OnDemand Feature
So you have a couple symbols on your watchlist that you like to trade. Maybe you’re bullish on one but not sure why price isn’t moving. One tool that can help you analyze price behavior more closely is OnDemand for thinkorswim. You see how price behaved when it reached a certain point such as a support or resistance level by going back in time.
Say you pull up a price chart of a stock you want to trade and see that price came close to a support level and has started moving up (Figure 1). But price is stalling, and you’re not sure if the uptrend will continue. You look back on the chart and see price hit that support level on July 31, 2018.
What was the price action in the options at that time? Here’s how you can watch a replay of that price action using the OnDemand feature on thinkorswim (Figure 2).
1 – Click the OnDemand button on the top right of your screen.
2 – Select July 31, 2018 on the calendar, then click the Go! button.
3 – Now go to the Trade page and view the options chain.
4 – Click the step forward button to see how options prices change as you move closer to expiration.
Once you’re done using OnDemand, click on the OnDemand button and it takes you back to prevailing prices. OnDemand is effective for understanding how time decay or volatility impact options prices, especially during major events such as earnings releases, as options get close to expiration, or price action at technical levels. This can take you one step closer to making more educated trading decisions.Visualize the Yield Curve
Do you know if the yield curve is inverting, flattening, or steepening? It’s generally thought that an inverting (or negatively sloped) yield curve, when short-term bond yields are higher than longer-term ones, portends a recession or bear market. Traders watch the Fed’s interest rate decisions carefully, since they can impact the market’s price movement. You can look at the relationships between any short and long-term bonds such as the 2-year Treasury notes (/ZT) and 30-year Treasury bonds (/ZB) or the more popular 10-year notes (/ZN) versus /ZB known as the notes-over-bond (NoB) spread. And you can keep an eye on the yield curve on your thinkorswim platform by looking at a chart of the NoB spread.
From the Charts tab, type 2*/ZN-/ZB in the symbol box. The chart in Figure 3 is a line chart of the NoB spread. The 2 in front of the symbol is the weighting on the contracts, which depends on the ratio of the spread. This information can be found on the CME Group website. The yield curve steepens if economic conditions are looking strong. If the reverse happens, the yield curve starts flattening.