Option Block 528: Staring into the Eye of Sauron

Trading Block featuring guest co-host Todd Rich, President of OM Media (an affiliate of OptionsHouse). Crude oil and energy stocks It is that time of the month - volume time. OCC announced that cleared contract volume in May reached 319,533,636 contracts, a four percent increase from the May 2015 volume of 308,639,215 contracts. YTD average daily cleared contract volume is also up four percent from 2015 with 16,734,689 contracts. Odd Block: Calls trade in Xilinx Inc. (XLNX), calls trade in iShares MSCI UK (EWU), calls and puts trade in Macys Inc. (M), and calls trade in Marriott International Inc. (MAR). Mail Block: Listener questions and comments Question from Niles - Are there any triple witching levels coming soon? If so, how do they influence the options market and expiration? Question from Fred - I kind of hit a wall in my options development. Maybe my focus was too split between learning about futures and learning about options. Are you familiar with the books by Jim Dalton? He wrote a book about options trading but he does not like the greeks and he does not like many conventional options trading strategies. He only uses them when necessary. I guess this is a long way to asking when I should use options vs. futures Question from Jack - Have you ever used the PREM indicator? It is for arbitrage traders. If so, how does it play out in the options market? Around the Block: Non-Farms on Friday (to be released at 7:30 a.m. CDT Friday)