Trading Through the Summer Slog

Times are tough in options-land for the pros.

Wednesday afternoon, one exchange official was opining about the absence of significant volume, and a trader was ruminating about the good old days when he actually had a clue about why the market did what it did.

For average investors who use options, however, Memorial Day has traditionally had a meaning beyond the family barbecues at which our siblings and in-laws are free to revisit decades-old recriminations. It has meant that summer is upon us, and we needed to decide whether the market's all-important implied volatility levels would tell us to buy or to sell options. (Implied volatility is the measure of how much a stock is capable of moving in the life of any particular option. It's also a key ingredient in an option's price.) ...