Condor Options

The first issue of Expiring Monthly was published today, and even though I’m a contributing editor, I took some time over lunch to peruse the issue again as a reader. One fact I’m proud of is that, in our very first issue, we’ve already managed to cover some topics that I’ve never seen addressed in other similar print publications.

Some items I particularly liked:

• In “The New Option Trader,” Mark Wolfinger nicely explains how you can tell whether a new trader is likely to be successful just by considering the types of questions he asks.
• The academic research I review in “Predicting Stock Returns with Implied Volatility” is interesting, and probably deserves further analysis.
• Adam Warner’s accounts of the glory days of the AMEX and of a market-making trade gone awry evoke a physicality that seems very attractive and yet totally foreign to me.
• One thing Mark Sebastian is very good at is tearing down false greek idols, e.g. “Understanding Fake Deltas.”
• Bill Luby explains everything you need to know (in my opinion) about the VIX ETNs, including, most importantly, the #1 reason to pass them by in favor of VIX futures.
• Interviews with Sheldon Natenberg (author of Option Volatility and Pricing) aren’t plentiful, you know, but we got one.
• I wrote the editorial Back Page this month. In “On Eating What We Kill,” I point out the absurdity of the naive machismo that, regrettably, still typifies so many traders:

“My claim is not that traders are useless to society; that’s a question for another time. But whereas the allocation and reallocation of capital to different assets is an activity so utterly reliant on the strength of the material economy, boasts of carnivorous independence on the part of traders seem immediately not just false, but also in poor taste. Traders proud of their supposed predation are the anemic leonine aristocracy of a protected nature preserve, oblivious to the guards, gates, and smaller animals without whom they would quickly die.”

If you have any questions or topics you’d like to see addressed in future issues, please let us know.