Cboe’s The Options Institute Reimagines Its Early Trader Program

How has The Options Institute evolved since its founding?

Cboe launched The Options Institute in 1985, concentrating on in-person learning opportunities for institutional traders and industry professionals. As the market evolved, so did we, expanding our audience, customising our content and transforming the ways we deliver it. Now, we’re building on our four decades of financial education experience to help democratise financial knowledge. Our fundamental classes, like Options 101, can teach you the basics of options, while others can help increase your financial literacy and have always been a core part of our programming.

Our curriculum now also includes personalised learning for retail investors, particularly important amid the growth of this user base and adoption of options trading, as well as programming for institutions, wealth advisers, and early traders. We match our programmes to our learners’ educational backgrounds, strengths, and preferences. We go into classrooms, boardrooms, offices, or meet with investors from around the world online.

By broadening access and expanding into more in-demand content, we can reach more diverse audiences and provide financial education directly to them.

What gap in financial education prompted the Early Trader Program, and why now?

The Early Trader Program is a curriculum for youth and young adults in high school and college designed to empower early-stage investors with the basic financial literacy cornerstones, like how to track and review spending, understand the differences between bank accounts and debit and credit cards, identify loan details, create a budget, and ultimately, apply decision theory to investing.

Available live and on-demand, the programme focuses on the most important building blocks for financial success and culminates in developing savings and investment goals grounded in the principles of risk tolerance and uncertainty.

Most importantly, the content is practice-based, which resonates with our students for two reasons. First, it helps students apply a real-world financial situation that someone else is facing to their own lives. It’s not just about theory; the material uses applicable and relatable concepts, like which debt you should focus on first. Second, students follow the economic ups and downs of a case subject, shadowing their journey through big and small financial decisions. Not all the decisions are correct, giving space for self-reflection and candid conversations.

We've seen an increase in financial literacy education across the country, but The Options Institute felt that there was still a gap due to a lack of structured teaching and distribution. While 39 states require students to take a personal finance course, only 22 require students to take an economics course. Financial literacy isn't just for one age group. Whether you are going off to college, thinking about buying your first car, or managing family expenses, understanding the foundations of finance is incredibly important for financial health.

How do partnerships with Chicago Public Schools and National Louis University extend the programme's reach?

Cboe was founded in Chicago, and with our current trading floor and headquarters located in the city, we are glad to deliver meaningful education to our local community, where our legacy lives on. The Options Institute has long partnered with Chicago-based educational organisations, and we’re happy to keep growing our collaboration with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and National Louis University (NLU) as partners for the Early Trader Program.

These partnerships are central to how we close the financial literacy gap and build a community grounded in the success we’ve already achieved. With CPS, that means welcoming students to join us every spring for a financial markets lesson and, as of September, extending that into a weekly on-demand offering so the same goals and activities are available well beyond a single visit. We deliberately anchored our programming to the Illinois State Board of Education standards. NLU extends our reach differently, connecting us to its students, faculty, administrative staff, and alumni network.

Together, these partnerships let us amplify what's already working in Chicago's education ecosystem, rather than build in isolation, and reach audiences wherever they are. Whether you are in a CPS classroom, working through the course on your own time, or connected to us through NLU's community, The Options Institute wants to provide the right tools and education for this important journey.

How do you measure success?

Success isn't always quantitative. It's great when we hear a student tell us about a new or renewed focus on spending and budgeting, setting investment goals, or opening investment or retirement savings accounts, but we’re also interested in the bigger questions. Are we helping students have a better grasp of their finances? Are they more hopeful? What are they doing now that class is over, and are their goals achievable?

At the beginning and end of class, we ask survey questions to measure whether a greater understanding of financial literacy has helped decrease students’ levels of stress and financial anxiety. This burden affects many of our participants, and the programme aims to help develop students’ financial confidence, empowering them to take ownership of their own financial future. One stat we are very proud of is that nearly 80% of programme participants say they intend to apply what they've learned to their personal finances. We’re seeing that translate into action – such as students balancing a budget for the first time or working towards a savings goal.

What's the one piece of financial literacy advice you'd want any person looking to begin their financial wellness journey to hear?

One of our core messages is that no step is too small. Whether it’s building capacity to begin saving or simply dedicating the time needed to understand your finances, what matters is that you’re getting started and beginning your journey. That alone will have an enormous impact. The decision to start can be difficult, but there’s no better time than now.

To learn more, I encourage you to visit The Options Institute Learning Portal.