Options glossary · Formulas

The straddle approximation

The price of an at-the-money straddle from the underlying, the implied volatility and the time, close enough to do in your head. The 0.8 is the same 0.8 that turns a standard deviation into an expected move. Straddles scale with the square root of time: two days is not twice one day, it is about 1.4 times.

The formula
Straddle ≈ 0.8 × S × σ × √t
Where it comes up

Part 2 of the course, Option pricing: what goes into a price, the straddle approximation, Black-Scholes and where it stops being true. See the course →

The full picture

Three and a half hours with the man who traded these

Sven Hubens, ten years an options market maker at Optiver and Maven, adjunct faculty at The Options Institute at Cboe.

  • 3h 32m of video in 58 chapters
  • 128 slides
  • Subtitles in 16 languages
  • A certificate a firm can verify
See the course €59.95 incl. 21% VAT · six months of access
Maven Optiver Cboe
Sven Hubens Hubens Capital

Education, not advice. Amsterdam Investment Club is not licensed by the AFM to give individual investment advice.