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Barclay’s Pulls The Plug on Commodity ETNs

By Lawrence G. McMillan

In a rather stunning move, Barclay’s Bank PLC, the underwriter of the iPath series of ETNs1, announced that it is closing 21 of them. The majority of the notes set to be redeemed are derivatives-based and track commodities. Many of them carried a “Bloomberg” designation in their title. Unfortunately, many of these that are closing are the only ETPs available in the US to speculate on specific commodities, such as orange juice or cotton. In our put-call ratio positions, we have often used the options on these ETNs instead of buying commodity futures options. The largest ETN being closing is the Copper ETN (JJC), with about $71 million in assets.

CBOE Origin Remembrances: Lawrence G. McMillan

By Lawrence G. McMillan

I had been trading over-the-counter options for some time, ever since having read the book “Beat The Market,” by Edward Thorp (yes, the same guy who originally figured out how to properly count cards in blackjack and had also written “Beat The Dealer.”) Sometime in mid-1973, my broker Ron Dilks, called me and said that he had read an article in Business Week about listed stock options. It was about the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE), which had begun trading listed options a few months earlier, in April of 1973.

Introducing our new Options Mentor: Mark Esposito

By Lawrence G. McMillan

Stan Freifeld and I started McMillan Options Mentoring 17 years ago to train students how to trade options successfully while reducing the inherent risks. Earlier this year, Stan decided not to take on any additional mentoring students. He will continue to lead the program and provide hourly consulting services to our customers.

Morningstar Creates Option Category

In this past weekend's Striking Price column in Barron's, Steve Sears noted that investment research goliath Morningstar recently created a new "options" investing category in their fund listings. Mr. Sears believes this new cateogry signifies that options have now become "part of the matinstream investment landscsape." With options trading volume alomost doubling in the last 10 years, we'd have to agree with Mr.

New McMillan Article on MarketWatch: Market gives little sign this bull run will stop soon

McMillan Analysis Corp. founder and president Lawrence G. McMillan recently wrote an article detailing the current state of the stock market for MarketWatch. Read the following preview or click the link below for the full article: 

VIX Index Begins Overnight Pricing

On April 15, 2016, the CBOE began disseminating VIX prices in the overnight session. Now, the VIX index will be open during extended trading hours from 2:15 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. Central time. From the CBOE press realese: 

Option Trading Saved From Being Eliminated from IRAs

The recent Department of Labor Fiduciary Proposal threatened to elimate the trading of options and futures in all retirement accounts. Due to successful lobbying by the options industry, the deceision was made to exlude the options and futures ban from the new rules.  CBOE Holdings Chief Executive Officer Edward T. Tilly made the following comment on the DOL's decion:

Extraordinarily Strong Stock Volume in FXCM Inc. (FXCM)

By Lawrence G. McMillan

FXCM is a trading firm that basically blew up when the Swiss Franc was revalued, a year ago.  At the time, the stock fell from 17 to nearly zero, before it was rescued by a cash infusion from Leucadia (LUK).  In October, 2015, the stock was reverse split, 1-for-10.

Top 5 Option Trading Books: Options as a Strategic Investment

Lawrence G. McMillan's market classic, Options as a Strategic Investment, was recently listed as one of the top five option trading books by The Option Prophet's Adam Beaty. He writes:

If you could only pick one book from this list to buy this would be the one you need to get. At over 1000 pages this book will be your option trading bible...

Read the entire review by visiting The Option Prophet.