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March 7, 2013

Hedging Volatility Risk in Take-Over Stocks

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 2:21 pm

Say you hear a takeover rumor. A $50 stock is rumored to be taken out at $55. Looks like a nice spec trade. You go to the option chain to look for some calls to buy. But, wow! The options seem to have gotten expensive. Implied volatility is jacked. Sometimes implied volatility can make options so expensive that even if the trade goes your way the profit is just not there–but the risk is. So, what’s an options trader to do?

One solution can be to buy a bull call spread instead of instead the outright call. The rationale? It’s called hedging–hedging volatility premium. Whenever you buy options, you’re getting long implied volatility. If implied volatility is expensive, the options are expensive too. And if implied volatility subsequently falls after you make the trade, those options drop in value too. So, what if you both buy and sell an option to create a spread? Let’s look at the two legs of a bull call spread

Bull Call Spread – Long Leg
A bull call spread is when a trader buys one call and sells another that has a higher strike price. Look at it as two trades. The long call would be the one you might buy if you were to spec on the take-over stock. In the case of a take over, this call likely has high implied volatility as the market scrambles to buy up calls, making it pricey.

Bull Call Spread – Short Leg
Because there is a target price in which the take-over target is expected to be bought, you only need exposure up to a certain point–the take-over price. Why not sell a call at or above the expected take-over price? You’re not giving up upside. But you are taking in (expensive) premium to hedge the (expensive) premium you’re buying with the long call leg. It’s a perfect spread.

Example
Let’s look at this in terms of absolute risk. A stock currently trading for $50 is rumored for take over at $55. News is expected within a couple of weeks.

Buy 1 Dec 50 call at $4
Sell 1 Dec 55 call at $2
Net debit   $2

Max loss = $2 (That’s better than just buying the 50 calls outright)
Max gain = $3 (That’s the $5 spread minus the $2 premium)
Break even = $52 (That’s $50 strike plus $2 spread premium)

Here the max loss/max gain ratio of the spread is 2:3. The max loss/max gain ratio of the outright call would be 4:1 (Remember, you expect the stock only to rise to $55). The spread looks better so far. Let’s look at the break evens. The spread break-even is $52. The outright call’s break even is $54. Better still.

Wrap Up
With all option strategies, there are opportune times when they offer an advantage over an alternative strategy. Bull call spreads and take-over candidates are a natural fit. Traders always need to look for ways to construct the smartest position in terms of risk-reward.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

February 28, 2013

Double Calendars vs. Double Diagonals

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 10:54 am

Today we will talk about a subject that is brought up quite often in MTM Group Coaching and is often debated by option traders learning to trade advanced strategies; double calendars vs. double diagonals.

Double Calendars vs. Double Diagonals
Both double calendars and double diagonals have the same fundamental structure; each is short option contracts in nearby months and long option contracts in farther out months in equal numbers. As implied by the name, this complex spread is comprised of two different spreads. These time spreads (aka known as horizontal spreads and calendar spreads) occur at two different strike prices. Each of the two individual spreads, in both the double calendar and the double diagonal, is constructed entirely of puts or calls. But the either position can be constructed of puts, calls, or both puts and calls. The structure for each of both double calendars or double diagonals thus consists of four different, two long and two short, options. These spreads are commonly traded as “long double calendars” and “long double diagonals” in which the long-term options in the spread (those with greater value) are purchased, and the short-term ones are sold. The profit engine that drives both the long double calendar and the long double diagonal is the differential decay of extrinsic (time) premium between shorter dated and longer dated options

The structural difference between double calendars and double diagonals is the placement of the long strikes. In the case of double calendars, the strikes of the short and long contracts are identical. In a double diagonal, the strikes of the long contracts are placed farther OTM than the short strikes.

