What is the Underlying screen area?
The Underlying screen area is where the Underlying vehicle is selected and displayed.
What is the Underlying?
The underlying is the financial vehicle - a tradable share or index - upon which its financial Options are derived and based. The underlying is central to Option trading because its price, and anticipated movements in its price, are some of the prime determinants of the prices of any Call and Put Option issued against it. Therefore it is important to be able to know how the Underlying is performing at any given time.
Show me the Underlying screen area...
This is what the Underlying screen area would look like for the "Russell 2000" index ("RUT") on Monday 17th October 2011 at 16:00 Eastern Standard Time (end of the trading day).
The RUT underlying price at the open of market was $707.69 and the latest price offered was $688.67 - the later represents a fall of $23.79 or 3.34 percent from the previous days closing price.
During the current trading day RUT moved in the range $707.69 (high) to $687.07 (low) and has an implied volatility of 39.97, representing an implied volatility increase of 20.3 percent since the official close of the previous trading session (to see how this value has been calculated see here).
And finally, as the Underlying price has dropped 3.34 percent, this represents a two standard deviation downward movement.
Tell me more about the Underlying screen area...
The following data is displayed about the selected Underlying vehicle. Note that this data is valid as of the Trading Date & Time selected in the "Home" tab of the Ribbon area:
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Item Name
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Description
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Open
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The trading day's Opening Price.
Market data from the exchange stored on our servers or direct from your broker.
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High
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The trading day's Highest Price (so far).
Market data from the exchange stored on our servers or direct from your broker.
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Low
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The trading day's Lowest Price (so far).
Market data from the exchange stored on our servers or direct from your broker.
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Last
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The trading day's Latest Price (the price as of the selected Trading Date and Time).
Market data from the exchange stored on our servers or direct from your broker.
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Chg
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The absolute change in the Latest Price compared with the previous session Official Closing Price.
Calculated.
Note that the previous session final Last Price (at the End of Day) does not necessarily equal the Official Closing Price (which is only available some time after market close).
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Chg%
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The percentage change in the Latest Price compared with the previous sessions Official Closing Price.
Calculated.
Note that the previous session final Last Price (at the End of Day) does not necessarily equal the Official Closing Price (which is only available some time after market close).
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IV
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The Implied Volatility (IV).
Calculated.
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IVChg%
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The percentage change in the Implied Volatility compared with the previous sessions Implied Volatility.
Calculated.
Note that the percentage change is calculated with reference to the "Official closing IV" and not the "Last traded IV" - the official end of close can be different to the last available time interval accessible using the trading date/time controls (to see the Official close go to the Price chart with the current trading date set to after the date in question).
Example: The IVChg% value of 20.3, as shown earlier in this section, for RUT at Monday 17th October 2011 is calculated as follows: the 14th Aug official closing IV is equal to 33.23 [to see this set the trading date to 17th Aug and go to the Price Chart and hover over the volatility line for 14th Aug]. The IV at the 20:55 on 17th Aug (not official closing, but last traded) is 39.97. So (39.97 – 33.23) / 33.23 = 20.3
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SD
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The number of Standard Deviations the Latest Price has moved from the previous sessions Official Closing Price.
Calculated. Note that the displayed value is coloured red if it represents a drop of more than 1 Standard Deviation, or green if it represents a rise of more than 1 Standard Deviation.
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How do I select the Underlying?
Use the dropdown in the top left hand corner of the Underlying screen area to browse and select the required Underlying:
Clicking the mouse on the dropdown button will show the available Underlying vehicles. These are displayed alphabetically starting from the currently selected Underlying vehicle, as in the following example:
Navigating such a display of Underlying vehicles is possible either by scrolling up or down and clicking the mouse on the required entry or by typing in the selection box in which case ONE will attempt to display all matching Underlying vehicles and thus narrow down the possibilities to select from.
