Research Tools Grade: C
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Overview:
The OptionsHouse research tools can best be described as hit or miss. Market news is rather limited, as is stock specific research. The events calendar and stock screener are not as useful as those found at some competitors. The technical analysis tools are well done as well as some of the more customized tools, such as volatility charts. Advanced options traders will probably benefit the most from the OptionsHouse research offerings because of the options specific tools, so we think it is worth a look for those folks. Most other traders, however, will likely view the OptionsHouse research tools as decidedly average.
Details:
The OptionsHouse research tab (click on all images for larger views):
This markets page shown within the research tab contains a number of useful tools. First is a selection of charts showing the major indexes and relative strength. To the right is a break down of daily market performance by sector, followed by news items provided by The Associated Press, among others.
At the bottom of the markets tab is a very basic events calendar. Events that are featured are limited to earnings announcements and dividend events. This feature seems to have been implemented as an after thought and is not competitive with the better examples found at competitors. Here is a view of the earnings and dividends that are set to take place on Monday, February 25th:
Typing in a stock symbol within the research tab will bring up company specific information. Here is a view of the research page found for Research in Motion (RIMM):
Along the top of the page we have long term and daily price charts along with some relevant technical and fundamental facts for our stock. Clicking on the technical analysis section brings up a detailed technical analysis page. Analyst opinions are shown, broken down by five categories, and clicking on this area brings up a detailed analyst opinion page. Towards the bottom we have company relevant news stories provided by a number of sources, along with company and peer event calendars.
The tools tab contains some interesting research tools. Here is a look at what is offered:
The risk viewer displays Greeks and theoretical position values based off of various market values. The P&L calculator, covered call investigator, call spread investigator and probability calculators are options related research tools. I use covered call strategies on a regular basis and I found the covered call investigator to be an extremely useful tool.
Volatility charts do just what you expect - they generate volatility charts for indexes or individual stocks. Here is a one year volatility chart for Apple (AAPL):
The stock screener needs some work before it is can very useful. There are 22 screening criteria to choose from but most of the choices are rather limited. For example, users can screen by P/E but are limited to ranges of 5, 10, 15, 20 etc. and cannot specify, for example, stocks with P/Es less than 12. Other criteria, such as book value per share, are only really useful if it is adjusted for the current price per share, which is not an option. Here is a screening I did for stocks with a dividend yield greater than 3%, P/E less than 15 and a market cap greater than $300 million:
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