Why should an option trader complicate his or her life with these two similar structures? The reason of existence of the double calendars and double diagonals is the position response to changes in IV; in optionspeak, the vega of the position. Both trades are vega positive, theta positive, and delta neutral—presuming the price of the underlying lies between the two middle strike prices—over the range of profitability. However, the double calendar positions, because of placement of the long strikes closer to ATM responds favorably more rapidly to increases in IV while the double diagonal responds more slowly. Conversely, decreases in IV of the long positions impacts negatively double calendars more strongly than it does double diagonals.

In future blogs, nuances of strike selection and dynamic position management based on the volatility of the stock will be discussed. In addition, other option strategies will be introduced and guidelines will be discussed to help the trader select among these similar strategies when considering trades.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

February 21, 2013

Expiration Week: Butterflies

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 2:25 pm

One of the major differences when learning to trade options as opposed to equity trading is the impact of time on the various trade vehicles.  Remember that quoted option premiums reflect the sum of both intrinsic (if any) and extrinsic (time) value.  Also remember that while very few things in trading are for certain, one certainty is that the time value of an option premium goes to zero at the closing bell on expiration Friday.

While this decay of time premium to a value of zero is reliable and inescapable in our world of option trading, it is important to recognize that the decay is not linear.  It is during the final weeks of the option cycle that decay of the extrinsic premium begins inexorably to race ever faster to oblivion.  In the vocabulary of the options trader, the rate of theta decay increases as expiration approaches. It is from this quickening of the pace that many examples of option trading vehicles gain their maximum profitability during this final week of their life.

Some of the most dramatic changes in behavior can be seen in the trading vehicle known as the butterfly. For those new to options, consideration of the butterfly represents the move from simple single legged strategy such as simply buying a put or a call to multi-legged strategies that include both buying and selling options in certain patterns.

To review briefly, a butterfly consists of a vertical debit spread and vertical credit spread sharing the central strike price constructed together in the same underlying in the same month.  It may be built using either puts or calls and its directional bias derives from strike selection rather than the particular type of option used for construction.  For a (long) butterfly, maximum profit is always achieved at expiration when the underlying closes at the short strike shared by the two vertical spreads.

The butterfly has the interesting functional characteristic that it responds sluggishly to price movement early in its life, for example in the first two weeks of a four week option cycle. However, as expiration approaches, the butterfly becomes increasingly sensitive to price movement as the time premium erodes and the beast becomes increasingly subject to delta as a result of increasing gamma. It is for this reason that many butterfly traders restrict their use to the more responsive part of the options cycle. For a butterfly, the greatest sensitivity to time (and, therefore, profit potential) is reaped in the final week of the life cycle of the butterfly, i.e. expiration week.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

February 14, 2013

Baseball, Buying a Car and Iron Condors

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 8:14 am

With spring training right around the corner, traders should ask themselves this question; have you ever noticed a baseball player warming up before a game? Or watched footage of a baseball player at practice? What are they doing? Swinging a bat. Throwing and catching balls. Running bases. Working on the fundamentals. To be good at anything requires learning the fundamentals and constantly working on them throughout your career.

Option trading is no different. Even traders who have traded for years, who trade complex strategies return to the fundamentals to make their trading decisions. Take trading iron condors. Trading iron condors requires utilizing the fundamentals. Traders who are trading iron condors are trading a fairly complex, four-legged option strategy. They need to be able to visualize the strategy in order to analyze it and ultimately decide whether or not they should be trading iron condors or something else.

Traders trading iron condors should consider the spread from several different perspectives. Specifically, they should consider it as combinations of other spreads. When a trader is trading iron condors, the trader is in fact trading a pair of credit spreads. An iron condor is a put credit spread combined with a call credit spread. That’s one way to look at it.

Trading iron condors can also be considered from the strangle-trading perspective. An iron condor is a short strangle combined with a long strangle with wider strikes. The profit (and risk) comes from the short strangle, while the long one provides protection.

An iron condor can also be thought of as four individual option positions. Traders trading iron condors have a position in a long put, in a short put, in a short call and in a long call. Thinking of trading iron condors from this perspective, in particular, can help traders make adjustment and closing decision more effectively.

