Ask Rande: Tony,

» RandeS - Tony,

I'm sorry, but there is no "easy" formula for pricing options that I'm aware of. The Black-Sholes and the Binomial models are fairly complex. Nobody outside of a graduate finance class does these calculations by hand of course, but even the necessary inputs for a computer modeling can be tricky -- volatility, risk free rate, etc. If you have access to a Bloomberg terminal, it's fairly simple to punch it out if you know what you're doing. But to be honest, this is fairly specialized stuff and the vast majority of brokers will certainly refer to their firm's derivatives desk.

-- posted by RandeS