help of this book, traders, active investors, and self-directed investors of all stripes will learn how simple it can be to deploy probability-based trading strategies. Teaches both defined and undefined risk strategies Utilizes simple cost basis reduction strategies to enhance investment returns Draws on unique research studies Discusses volatility to include both historical (realized) and implied volatility: the interplay between the two is a key piece of information overlooked by option traders If you're a trader of any level and want to make the best trades possible, this book has you covered.

THE AUTHOR: Dr. Crack studied PhD-level option pricing at MIT and Harvard Business School, taught undergraduate and MBA option pricing at Indiana University (winning many teaching awards), was an independent consultant to the New York Stock Exchange, worked as an asset management practitioner in London, and has traded options for over 15 years. This unique mixture of learning, teaching, consulting, practice, and trading is reflected in every page. SUMMARY OVERVIEW: This revised third edition of Basic Black-Scholes gives extremely clear explanations of Black-Scholes option pricing theory, and discusses direct applications of the theory to option trading. The presentation does not go far beyond basic Black-Scholes for three reasons: First, a novice need not go far beyond Black-Scholes to make money in the options markets; Second, all high-level option pricing theory is simply an extension of Black-Scholes; and Third, there already exist many books that look far beyond Black-Scholes without first laying the firm foundation given here. The trading advice does not go far beyond elementary call and put positions because more complex trades are simply combinations of these. WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK SPECIAL OR UNIQUE?: -It contains the basic intuition you need to trade options for the first time, or interview for an options job. -Honest advice about trading: there is no simple way to beat the markets, but if you have skill this advice can help make you money, and if you have no skill but still choose to trade, this advice can reduce your losses. -Full immersion treatment of transactions costs (T-costs). -Lessons from trading stated in simple terms. -Stylized facts about the markets (e.g., how to profit from reversals, when are T-costs highest/lowest during the trading day, implications of the market for corporate control, etc.). -How to apply (European-style) Black-Scholes pricing to the trading of (American-style) options. -Leverage through margin trading compared to leverage through options. -Black-Scholes option pricing code for the HP17B, HP19B, and HP12C. -Two downloadable spreadsheets. The first allows the user to forecast T-costs for option positions using simple models. The second allows the user to explore option sensitivities including the Greeks. -Practitioner Bloomberg Terminal screenshots to aid learning. -Simple discussion of continuously-compounded returns. -Introduction to "paratrading" (trading stocks side-by-side with options to generate additional profit). -Unique "regrets" treatment of early exercise decisions and trade-offs for American-style calls and puts. -Unique discussion of put-call parity and option pricing. -How to calculate Black-Scholes in your head in 10 seconds (also in Heard on The Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews). -Special attention to arithmetic Brownian motion with general pricing formulae and comparisons to Bachelier (1900) and Black-Scholes. -Careful attention to the impact of dividends in analytical American option pricing. -Dimensional analysis and the adequation formula (relating FX call and FX put prices through transformed Black-Scholes formulae). -Intuitive review of risk-neutral pricing/probabilities and how and why these are related to physical pricing/probabilities. -Careful distinction between the early Merton (non-risk-neutral) hedging-type argument and later Cox-Ross/Harrison-Kreps risk-neutral pricing -Simple discussion of Monte-Carlo methods in science and option pricing. -Simple interpretations of the Black-Scholes formula and PDE and implications for trading. -Careful discussion of conditional probabilities as they relate to Black-Scholes. -Intuitive treatment of high-level topics e.g., bond-numeraire interpretation of Black-Scholes (where N(d2) is P*(ITM)) versus the stock-numeraire interpretation (where N(d1) is P**(ITM)).

Provides a thorough discussion of volatility, the most important aspect of options trading. Shows how to identify mispriced options and to construct volatility and "delta neutral" spreads.

An unprecedented book on option pricing! For the first time, the basics on modern option pricing are explained ``from scratch'' using only minimal mathematics. Market practitioners and students alike will learn how and why the Black-Scholes equation works, and what other new methods have been developed that build on the success of Black-Shcoles. The Cox-Ross-Rubinstein binomial trees are discussed, as well as two recent theories of option pricing: the Derman-Kani theory on implied volatility trees and Mark Rubinstein's implied binomial trees. Black-Scholes and Beyond will not only help the reader gain a solid understanding of the Balck-Scholes formula, but will also bring the reader up to date by detailing current theoretical developments from Wall Street. Furthermore, the author expands upon existing research and adds his own new approaches to modern option pricing theory. Among the topics covered in Black-Scholes and Beyond: detailed discussions of pricing and hedging options; volatility smiles and how to price options ``in the presence of the smile''; complete explanation on pricing barrier options.