OptionVue Feature Requests

tom

Well-known member
Administrator
Brian Vogelman from Capital Allocation (formerly OptionVue) is seeking your input to help shape the future of OptionVue software.

Brian's team has been busy upgrading the internal infrastructure and are now starting to code the new version of OptionVue.

The next version will be modern, cross-platform software capable of dealing with the ever-increasing demans of options analytic software.

This is the right time for inputs from YOU as to what you'd like to see in the next version of OptionVue.

Please make any suggestions of what you think should be in the new version of OptionVue!
 
Its quite simple actually. Almost what OV did before plus a few things ONE does better (easier data management, easier navigation) - and beat them in pricing. :)

-gariki
 
Here are a few of my ideas:
  • Support weighted Vega
  • Support second order Greeks (not how sure how many people would use this one)
  • Allow using 3rd party data like eSignal, IQFeed, etc
  • Have an API for 3rd party developers to integrate with the platform. Think custom indicators, trading strategies etc.
  • Support standard languages like Easy Language for scripting
  • Make it easy to capture screen shots and share with others (social, your own library, a small group like a trading group or the public). Look at TradingView for examples
  • Use AI to help back testing. Similar to CMLViz Trade Machine or what Quanty Carlo was trying to do
  • Allow users to setup real time alerts ( email, sms, Slack, push notifications, etc)
  • Let mentors/teachers have groups they can manage where students could follow their trades in real time. Also allow mentors/teachers charge for their alert services in the platform or at least manage who has access to follow the mentor/teacher
  • Better charting of underlying, including more standard indicators (and scripting)
  • 3D volatility models
  • If using OptionVue data, allow pulling live quotes into Excel from the OptionVue servers
  • More granular data for back testing.... perhaps 1-min granularity?
  • Create trade templates to easier place trades in OV. Thinkorswim does a good job of this
  • Support sending orders to popular brokers like thinkorswim, IB and more (already has some of this)
  • Cross platform. Native applications for windows and mac. Possibly linux too.
That's a good start :)
 
I'm all for it!
  1. Last time I used ONE, it did not allow me to adjust IV separately for each expiration, let alone for each option. All it had is a global "Volatility adjust" control. This is the #1 reason why I stopped paying for ONE. IV is the most important variable in option trading. How am I supposed to do what-if games if I can't adjust that freely? Think calendars. Think earnings. Think term structure.
  2. I'd suggest moving away from the "spreadsheet of numbers" approach when displaying prices, iv, greeks etc. This is visually overwhelming, and my brain is ill-equipped to digesting a screenful of floats. While there may be no alternative to having that, I'd welcome a more graphical approach for displaying the price/vol/greeks/whatever landscape, with a "graphics first" thinking. Much easier to spot the odd bid/ask outlier that way, and to spot changes in IV behaviour across expirations.
  3. Take a look at Vandermart Tracker. Virtually every number displayed is actually an editable field, be it prices, strike, dividends, rates, IV, expiration. If I have that feature, I can work around other features that may be missing.
  4. Please, make the option pricing model you're using transparent, i.e. explain to me how it works. That might be proprietary information, so you'd rather not, I know. Do it anyway. If you really cannot, I'd like to see vanilla Black-Scholes in comparison, so I have a baseline against which to judge the differences.
  5. Any chance you can think about a graphical strategy editor? I'm so tired of typing contract numbers into spreadsheets, scrolling back and forth through myriads of strikes and expirations. I'd love to create a butterfly by clicking my mouse into the risk graph, add a vertical the same way, and use the mouse to drag the little fellows to where I want them to be.
  6. API, API, API. Any piece of software is infinitely more useful to me if I can attach my own code to it. I am unable to specify exactly what I'd like to do with an OptionVue API, but I've been wishing for an API whenever an application didn't have it. Sooner or later.
  7. Take your pride in writing proper release notes. You can easily beat ONE by not using this line over and over again: "Brand New version built from the ground up includes new detachable windows, watchlists, monitor plus much more..."
Hope this helps. Wishing you the best of success! FYI, I have never used OptionVue, or Thinkorswim. I am a former ONE user. I might use ONE again if they fix a few things. Or OptionVue. Currently I'm surviving on a bunch of self-written python that addresses #1 above all else, but lacks a thousand other things. I need a proper tool.
 
I think Tom's list is pretty comprehensive. If I had to pick one item from the list, I would pick support for weighted vega.
 
