Easiest Method to Scrape Options Data for Free using Python and yfinance

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What is an option?

To begin, lets make sure we know what an option is. Simply put an option is an agreement that gives a person the “option” but not obligation to buy or sell a stock at an agreed upon price, called the “strike” price. There are two types of options, “calls” and “puts”. Calls are bets that the stock will go up in price and Puts are bets that the stock will fall in price.

Beyond this lets discuss a few other terms we should know related to options. The expiration date is the date where the option contract becomes void. The open interest is the number of active options contracts traded. The implied volatility is the measurement of how volatile an option contract is, if the implied volatility is high that means the option is prone to large swings in its value, up and down.

When an option is referred to as “In The Money” that means the contract would result in a profit if exercised right now. For example, if you owned a Call contract with a strike price of $200 on AAPL and the current price of APPL stock is 236 your option is in the money. For puts if your puts strike price was $250 then it would also be in the money.