It’s no secret that the reason why people gravitate toward advanced services like Barchart Premier is to gain an edge in the market. Of course, the best advantage is the one that’s impossible to attain — a crystal ball that magically tells the future every single time. However, a more realistic innovation is a category of insight called microstructure analytics.
One of the most important of these tools is volatility skew. By definition, volatility skew identifies implied volatility (IV) — or a stock’s potential range of motion — across the strike price spectrum of a given options chain. Basically, this screener showcases the surface-area distortion of volatility space, allowing retail traders to understand how the smart money is positioning its risk profile.