And, of course, an iron condor is, well, an iron condor! It is a single strategy in which the risk can be observed on a P&(L) diagram or through the greeks.

This strategy-break-down technique is not just suited for trading iron condors, but for trading all multi-legged strategies. It is an effective analysis technique akin to how car shoppers consider buying a car. They look at the front; then walk around to the side, then the back; they look under the hood and at the interior. All the while, they are considering this one purchase, but just from many different perspectives.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

February 7, 2013

Stop AAPL in Time

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:28 am

Learning to trade options offers a number of unique advantages to the trader, but perhaps the single most attractive characteristic is the ability to control risk precisely and to do so with  precision. Much of this advantage derives from the ability to control positions equivalent to stock with far less capital commitment.

However, a less frequently discussed aspect of risk control is the ability to moderate risk by the astute use of time stops as well as the more familiar price stops more generally known to traders. Because time stops take advantage of the time decay of extrinsic premium to help control risk, it is important to recognize that this time decay is not linear.

As a direct result, it is not obviously apparent the time course that the decay curve will follow.  An option trader has to take into account that the option modeling software is essential to plan the trade and decide the appropriate date at which to place a time stop.

As a simple example, consider the case of a short position in AAPL established by buying in-the-money March 470 puts. A trader could establish a position consisting of 10 long contracts with a position delta of -595 for approximately $22,000 as I write this.

At the time of this writing, the stock is trading around $459; these puts are therefore $11 in-the-money.  Let’s assume a trader analyzes the trade with an at-expiration P&(L) diagram and wants to exit the trade as a stop loss if AAPL is at or above $462 at expiration. The options expiration risk is $14,000 or more. However, if the trader takes the position that the expected/feared move will occur quickly—long before expiration—he could implement a time stop as well.

Using a stop to close the position if the stock gets to $462 at a point in time around halfway to expiration would reduce the risk significantly. Because the option would still have some time value, the trader could sell the option for a loss prior to expiration, therefore retaining some time value and fetch a higher price. In this event, closing prior to expiration helps the trader lose less when the stop executes, especially if there is a fair amount of time until expiration and time decay hasn’t totally eroded away.

Options offer a variety of ways to control risk. Learn and use all risk control maneuvers available; life is a risky business.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

January 31, 2013

Options and Algebra

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 12:44 pm

One of the greatest advantages of options trading is its extreme flexibility in both the initial construction of positions and in the ability to adjust a position to match the new outlook of the underlying.  The trader who limits his or her world to that of simply trading equities and ETF’s can only deal in terms of short or long. A change in an outlook often requires starting a new position or exiting the old one.  The options trader can usually accommodate the newly developed thesis much more fluidly, often with minor adjustments on the position in order to achieve the right fit with the new outlook.

One concept with which the trader needs to be familiar in order to construct the necessary adjustments is that of the synthetic relationships.  Most options traders neglect to familiarize themselves with the concept when learning to trade options. This concept arises from the fact that appropriately structured option positions are virtually indistinguishable in function from the corresponding long or short equity/ETF position.  One approach to remembering the relationships is to memorize all of the relationships.  I find remembering the mathematical formula and modifying as needed to be much more useful and easier.

For those who remember high school algebra, the fundamental equation expressing this relationship is S=C-P.  The variables are defined as S=stock, C=call, and P=put.  This equation states that stock is equivalent to a long call and a short put.

Using high school algebra to formulate this equation, the various equivalency relationships can easily be determined. Remember that we can maintain the validity of the equation by performing the same action to each of the two sides.  This fundamental algebraic adjustment allows us, for example, to derive the structure of a short stock position by multiplying each side by -1 and maintain the equality relationship.  In this case (S)*-1 =(C-P)*-1 or –S=P-C; short stock equals long put and short call.

Such synthetic positions are frequently used to establish positions or to modify existing positions either in whole or part.  You might have hated algebra when you were in school, but applying some of the formulas can help an options trader exponentially!

