Testimonials

May 16, 2013

Reviewing Strangles with AAPL

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:49 am

There is no doubt we have discussed straddles in the past in this blog. A straddle is an option strategy that traders  can use when the market is volatile but direction is uncertain. Another play similar to the straddle is the option strangle. In a straddle, the trader is betting on both sides of a trade by purchasing options with the same strike price and the same expiration date, on the same underlying. A trader can create a similar trade, but with a lower price by trading a strangle instead. Rather than purchasing a put and a call at the same strike (which makes up a straddle), the trader purchases a put and a call at different strikes, still with the same expiration. By using a put and a call that are out-of-the-money (OTM), a trader pays a lower initial price. However, this comes with a price so-to-speak; the stock will have to make a much larger move than if the straddle were implemented. The trader is, arguably, taking a larger risk (because a bigger move is needed than with a straddle), but is paying a lower price. Like many trade strategies there are pros and cons to each. If this all sounds a little overwhelming to you, I would invite you to checkout the Options Education section on our website.

The Particulars
Like a straddle, a strangle has two breakeven points. To calculate these points simply add the net premium (call premium + put premium) to the strike price of the call (for upside breakeven) and subtract the net premium from the put’s strike (to calculate downside breakeven).  If at expiration, the stock has advanced or dropped past one of these breakeven points, the profit potential of the strategy is unlimited (yes, unlimited). The position will take a 100% loss if the stock is trading between the put and call strikes upon expiration. Remember that the maximum loss a trader can take on a strangle is the net premium paid.

Example Trade
To create a strangle, a trader will purchase one out-of-the-money (OTM) call and one OTM put. We can use Apple (AAPL) as an example which at the time of this writing  is trading at around $432 after a volatile couple if weeks. The trader would buy both a June 435 call and a June 430 put. For simplicity, we will assign a price of $13 for both – resulting in an initial investment of $26 for our trader (which again is the maximum potential loss).

Should the stock rally past $435 at expiration, the 430 put expires worthless and the $435 call expires in-the-money (ITM) resulting in the strangle trader collecting on the position. If, for example, the intrinsic value of the call at expiration is $29, the profit is $3 (intrinsic value less the premium paid).  The same holds true if the stock falls below $430 at expiration, it then is the put that is ITM and the call expires worthless. The danger is that the stock moves nowhere by the time option expiration occurs. In this case, both legs of the position expire worthless and the initial $26, or $2,600 of actual cash, is lost.

Notice that the maximum loss is the initial premium paid, setting a nice limit to potential losses. Potential profits on the strangle are unlimited which can be very rewarding but as always, a traders needs to decide how he or she will manage the position.

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 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 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

July 19, 2012

Expiration Week: Butterflies

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:20 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

May 31, 2012

Back to Basics: Part 1

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:20 am

In an attempt to understand the complexities of the world they observed in daily life, ancient Babylonian philosophers considered all things to be constituted of one or more of the four classical elements of: earth, air, water, and fire. In this world view, the natural environment was considered to consist of various objects composed of varying portions of each of these fundamental elements or forces. While modern atomic theory has supplanted this early concept, these historic constructs can provide a helpful organizational structure within which to consider the importance of fundamental primal forces impacting various option trade structures.

Similar to the early view of the Babylonians, the options world is ruled by three primal forces consisting of: price of the underlying, time to options expiration, and implied volatility (IV). Trades are most profitably constructed when the trader considers the impact each of these three forces has when designing the anatomy of the options trade under consideration.

For the new options trader, learning about options and the impact of these three fundamental forces may be confusing and the magnitude of the influence of each on the profitability of trades is easily underappreciated. Failure to consider each of these forces and its individual effect will reduce the probability of a successful trade. Since most option traders come from the universe of stock traders where “only price pays” the initial reluctance to consider additional factors impacting a trade is easily understood.

In order to help understand the initially confusing manner in which options respond to their milieu, it is helpful to dissect an option’s price into its two components: extrinsic value and intrinsic value. Remember that the quoted price of an option reflects the sum of the intrinsic (if any) and extrinsic values. Intrinsic value of an option is that portion of the premium which is in-the-money and is impacted solely by the price of the underlying. Extrinsic value is also known as time premium (or less generously “sizzle” as opposed to “steak” of the intrinsic value) and is impacted by both time to expiration and IV.

Edited by John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

September 15, 2011

Expiration Week: Butterflies

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:34 pm

One of the major differences in option trading 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 0 at the closing bell on expiration Friday.

While this decay of time premium to a value of 0 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.

August 25, 2011

Interesting and Volatile Times

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 10:18 am

“May you live in interesting times” is an ancient Chinese curse.  The fact that the last few weeks have seen neck snapping and wild changes in volatility, I think we qualify for living in what these philosophers would consider to be interesting times.

For those who are unfamiliar with the impact of volatility on option trades, suffice it to say that the current market contains unique challenges. As I write, the volatility environment has experienced remarkable volatility. While the concept of the volatility of the volatility may seem arcane, it has huge impact on the behavior of option positions.

Remember that option premium, while quoted as a single bid/ask spread, in reality consists of the sum of the extrinsic and intrinsic premiums.  While the intrinsic premium may vary wildly in such markets as we currently are experiencing, it is a straightforward and transparent calculation depending solely on the current market price of the underlying and the strike price under consideration.

The extrinsic premium is not so straightforward and is impacted by several factors, the most important of which are the time to expiration and the IV.  The time to expiration is clearly defined by anyone with a calendar, or perhaps a stopwatch currently, and represents another transparent variable.

The situation is much more interesting in the world of IV.  This is where current unprecedented directional movements impact option prices most dramatically.  The situation is rendered even more complex by the fact that the IV changes are occurring in both directions; it is not simply a trending volatility environment.  The volatility of the volatility has increased dramatically.

Traders must be cautious when establishing new positions and monitor the vega of the position assiduously. In many cases, structured positions such as vertical spreads are indicated in order to reduce vega exposure.