Featured Contributors
Mark S. Longo
The Options Insider (http://www.theoptionsinsider.com)
Mark S. Longo is the founder of The Options Insider.com. An options trader and former member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, he is also the creator of The Options Observer, a monthly examination of the options industry that appears in Traders Magazine. Over the years, Mr. Longo's analysis of the options market has appeared in a wide variety of domestic and international publications. As one of the few industry commentators with practical options experience, he has developed a substantial following among industry veterans and newcomers looking for insight into this complicated marketplace.
The Options Industry Council
The Options Industry Council (OIC) was created in 1992 to educate investors and their financial advisors about the benefits and risks of exchange-traded equity options. Today, its sponsors include the American Stock Exchange, the Boston Options Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the International Securities Exchange, NYSE Arca, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and The Options Clearing Corporation. Our experienced options seminar instructors provide valuable insight on the challenges and successes that individual investors encounter when trading options. In addition, options industry professionals have created the content in our software, brochures and Web site. Appropriate compliance and legal staff ensure that all OIC-produced information includes a balance of the benefits and risks of options.
The Options Institute
The Options Institute provides training on how to manage risk in an increasingly complex marketplace through the use of effective options strategies. It has become a widely used industry resource, conducting seminars worldwide that both answer continuing education requirements and stimulate the effective use of options among diverse segments of the investing community. Courses are designed to teach participants how to meet their investment goals and include topics ranging from the basics of options to uses of advanced strategies.
Lawrence D. Cavanagh
Value Line Daily Options Survey (https://www.ec-server.valueline.com/products/elect6.html)
Lawrence D. Cavanagh is Editor (and Senior Analyst) of The Value Line Daily Options Survey. The Value Line Daily Options Survey offers evaluations and rankings on virtually the entire universe of regularly listed equity and ETF options, using the Value Line common stock ranks and proprietary volatility forecasting methodology. Before joining Value Line in 1991, Mr. Cavanagh was an options strategist for Capital Market Technologies (subsidiary of Elders Finance), helping design long-term synthetic foreign currency and gold option hedges. Before that, he was Director of Foreign Currency Options for the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Other work experience includes Dean Witter Reynolds (VP, Senior Currency Analyst), European American Bank (Director of Currency Forecasting) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Assistant Economist).
The Institute for Financial Markets
The Institute for Financial Markets, founded in 1989 as the Futures Industry Institute, is a nonprofit educational foundation whose mission focuses on three primary areas - education, ethics and data. The Institute is unique in its purpose and mission and is recognized for the quality and balance of its work. The IFM strives to promote professional knowledge, judgment and integrity by providing research, educational resources and training to financial services professionals, exchanges, investors, and to interested constituencies including journalists, academicians, regulators and public-policy makers.
Tony McCormick
Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (http://www.schwab.com)
Tony McCormick is Vice President of Equity Options at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. McCormick also chairs Schwab's order routing committee for equities & options and is the head of the trade execution quality (TEQ) team. Prior to joining Schwab, he spent 12 years with Harris Futures Corporation and served as its Chief Executive Officer from 1993-97. McCormick has served on numerous exchange committees including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Board, the Chicago Stock Exchange Board and the Chicago Board Options Exchange Board. He was also elected as a member firm Director to the Board of the CBOE for 2007 and serves on the CBOE's Strategic Implementation Planning Committee.
Susquehanna Financial Group
Susquehanna Financial Group is an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group (SIG). SIG has evolved over the past twenty years into a leading financial institution focusing on trading, investment banking, private equity, venture capital, institutional sales and research. SIG makes markets in more than 6,000 stocks, is among the nation's largest option market makers, is the leading sector index options trading firm and is one of the largest liquidity providers in ETFs. SIG has more than 12 offices across North America, Europe and Asia.
Thomas Cathey
Thomas Capital Management, LLC (http://www.ThomasCapitalManagement.com)
Thomas Cathey is a 27-year trading veteran and the CEO of Thomas Capital Management, LLC. Mr. Cathey heads the CTA managed futures division and also advises brokers. He directs three managed programs that include; writing diversified commodity options, writing S&P 500 options and day trading the e-mini futures contract.When time permits, he also mentors his fellow traders as a trading coach.
Scott Morris
Boston Options Exchange (http://www.bostonoptions.com/)
Scott Morris is the Chief Executive Officer of the Boston Options Exchange. Prior to joining BOX in 2006, Scott was Managing Director of the Automated Trading and Execution Group at Goldman Sachs. Scott also held the position of Director of Financial Engineering for Hull Trading Group prior to their acquisition by Goldman Sachs in 2000.