Edited by John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

January 24, 2013

Naked Puts on AAPL Stock

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:30 am

The Strategy
If you want to learn to trade here’s a really useful option strategy that all traders should know. Let’s take a look at an option strategy that involves the selling of a put, often referred to as an uncovered put write or a naked put write. A naked put write is when a trader sells a put that is not part of a spread. This strategy is generally considered to be a bullish-to-neutral strategy.

The maximum profit is the premium received for the put. The maximum profit is achieved when the underlying stock is greater than or equal to the strike price of the sold put. Though this allows for a lot of room for error (The stock can be anywhere above the strike at expiration), note that the maximum loss is unlimited and occurs when the price of the underlying stock is less than the strike price of the sold put less the premium received. So, executing this trade in the right situation is essential. To calculate breakeven, subtract the premium received from the sold put’s strike price.

The Example
For our example we will use Apple (AAPL). Apple just recently announced earnings and the stock dropped over $50. For this example we will assume the stock is trading around $460 a share. A trader sells the March 435 put, which carries a bid price of $10.00 (rounded to make the math a bit easier). Should AAPL stock be trading above $435 a share at expiration, the March 435 contract will expire worthless and the trader will keep the premium collected. (Do not forget to take any commissions the trader may pay from the equation.) All is good, right? Well, what if the stock falls even more after earnings?

If  AAPL falls another $50 to $410 at expiration, the put would expire in-the-money and would have to be purchased back to avoid assignment. This could cost the trader a rather hefty sum. Assigning values, our investor collected $10 in premium. The 420 put expired with $25 in intrinsic value. The trader loses the $25, less the $10 premium collected results in a loss of $15, or $1,500 of actual cash.

Why Sell Naked Puts?
We have already discussed the profit potential of selling naked puts, but there is another reason to do so – owning the stock. Selling naked puts is a good way to purchase at a specific price by choosing a strike near said target price. Should the stock price drop below the put strike and the puts are assigned, the trader buys the stock at the strike price minus the option premium received. Again, should the put not reach the strike price, the premium is pocketed at expiration.

Edited by John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

January 17, 2013

Great Trader Part II

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 8:30 am

About a month ago we talked about an options trader having a commitment to excellence. This time we’ll go over why an options trader needs a trading plan and how to go about writing one. If you really want to improve your trading in 2013 you should absolutely to do this but be forewarned; this is the part nobody wants to do. Most options traders think that their trading plan is in their head and all I need is a proper options education. “I know what I need to do when I need to do it” most beginning and some veteran options traders will exclaim. If it was just that easy, everyone would be a great options trader. Unfortunately it’s not. That is specifically why you need a written options trading plan. Just because you know what to do doesn’t mean you will do it.

Before you even begin to write your options trading plan, you must take an inventory of yourself. What are your strengths and weaknesses? You must take the time to truly examine yourself and be honest about whom you are. Your options trading plan must match your personality.

The first thing you need to do to start your options trading plan is to write down your goals like we talked about last time. Once you do this, it brings everything into perspective. The same reason you need to write down your goals is the same reason you need to write down your options trading plan-so your thoughts are transformed from the subconscious to the conscious. It doesn’t matter if you write the plan on a nice piece of paper or a cocktail napkin. It just needs to be written down in your own words.

The next section of your options trading plan will be money management. This is one of the most crucial and often overlooked components of successful options trading. How much are you going to risk per trade? What are your weekly or monthly profit targets? What are the maximum losses you are comfortable with on a daily, weekly or monthly basis? All of these questions need to be answered right in this section.

Strategies will be the next component of your options trading plan. This will be the meat and potatoes of the plan so to speak. A thing to consider is to start with relatively a few simple strategies (long calls and puts) and master them before you write in more complex option strategies into your plan. You need to describe in as much detail as possible the strategy you intend to use. You will probably be making constant changes to this part until you get exactly what you want.

The last section will be the follow up and review. This is when an option trader needs to print out the charts and the option chains and review them. Did I follow my written options trading plan like I said I would? This needs to be done when the market is closed so all your attention can be on the review. You must keep a trading journal and must always acknowledge your winners and more importantly learn from your losing trades.

