lose
yourself, haeti .”
Carin, a woman who worked at the
fixed-income research desk, stopped by to ask if I wanted to order
dinner in with her. She saw me crying.
“ Hey, you okay? Want a
drink? Let’s grab a bottle or two of wine. Or you could finish this
thing here. What is it?”
I looked up at Carin, who was looking
puzzled as she inspected my misshapen candy bar.
“ It’s my Snickers. I ate the
chocolate around it.” I smiled. She comforted me by rubbing my
back. Feeling better, I began to separate the blue pens from the
black ones on my desk while tears dribbled from my eyes. Carin took
from out of my mouth the pen top that I was rabidly chewing
on.
“ Need help?” she
asked.
“ Yeah, I am getting stressed
trying to understand Gamma and Options.” She knew that something
else bothered me but did not probe which I was thankful for. I was
already embarrassed for showing tears on the trading floor, an
indication of weakness to the alpha males around. Thankfully, Carin
understood.
Carin and I had become friends over
the previous couple of months in the course of often working late
together. She knew the business and was always answering my
questions, especially ones related to options.
The name said it all. Options are
contracts that give you the option to either buy or sell an
underlying security for a given time, security, and price. These
derivatives had an exchange market of their own.
“ And Gamma sometimes is
referred to as the curvature of an option. It’s the rate at which
an option’s delta changes as the price of the underlying changes,”
Carin explained. “If an option has a gamma of five, for each point
rise in the price of the underlying, the option will gain five
deltas. Make sense?”
It did.
“ So, gamma is a measure of
how fast the option changes direction, right?”
“ Exactly!” Carin exclaimed.
She then started to jot something down on a piece of paper. “This
is your cheat sheet for trading options. Use it and impress your
boss.” I started to feel better. Work took my mind off
Dani.
If your delta is +, you want
underlying contract to rise in price. If delta -, you want
underlying contract to fall in price.
If your theta position is +, the
passage of time will generally increase the value of your position.
If Theta position is -, the passage of time will decrease the value
of your position.
If your rho position is +, you
want interest rates to rise. If your rho position is -, you want
interest rates to fall.
Carin handed me my cheat sheet. “Now,
if only I had answers to your love problems, I’d be a genius. What
am I talking about?! If only I had answers to my own love
problems.”
She knew about Dani and our problems,
and she complained often about her long-term boyfriend. He was an
investment banker named Blake, and she hardly got to see him. She
had gotten into finance because her parents had put a lot of
pressure on her to make money.
I thought maybe that was the reason I
had ended up in finance. My mother was making only a meager salary
as a seamstress, but that wasn’t enough to cover all of my late
father’s debts. She was getting old and suffered from carpel tunnel
syndrome. Life’s stresses had added years to her face and body.
Although the thought was unspoken, I knew my mother considered me
to be her retirement plan. It was my filial duty to care for her
now.
Carin was plain-looking. She had pale
skin, blue eyes, long, straight blond hair, and bad posture. She
wore the same basic ensemble every day, which consisted of grey
slacks, a black top, and black chunky heels she had bought on the
sale rack of a discount store. Carin was eight years older than me,
but we had become friends quickly.
Carin passed the traders on the night
desk to comfort me. There was nothing going on in the markets that
night. CNBC and ESPN played on the televisions mounted to the walls
throughout the room. Some night traders watched TV while others
played catch with
yourself, haeti .”
Carin, a woman who worked at the
fixed-income research desk, stopped by to ask if I wanted to order
dinner in with her. She saw me crying.
“ Hey, you okay? Want a
drink? Let’s grab a bottle or two of wine. Or you could finish this
thing here. What is it?”
I looked up at Carin, who was looking
puzzled as she inspected my misshapen candy bar.
“ It’s my Snickers. I ate the
chocolate around it.” I smiled. She comforted me by rubbing my
back. Feeling better, I began to separate the blue pens from the
black ones on my desk while tears dribbled from my eyes. Carin took
from out of my mouth the pen top that I was rabidly chewing
on.
“ Need help?” she
asked.
“ Yeah, I am getting stressed
trying to understand Gamma and Options.” She knew that something
else bothered me but did not probe which I was thankful for. I was
already embarrassed for showing tears on the trading floor, an
indication of weakness to the alpha males around. Thankfully, Carin
understood.
Carin and I had become friends over
the previous couple of months in the course of often working late
together. She knew the business and was always answering my
questions, especially ones related to options.
The name said it all. Options are
contracts that give you the option to either buy or sell an
underlying security for a given time, security, and price. These
derivatives had an exchange market of their own.
“ And Gamma sometimes is
referred to as the curvature of an option. It’s the rate at which
an option’s delta changes as the price of the underlying changes,”
Carin explained. “If an option has a gamma of five, for each point
rise in the price of the underlying, the option will gain five
deltas. Make sense?”
It did.
“ So, gamma is a measure of
how fast the option changes direction, right?”
“ Exactly!” Carin exclaimed.
She then started to jot something down on a piece of paper. “This
is your cheat sheet for trading options. Use it and impress your
boss.” I started to feel better. Work took my mind off
Dani.
If your delta is +, you want
underlying contract to rise in price. If delta -, you want
underlying contract to fall in price.
If your theta position is +, the
passage of time will generally increase the value of your position.
If Theta position is -, the passage of time will decrease the value
of your position.
If your rho position is +, you
want interest rates to rise. If your rho position is -, you want
interest rates to fall.
Carin handed me my cheat sheet. “Now,
if only I had answers to your love problems, I’d be a genius. What
am I talking about?! If only I had answers to my own love
problems.”
She knew about Dani and our problems,
and she complained often about her long-term boyfriend. He was an
investment banker named Blake, and she hardly got to see him. She
had gotten into finance because her parents had put a lot of
pressure on her to make money.
I thought maybe that was the reason I
had ended up in finance. My mother was making only a meager salary
as a seamstress, but that wasn’t enough to cover all of my late
father’s debts. She was getting old and suffered from carpel tunnel
syndrome. Life’s stresses had added years to her face and body.
Although the thought was unspoken, I knew my mother considered me
to be her retirement plan. It was my filial duty to care for her
now.
Carin was plain-looking. She had pale
skin, blue eyes, long, straight blond hair, and bad posture. She
wore the same basic ensemble every day, which consisted of grey
slacks, a black top, and black chunky heels she had bought on the
sale rack of a discount store. Carin was eight years older than me,
but we had become friends quickly.
Carin passed the traders on the night
desk to comfort me. There was nothing going on in the markets that
night. CNBC and ESPN played on the televisions mounted to the walls
throughout the room. Some night traders watched TV while others
played catch with
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