Website Review
Crimsonmind.com
Unusual activity in the option markets can reveal a ton of information about the markets. Crimsonmind.com is one site that provides this type of information, along with other option-related data.
There is a ton of information you can find on this site that will help you do some in-depth analysis of the option market and ultimately help you decide if you should open or close any positions.
Features
When identifying unusual option activity, it is necessary to compare the put/call volume with the average daily volume. You may also need to compare volume against open interest or see if there is any new activity. To put it simply, there’s a lot of analysis that goes into option trading. And you can find all the data you need to perform these types of analysis on this site.
A look at the home page (Figure 1) reveals that there is a lot of data here. You will see that along the left-hand side there is a menu displaying all the available information. The first is a list of unusual option activity for the current and previous trading days. You will see the underlying and what the unusual activity is along with price quotes. For example, on April 16, 2009, Lockheed Martin had high put volume on the September contract. You will see how high the put volume was, how many puts and calls traded, what the most active puts were, price of the underlying as well as the bid, ask, volume, and open interest of the most actively traded contract.
Figure 1: www.crimsonmind.com
You can access historical option data, which includes price data, historical volume, open interest, and put/call ratios. You can also get intraday quotes for puts and calls as well as other option-related data. Some of it is in tabular format, whereas others such as open interest distribution and volume history are in a graphical format.
There’s more. You can do in-depth analysis of current option activity. You can see which option contracts have volume that is higher than open interest, companies that have high options volume put/call ratios or low options volume put/call ratios, those with unusual volume activity, options with record high volume, most active contracts, and high volume spreads, among others.
There’s a section titled Activity Lab where you can get an insight into option activities of industries, sectors, indexes, and exchange traded funds (Etfs). This is helpful in getting an idea of the big picture or to see which sectors are doing well and which aren’t.
Last but not least is the Scanner feature, which filters the volume activity, open interest increase, and OI/volume query. The scanner lets you input your scan criteria based on volume or open interest increase, type of contract, and expiration.
It is a free site, but if you register, you’ll have access to more data. Keep in mind that there is no Vix data on this site and data is only for equities, indexes, and Etfs. Crimsonmind.com is a great tool for finding unusual option activity, historical option data, and average trading volume.