This is just a general outline of an options trading plan to get you started. If you need more help or more direction, feel free to contact me.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

January 10, 2013

Moneyness and AAPL

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:49 pm

Moneyness isn’t a word, is it? Dan uses it often and he even has a section about it in his books. It won’t be found on spell-check, but moneyness is a very important term when it comes to learning to trade options. There are three degrees, if you will, of moneyness for an option, at-the-money (ATM), in-the-money (ITM) and out-of-the-money (OTM). Let’s take a look at each of these terms, using tech behemoth Apple (AAPL) as an example. At the time of writing, Apple was hovering around the $520 level, so let’s define the moneyness of Apple options using $520 as the price.

At-the-Money
An at-the-money AAPL option is a call or a put option that has a strike price about equal to $520. The ATM options (in Apple’s case the 520-strike put or call) have only time value (a factor that decreases as the option’s expiration date approaches, also referred to as time decay). These options are greatly influenced by the underlying stock’s volatility and the passage of time.

In-the-Money
An option that is in-the-money is one that has intrinsic value. A call option is ITM if the strike price is below the underlying stock’s current trading price. In the case of AAPL, ITM options include the 515 strike and every strike below that. One will notice that option positions that are deeper ITM have higher premiums. In fact, the further in-the-money, the deeper the premium.

A put option is considered ITM when the strike price is above the current trading price of the underlying. For our example, an ITM AAPL put carries a strike price of 525 or higher. As with call options, puts that are deeper ITM carry a greater premium. For example, a January AAPL 530 put has a premium of $14.20 compared to a price of $11.10 for a January 525 put.

If an option expires ITM, it will be automatically exercised or assigned. For example, if a trader owned a AAPL 515 call and AAPL closed at $520 at expiration, the call would be automatically exercised, resulting in a purchase of 100 shares of AAPL at $515 a share.

Out-of-the-Money
An option is out-of-the-money when it has no intrinsic value. Calls are OTM when their strike price is higher than the market price of the underlying, and puts are OTM when their strike price is lower than the stock’s current market value. Since the OTM option has no intrinsic value, it holds only time value. OTM options are cheaper than ITM options because there is a greater likelihood of them expiring worthless.

If this is the case, why purchase OTM options? If you have little investing capital, an OTM option carries a lower premium; but you are paying less because there is a higher possibility that the option expires worthless. OTM options are attractive because OTM calls can see their premium increase quickly. Of course, OTM options could see their premium decrease quickly as well. Remember that OTM options can log the highest percentage gain on the same move in the underlying, in comparison to ATM or ITM options.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

January 3, 2013

The Influence of Option Prices

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:02 am

Perhaps the most easily understood of the options price influences is the price of the underlying. All stock traders are familiar with the impact of the underlying stock price alone on their trades. The technical and fundamental analyses of the underlying stock price action are well beyond the scope of this discussion, but  it is sufficient to say it is one of the three pricing factors and probably the most familiar to traders learning to trade.

The price influence, time, is easily understood; in part because it is the only one of the forces restricted to unidirectional movement. The main reason that time impacts option positions significantly is a result of the existence of time (extrinsic) premium. Depending on the risk profile of the option strategy established, the passage of time can impact the trade either negatively or positively.

The third price influence is perhaps the most important. It is without question the most neglected and overlooked component: implied volatility. Implied volatility taken together with time defines the magnitude of the extrinsic option premium. The value of implied volatility is generally inversely correlated to price of the underlying and represents the aggregate trader’s view of the future volatility of the underlying. Because implied volatility responds to the subjective view of future volatility, values can ebb and flow as a result of upcoming events expected to impact price (e.g. earnings, FDA decisions, etc.).

New traders beginning to become familiar with the world of options trading should spend a fair amount of time learning the impact of each of these options pricing influences. The options markets can be ruthlessly unforgiving to those who choose to ignore them.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

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