OptionBrowser Frequently Asked Questions
What is the total cost including data subscription fees ?:
The total cost for a single OptionBrowser license is $299.95 in United States funds. There are no data subsciption fees. There are no costs for future versions of the software. There are no other costs at all. Volume discounts are available for as few as 2 licenses.
What data sources do you use and how much do they cost ?:
The OptionBrowser free data sources. The first is the CBOE delayed quotes page and uses the Money-Net delayed quotes page as a backup. Note that while these sites are free and have remained so since their creation this may not always be the case and that is beyond our control.
Why doesn't the OptionBrowser work with real-time data sources ?:
There are several reasons that the OptionBrowser doesn't use real-time data sources. The number one use for real-time data sources is to find those options that are mispriced and create an arbitrage trade. OptionBrowser does not scan for arbs and we feel that were we to supply access to real-time quote sources we would somehow create an expectation that these arbs are easy to find. The fact is that for retail traders finding arbs is rare in the extreme. For the trades that OptionBrowser scans, if a trade is a good trade "now" then its a good trade "15 minutes ago" as well so delayed quotes are fine and the expense of a real-time quote supply is just an extra expense. Lastly, since the real power of the OptionBrowser comes from its ability to scan dozens of issues at once your data wouldn't be real-time anyway. By the time OptionBrowser has scanned your 35th stock the data gathered about the 1st stock would no longer be real-time data. Unless you're an arb trader or a day trader save yourself the monthly expense and don't use real-time quotes.
Can the OptionBrowser scan more than one stock at a time ?:
Absolutely. Using the OptionBrowser you can scan multiple stocks on an as desired basis simply by typing in multiple stock symbols separated by commas (for example MIKE,GTK,CERN,DP,EASI,ILUM,GNSS,AZO) and the OptionBrowser will process those issues and display the combined results. If you have collections of issues that you process regularly you can place them in a "ticker list" and process that entire list with 3 mouse clicks. OptionBrowser has lots of features that make creating and maintaining your ticker lists easy to do. You can enter them by hand. You can import them from a file. You can "screen scrape" them off of your display. You can build lists based on who reports earnings on a certain date. You can mix and merge lists together to create new lists. A very powerful set of features.
What kind of trades can the OptionBrowser scan for ?:
The OptionBrowser can scan for covered calls, short puts, long and short butterflies, long time spreads, credit spreads, debit spreads, straddles and collars (collars are sometimes known as hedge-wrappers). A hidden bonus trade that OptionBrowser scans for is the "long iron butterfly". When scanning for short straddles (risk: unlimited) OptionBrowser will also let you know about tradeable long iron flies (risk: limited) it discovers. Periodically we add new trades to the OptionBrowser based on customer requests and these trades are made available to OptionBrowser customers at no additional cost.