Henry Schwartz
Trade Alert LLC (http://www.trade-alert.com/)
Henry Schwartz has traded derivatives on US and European exchanges for nearly 20 years. His experience includes market-making and institutional trading at the Hull Group, Salomon Brothers, Bear Stearns and most recently Banc of America Securities, where he led the electronic market-making project coincident with the launch of the ISE. His current work involves real-time stream analysis of options market activity for a number of leading institutional sell-side firms.
Ellen Spiro
Trade Alert LLC (http://www.trade-alert.com)
Ellen Spiro brings nearly 20 years market experience to her position as Vice President of Sales & Marketing of Trade Alert, LLC. Her background includes Fixed Income Derivatives trading at Deutsche Bank and starting up a similar desk at West Deutsche Landesbank as well as securities industry consulting for Coopers & Lybrand. Her current role puts her in direct contact with many of the largest participants in the equity derivatives field.
Condor Options
Condor Options.com (http://www.condoroptions.com)
Condor Options is a research and trading firm specializing in market neutral options strategies. In addition to the free periodic reports published on their website, Condor Options provides a members-only trading newsletter focused on iron condor options spreads.
The Options Insider
The Options Insider (http://www.TheOptionsInsider.com)
Compiled by The Options Insider staff.
Paul Foster
Paul Foster is a former member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange with 21-years of professional experience in the capital markets, investments, trading, corporate finance, arbitrage, options and mergers & acquisitions. His writing about the options market has appeared in a wide variety of publications.
Frederic Ruffy
What's Trading.com (http://whatstrading.com)
Frederic Ruffy is a Freelance Writer and Options Trading Strategist. In addition to writing market commentary and trading-related books and articles, Fred has also worked as an instructor, educating investors on advanced topics like measuring volatility, the benefits of sector rotation and the risks and potential profits from trading around earnings. His market observations are mentioned frequently in the financial press and he currently trades stocks, futures, and options in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Stan Freifeld
Online Trading Academy (http://www.tradingacademy.com)
Stan Freifeld comes to us from the Floor of the American Stock Exchange where he traded options for his own account from 1994-2001. He was a Market Maker for the options on several popular equities including Dupont, Schering Plough, Walgreen's, CBS, U.S. Surgical and Biovail. Stan, a long time MENSA member, is an engaging teacher with an extraordinary background in options trading and risk management. He is helpful and patient by nature and equally at ease with all levels of traders, from complete novices to advanced pros and academics.
Brian Overby
Trade King (https://www.tradeking.com/)
Brian has worked in the financial industry since 1992. Prior to joining TradeKing he founded Financial Coaching, Ltd., an investor education company. He also served as an option trading specialist for Charles Schwab, a senior staff instructor for The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and managed the training department for one of the world’s largest market makers, Knight Trading Group. Over the span of his career Mr. Overby has performed more than 1000 seminars worldwide on option trading and composed numerous articles for investor trade publications.
Craig Weil
Online Trading Academy (http://www.tradingacademy.com)
Craig Weil is a 34 year veteran of the Chicago trading floors and can be heard weekly on Traders Talk Live AM560 WIND Chicago
Kevin Cook
Options News Network (http://www.onn.tv)
Kevin Cook was an institutional foreign exchange trader for 9 years before joining The Options News Network to create dynamic options education for self-directed investors and traders. He learned about options trading on the floors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and soon after began his passionate interest in building a library of instructional content and tools to make options education highly relevant, extremely useful, and endlessly fascinating. As the primary instructor for OptionsPhysics Basic Level, he tries to give beginning options traders the knowledge and tools they need to start on their own path towards options trading skills and success.
Randy Frederick
CHARLES SCHWAB & CO., INC. (http://www.schwabat.com/offer/jump/Randy_Frederick_June2007.aspx?offer=NLN)
Randy Frederick is Director of Derivatives at the Schwab Center for Financial Research. He is one of the chief architects of Schwab’s option trading platforms and analytics tools. Frederick, a respected industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience, writes monthly columns for Schwab's client newsletters and is the author of the book The Trader's Guide to Equity Spreads (McGraw-Hill, 2007). He has been published in trade magazines such as Active Trader, SFO and Futures. He is a frequent guest on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, and his comments appear regularly in the financial news media including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, Reuters, USA Today and TheStreet.com.
