Testimonials

May 2, 2013

Delta Explained in Simple Terms

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:06 pm

If you have been on an options trading floor, you may have heard comments like these for example. “What’s your delta of of the Cubs winning today?” (not good of course) or “What’s the delta the broker comes back and buys more of these?” Option traders have probably used the word delta in this context every single day of their life and if you learn to trade options like a professional, you may too.

It’s the “traders’ definition” of delta—that is, delta is the likelihood of an option expiring in-the-money. Though this definition actually has a few mathematical and theoretical shortcomings, making it not entirely technically correct, every professional option trader I know or Dan knows thinks about delta this way. Many if not most traders borrow the concept of delta being the likelihood of success and adapt into their every-day speech.

The idea is every option has an associated delta figure attached to it. Like, at the time of this writing, the Google Inc. (GOOG) May 830 calls have a 0.30 delta. That means that they change in value 30 percent like the GOOG stock. But it can also be interpreted by traders to mean that the GOOG May 830 calls have a 30-percent chance of expiring in-the-money.

This practical and “traders” use of delta helps guide traders’ expectations and helps them make better trading decisions by factoring probability into their decision-making process. I encourage retail traders to think about option delta this way. You should start today and see if it affects how you think about options and the possible different strategies that can be implemented. I’m 100 delta that you’ll be happy you did.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

April 11, 2013

Trading a Long Call or Trading a Bull Call Spread AAPL

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:17 pm

Purchasing a Call vs. Bull Call Spread
With the market moving higher at unprecedented levels recently, it probably made sense to have at least a moderately bullish bias towards many stocks. The market is due for some type of pullback but whose to say it won’t continue on its bullish pace. Is there a way that you can take advantage of this bullish investing scenario while limiting risk? Certainly, there are a couple. One that may be a better option compared to the rest is the bull call spread. To learn to trade this strategy and more in detail please visit our website for details.

Definition
When implementing a bull call, a trader purchases call options at one strike and sells 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 $435 as an example. In this case you would purchase May calls at the 435 at-the-money strike at the ask price of $18. You would then sell the same number of May calls with a higher strike price, in this case 455 at the bid, $10.

The Math
The trader’s maximum profit in the bull call spread is limited; he can make as much as the difference between the strike prices less the net debit paid. For simplicity, let’s assume that he purchased one May 435 call and sold one May 455 call resulting in a net debit of $8 (that’s $18 – $10). The difference in the strike prices is $20 (455 – 435). He would subtract 8 from 20 to end up with a maximum profit of $12 per contract. So if he traded 10 contracts, you could make $12,000.

Although he limited his upside, the trader also limited the downside to the net debit of $8 per contract. To simply breakeven, the stock would have to trade at $443 (the strike price of the purchased call (435) plus net debit ($8)) at expiration.

Advantage versus Purchasing a Call
When trading the long call, a trader’s downside is limited to the net premium paid. If he simply purchased the at-the-money May 435 call he would have paid $18. The potential loss is, therefore, greater when implementing a call-buying strategy. If he had moved to a call with a longer time frame to expiration, he would have even paid more for the option. This would also increase his potential loss per option.

Conclusion
By implementing a bull call spread, traders can hedge their bets – limiting the potential loss. This is the advantage when comparing to purchasing a call outright. Remember that there are no sure-fire ways to make money by using options. However, knowing and understanding the strategy is a good way to limit losses.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

March 28, 2013

Buying Calls Instead of Apple Stock

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 12:21 pm

You have been watching  Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and you believe this downtrend for the stock is about to end. You believe that this stock, despite its high price, now has potential and could easily make it back to $500 soon. The problem is that you don’t want to shell out $450 for one share of the technology giant. What can you do to maximize your money and cash in on A potential move to the upside? Simple, buy a call option rather than the stock.

Quick Definition
A call option is a bullish strategy where a trader purchases the right (but not the obligation) to purchase a stock at a specified price within a specific time period. One advantage to buying a call option rather than purchasing a stock is that you can gain a much larger percentage return on your investment. To learn more advantages, please check out the Options Education section on our website.

The Example
If you want to purchase 100 shares of AAPL stock at $450 it is going to cost you (100 X $450) $45,000.  However, let’s say that you decide to purchase 1 call option on AAPL (each option represents 100 shares) with a strike price of, say, 450 with a May expiration, which carries a price tag of $22. Rather than shelling out $45,000 for 100 AAPL stock shares, you instead pay $2,200 for the options – a pretty sunstantial difference of $42,800 that you can use for something else or to purchase other options.

The Money
The cost savings of purchasing call options can be far greater than simply purchasing shares of a stock, especially when you are dealing with high-priced stocks like AAPL. Remember that one option contract is the right to purchase 100 shares of a stock at that price. So, rather than purchasing 100 AAPL shares at $450 at the massive cost of $45,000; you have dished out a more reasonable $2,200 for the transaction. Of course this is the scenario if you want to be simply bullish on AAPL stock.

Conclusion
As you can see, it is possible to spend far less money to purchase call options on a stock that to by the call itself. In fact, the earlier the expiration you choose, the lower the price you could pay. No matter what math you use, paying $2,200 is far better than paying $45,000 for the same product. What if you want to sell these options to someone who is willing to pay a higher ask price than you paid? That is another subject for another time. Remember, there is no fool-proof way to make money in the market – there is risk involved in any trading strategy. One way to make sure you maximize your cash is to make sure you study your subject, remember that knowledge is power is used correctly.

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

November 8, 2012

Thoughts on AAPL Risk

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:16 am

Hurricane Sandy and the recent decline in Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock is a reminder of how “black swan” events can impact our lives in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways. Yogi Berra summed it up succinctly in his aphorism that “the future isn’t what it used to be.” It never is.

One helpful organizational concept of financial risk is to consider that risk comes in two categories. The usual type of risk is analyzed by the bell shaped curve of a Gaussian (log normal) distribution that most traders are familiar with. The other general category of risk is characterized by the unforeseen events that result in major alterations of the financial landscape. It is this category of risk to which Nassim Taleb has drawn attention in his books regarding the lack of predictability of consequential rare events.

How does this impact the world of the trader and the usefulness of options? The fact is that all funds invested in the market are totally at risk at all times and the comfort that stop losses may give can give a trader can be a false sense of security. From this concept, the ability to control stock with far less invested capital becomes inescapably attractive.

Such is one core function of options; control of stock with commitment of far less capital than outright purchase. To take a straightforward example, shares of AAPL which has taken center-stage on many traders and investors radars, currently trades around $560 after a major decline. The stock may now look attractive to buyers after its fall from around $700. To control 100 shares by outright stock purchase would require $56,000. A substantially delta equivalent position using deep in-the-money calls, the December 400 strike, could be purchased for approximately $16,200. As is characteristic of a deep in-the-money option, there is very little eroding time premium for which the trader is paying. In this example, there is substantially less risk buying the call option than purchasing the stock outright.

Should Armageddon arrive unannounced again and it might, which position is better: the total loss of the value of the stock position or the vaporization of the money paid for the option?

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring Inc.