-Web based option (with all the full features of the downloaded program) and easily integrate between the two
-Ability to send orders directly to broker and have orders already in broker show up in the program (no more copy/paste). TDA and IB would be the big ones.
-Adjust IV between legs or at least between expiration
-Warning if you are 'stepping on strikes' by opening a new position where you already have open positions.

Plus what everyone else said (weighted vega, etc.)
 
A friend suggested the ability to show the position P/L per day and chart it.
 
I would like to see
- future options, given that futures may have different expirations too
- ability to work with positions after hours. Right now it is very painful in ONE overnight or on weekend.
 
And one extra request from me:
- This probably will be covered in web version, but if web version is not available, then I would like my positions to be synchronized between multiple devices.
 
I used Optionvue for 35 years (1985 - 2020). I had to stop using Optionvue and switch to ONE because it simply was not working anymore. I would consider moving back to Optionvue if it did the following
- Weighted Vega
- Downloaded Transactions from Schwab
- Downloaded Transactions from Thinkpipes
- Allowed trades to be submitted from Optionuve itself
- Updated quotes from ThinkorSwim etc. properly and quickly
- Modeled the call side of SPX trades correctly
- was more reasonably priced - i.e. no more than ONE charges
- had the matrix and the graph side by side
- could display a graph of skew
 
I used Optionvue for 35 years (1985 - 2020). I had to stop using Optionvue and switch to ONE because it simply was not working anymore. I would consider moving back to Optionvue if it did the following
- had the matrix and the graph side by side
You can already display the matrix and risk chart side by side. Here's how to do it:

 
  • We need a quoting robot (market-maker) to open/close complex positions. Since Interactive Brokers does not accept orders with more than 4 legs and our position can be much more complex. That's why it's not enough just to throw a blank order, we need exactly what we need to quote to close a complex position at the price we want. Because if we close manually in parts, we may lose all our profits due to slippages.
    Such a robot is implemented in OptionWorkshop https://itglobal.ru/products/option-workshop/market-maker

  • We need the ability to save delta-based templates

  • We need our own calculator: something like an extension for your table, additional fields where we could write our formulas. For example, I want to calculate several different butterflies, and choose one where I will have a volatility advantage. Many people use Excel for this, connected to the TOS, why not do it directly in the program, with the ability to save different settings and switch them as needed. You can add there markers-signalizers, which will show favorable-unfavorable ratios of various parameters. There is a huge field for creating various add-ons, perhaps even a marketplace for third-party developers.
 
Since Interactive Brokers does not accept orders with more than 4 legs and our position can be much more complex
I am not aware of any US brokerage that can do orders with more than 4 legs
Because if we close manually in parts, we may lose all our profits due to slippages
That is true but if you want to get out it might be easier to get filled if it's just a simple spread rather than a complex one with 4 or more legs which would be even more difficult to fill I imagine
 
I am not aware of any US brokerage that can do orders with more than 4 legs

That is true but if you want to get out it might be easier to get filled if it's just a simple spread rather than a complex one with 4 or more legs which would be even more difficult to fill I imagine
We cannot place a GTC order in the brokerage platform to close a complex position, such as A14 with many adjustments, by the profit target. So let the robot trade it all
It's the 21st century, and we're still trading like in the days of Black-Scholes :)
 
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We cannot place a GTC order in the brokerage platform to close a complex position, such as A14 with many adjustments, by the profit target
You can place a GTC order at any brokerage but not with more than 4 legs so I am not sure how the robot can get around that
For the A14 you should have at most 2 orders one for the BWB and one for the calendar if it was used the only problem is you may not get filled on both at the same time so maybe the robot could be used to somehow adjust the order price of the one not filled but you may need AI to know what price would be acceptable but I think that is asking too much

I would say let's get something to work decently before getting into complex issues and slowing down the development

If you are already using options workshop that has the robot already why do you even need OV ?
 
Continued:
We need support for futures options. What for? To enable automatic delta hedging of futures. OptionNetExplorer does not know how to send orders and receive data about the execution of such trades. Here is an example of an implemented delta hedging robot
I used Optionworkshop a few years ago, nice functionality but as far as I know they didn't model diagonals or calendars. Looking at the up to date version still not sure if the app can model calendars or diagonals.

I've tried another app Quantower, nice functionality for its options, but can't model calendars or diagonals. Why do these apps have issues with modeling multi-expiry options? Maybe they are trying to do something with vol skews etc. Keep it simple, provide the basics, then work on the complex.
 
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