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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

September 20, 2012

Bull Call Spread vs. Purchasing a Call on AAPL

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 8:00 am

Bull Call Spread vs. Purchasing a Call
Let’s say that you have a moderately bullish bias toward a stock and the overall market is slightly bullish. Is there a way that you can take advantage of this investing scenario while limiting risk? Certainly, there are a few. One that is often superior to the rest is the bull call spread. To learn to trade more option strategies, please visit our website.

Definition
When executing a bull call, you purchase call options at one strike and sell the same number of calls on the same company at a higher strike with the same expiration date. Let’s use Apple Inc. (AAPL) which is currently trading around $700 as an example. In this case you would purchase October calls at the 700 at-the-money strike at the ask price of $20. You would then sell the same number of October calls with a higher strike price, in this case 720 at the bid, $11.

The Math
Your maximum profit in the bull call spread is limited, you can make as much as the difference between the strike prices less the net debit paid. For simplicity, let’s assume that you purchased one October 700 call and sold one October 720 call resulting in a net debit of $9 (that’s $20 – $11). The difference in the strike prices is $20 (720 – 700). You, therefore, subtract 9 from 20 to end up with a maximum profit of $11 per contract. So, if you traded 10 contracts, you could make $11,000.

Although you limited your upside, you also limited the downside to the net debit of $9 per contract. To simply breakeven, the stock would have to trade at $709 (the strike price of the purchased call (700) plus net debit ($9)).

Advantage versus Purchasing a Call
When trading the long call, your downside is limited to the net premium paid. If you simply purchased the at-the-money October 700 call you would have paid 20. The potential loss is, therefore, greater when employing a call-buying strategy. If you move to a call with a longer time frame to expiration, you would pay even more for the option. This would also increase your potential loss per option.

Conclusion
By implementing a bull call spread, you have hedged your bets – limiting the potential loss. This is the advantage when comparing to purchasing a call outright. Remember that there are no fool-proof ways to make money by using options. However, knowing your strategy is a good way to limit losses.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

April 28, 2011

Hedging Volatility Risk in Take-Over Stocks

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 9:40 am

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 a 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.