Chris Figy is currently the President and CEO of Pit Savvy Trading Mentorship Program. The seed to the beginning of this program was planted many years ago. This independent speculator and chartist started trading options from off the floor in 1995 to help supplement his income as a college student at Ohio State University. Trading mainly grain options he was able to pay off all his student loans before graduating from OSU.
After graduation it was off to Chicago to venture into the S&P 500 options pit at the CBOE. After several months as an arbitrage clerk in the S&P 500 option pit with one of the largest market making firms on the CBOE floor he learned how floor traders managed their option positions. This trader was ready to begin a new style of trading options.
After trading in a group dynamic for a year Chris began trading and managing his own option position. Having dealt with many inadequate trading platforms, he developed his own option trading application. Over the years he has built a superior floor trading software application. This application was tested and utilized for over 6 years in the SPX pit at the CBOE while individually managing an S&P 500 option portfolio.
This trading software is one of the most reliable and versatile trading applications for market making in a trading pit. Chris was one of the first market makers to trade in the SPX option pit with delta sheets that could scan all possible retail option orders to allow for fast option index arbitrage by lighting up strikes that where bid over and offered under theoretical values. The application supplied multiple traders with identical theoretical option values, live option portfolio greeks, and risk management calculations. This allowed traders to understand current option positions and analyze what type and level of option trade would be ideal for the current portfolio.
Once the rest of the trading crowd in the S&P 500 option pit caught up with his technology and the bid ask spreads began to narrow, Chris started to wonder if it wasn’t time to again become an off the floor trader. Although this time, he would implement together both floor trader and off-floor trader tactics to combine into a powerful trading strategist.
As the option bid ask spreads narrowed several other advantages start to occur that would again point Chris into deciding to look at off-floor option trading. Option commissions and fees where lowered to under a dollar for customer accounts. Earlier, one of the great advantages to trading on the floor was the low commissions and fees that floor traders paid. Not anymore, with customers now paying under a dollar an option, this would narrow the benefits for floor traders dramatically.
Another advantage for floor traders was the cross margined option portfolio and risk based “hair cuts.” This is just some trader talk for the margin or amount of capital required for the options portfolio. Anyway, this style or risk based hair cut required floor traders to have tremendously less capital in an account to manage a large option portfolio. Today, customers with larger trading accounts can also get this type of margining and it is typically referred to as “Portfolio Margining” in a universal account. So again, what is the advantage for the floor trader?
With current trends leaning to electronic trading and the high costs of leasing a seat to stand on the floor (3,500 to 5,500 per month) Chris decided to begin again trading options from off-the-floor. Managing personal income invested in various advanced option strategies. These strategies included well defined risk parameters and adjustment points. Examples include long ATM call butterflies & calendar spreads in the SPX balanced with long equity option positions.
With several back tested option strategies in place he knew he wanted to share his findings. He has applied the above strategies to help develop an options trading mentorship program. He enhanced several trading plans and adjustment strategies by back testing basic and advanced option strategies and adjustments from 2000 to present.
The program contains recorded Audio/Video Training lesson and developed strategy documentation, lesson plans and corresponding exams for each lesson. He has found educating individuals on basic and advanced option trading strategies enjoyable and looks forward to seeing the resultant trader generate the kind of returns they are looking for.
“I look forward to educating students in creating a trading plan that fits their trading goals with defined risk management.”
Mission Statement: Develop a disciplined and cutting edge electronic trader that with our community in place he or she can continue to stay one step ahead of the market. The knowledge sharing and enhanced strategic trading power of this community will sustain us on a successful market vector.
Discipline is the Key. Understand yourself and your financial goals. Understand and follow your trading plan and make the necessary adjustments to fulfill that plan.