You can do those things on any brokerage. You can buy options pretty much anywhere. Not seeing where the democratization is coming from that is different from the status quo
My brokerage will only let me buy options in the standard batch of 100, which means to get anything I'm interested in I need to drop $20k, which isn't going to happen.
I only want to spend a couple of hundred on long term options ..
> I only want to spend a couple of hundred on long term options
Former options market maker. And honest question. Why?
Long-term options are tricky because theta and rho, the least intuitive components of the option pricing model, become significant as tenor increases. If you want to take a leveraged bet on the market, a margin account or leveraged ETF is safer.
I have a good portfolio of stocks, and to be honest I want to bet a hundred or so here or there. I never buy lottery tickets or anything like that, but I feel like it's a good chance to take.
It has nothing to do with safe, and is about risk v reward.
What do you mean by underprice implied vol? I think what you mean is that vol is underpriced, not implied vol being underpriced. Implied vol is just a function of 4 factors known at at the time of the trade (underlyer spot price, option premium, option strike, time to expiry) and one unknown (risk-free interest rate over the lifetime of the option). Saying they've gotten implied volitility wrong implies they've mis-entimated the risk-free interest rate. I think instead you mean they under-estimate vol, not implied vol.
Unfortunately the viability of options depend on their volume - you can have a call go from OTM to ITM and not be able to find a buyer because there's just no interest in it. Half-options (50 contracts) and other denominations exist but they're incredibly rare, and I believe only used for reverse stock splits. If you're looking to get into options I'd recommend either choosing a farther OTM strike price/earlier date or starting with a stock that's significantly lower in price.