One of the more frustrating aspects of mainstream financial journalism (and journalists) is that, while plenty of time and energy is devoted to coverage of stocks, commodities, and even the more esoteric financial products - counterparty risk on credit default swaps, anyone? - very little attention is paid to the kinds of news that options traders care about.

OptionsNews, as you might guess from the name, aims to change that. They provide daily market updates, coverage of major movements in the options market, educational videos, and trade ideas. They’re a subsidiary of PEAK6, one of the major market making firms in Chicago, and have a staff of experienced traders and hosts who cover a wide variety of topics on the site’s six shows. Among those shows are:

• Options Physics - the educational arm of the site, including articles and videos broken down by skill level (Basic, Advanced, Professional). The pieces are pleasantly concise and yet substantive.
• Sidewinder - a neat daily trading tool that highlights unusual options volume in equities.
• Mad About Options - this show is touted as covering Jim Cramer’s Mad Money picks, but they’re totally underselling it: the real value is that the commentators teach you how to position yourself with or against Cramer’s pick using options, which will be very helpful for novice options traders.

The OptionsNews website is still in beta - either that, or they’re touting the fact that their picks merely track the market (just kidding) - but it already looks great and loads quickly, especially given how video-intensive it is. Other features include forums, a market data page, and a calendar function. Oh, and they’re apparently going to allow users to upload videos going forward.

This site definitely targets an unfilled niche in the world of online financial journalism: nobody else is providing quality video coverage of the options markets, and if they keep adding new educational posts and videos at anything like their current pace, this could become one of the best resources for options education anywhere on the web.