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

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

October 25, 2012

Learn to Adjust Options Positions

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:08 am

Dan’s online Options Education series this month has all been all about helping traders learn to adjust options positions. Adjusting option positions is an essential skill for options traders. Adjusting options positions helps traders repair strategies that have gone wrong (or are beginning to go wrong) and often turn losers into winners. Given that, it’s easy to see why it’s important to learn to adjust options positions.

Adjusting 101

Adjusting options positions is a technique in which a trader simply alters an existing options position to create a fundamentally different position. Traders are motivated to adjust options positions when the market physiology changes and the original trade no longer reflects the trader’s thesis. There is one golden rule of trading: ALWAYS make sure your position reflects your outlook.

This seems like a very obvious rule. And at the onset of any trade, it is. If I’m bullish, I’m going to take a positive delta position. If I think a stock will be range-bound, I’d take a close-to-zero delta trade that has positive theta to profit from sideways movement as time passes. But the problem is gamma. Gamma is the fly in the ointment of option trading.

Gamma

Gamma—particularly negative gamma—is the cause of the need for adjusting.

Gamma definition: Gamma is the rate of change of an option’s (or option position’s) delta relative to a change in the underling.

Oh, yeah. And, just in case you forgot…

Delta definition: Delta is the rate of change on an option’s (or option position’s) price relative to a change in the underlying.

In the case of negative gamma, trader’s deltas always change the wrong way. When the underlying moves higher, the trader gets shorter delta (and loses money at an increasing rate). When the underlying moves lower, negative gamma makes deltas longer (again, causing the trader to lose money at an increasing rate).

Wrap Up

Therefore, traders must learn to adjust options positions, especially income trades, in order to stave off adverse deltas created by the negative gamma that accompanies income trades.

To find out more about next month’s topic and have access to the archived previous seminars including “Option Trade Adjustments” please visit Options Education.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

August 23, 2012

Fractal Position Management

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:48 pm

Option traders manage risk. Want a job description? That’s about it. Every trade has a risk and reward associated with it and traders must realize that especially when first learning how to trade. But because options are instruments of leverage, it is very easy to let risk get out of control, if you’re not careful. Traders must manage risk carefully, instituting tight reins their options, spreads and portfolio. The management technique of each is essentially the same because position management is fractal.

Something that is fractal has a recurring pattern that has continuity within its scale. For example, a tree is fractal. A tree has a trunk with limbs extending from it; limbs with smaller branches extending from it; smaller branches with yet smaller branches; and leaves with veins that branch off within each leaf. The pattern is repetitive within each iteratively smaller extension of the last. This is found in option position management too.

Individual options have risk that must be managed. They have direction, time and volatility risk which are managed by setting thresholds for each of the corresponding greeks which measure them. When individual options are a part of a spread, the resulting spread has these same risks of direction time and volatility. The spread’s risk must consequently be managed likewise. A trader’s complete option portfolio, which may be comprised of many spreads has systematic risk in accordance to the market. These risks are the same as for individual options or individual spreads: direction, time and volatility. Traders should treat their all encompassing portfolio as a single, macro spread and use the portfolio greeks to set parameters to minimize the total risk of the portfolio.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

August 8, 2012

What’s the Delta of that Happening to AAPL?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 1:11 pm

It is standard trader lingo on the trading floor. “What’s your delta of making it to the party tonight?” “What’s the delta the broker comes back and buys more of these?” “I’m about 90 delta I’m going to dump Sheila tonight”. 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 shortcomings, making it not entirely technically correct, every professional option trader I know thinks about delta this way. And, in turn most traders borrow the concept of delta being the likelihood of success to adopt 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 Apple (AAPL) September 655 calls have a 0.25 delta. Yes. That means that they change in value 25 percent like the underlying stock. But it also is interpreted by traders to mean that the AAPL September 655 calls have a 25-percent chance of expiring in-the-money.

This practical use of delta helps guide traders’ expectations and helps them make better trading decisions by factoring probability into their decision-making process. I encourage traders to think about option delta this way. You should start today. I’m 100 delta that you’ll be glad you did.

John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

August 2, 2012

Option Delta and Apple (AAPL)

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:56 am

Option Delta and Apple ( AAPL )
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) sure is making a lot of news lately. The company recently reported earnings and subsequently fell in price. Since the fall, the stock has once again moved higher. One may expect the AAPL stock to push higher (after this dip), but some may believe the rebound will be still short-lived. Perhaps a smart move is to purchase a short-term, out-of-the-money option on the equity – let’s look for an option with a delta greater than 20 on Apple and see how the option could play out.

Option Delta and the Trade
First, let’s define option delta before we go into the option play. Option delta is a ratio that compares a stock’s change in price to the corresponding price change in said stock’s option. For this example, we are going to use the Apple September 650 call that has about an option delta of 23 percent.

What does the 23 percent mean? Let’s convert the option delta into dollars to see. This percentage means that this particular Apple option will gain or lose value just like 23 percent of 100 shares of Apple as the price changes. Look at the definition this way if it is easier, for every $1 Apple advances; the call option will increase 23 cents attributable to delta. So, Apple is currently trading at around $605 (rounded for simplicity) and we have purchased the 650 call. We need the call to advance past $650 in order (which is not out of the question) for the option to be in-the-money, but can we benefit from a rally that falls short of $650?

The Benefit of Option Delta
Apple is a major momentum stock, just look at what happens after good news – more often than not the stock rallies. In fact, I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the stock often moves quite a bit. Look at 2009 when Apple dropped as low as the $78 region in late January then rallied to finish the year above $210. That is a major gain.

Playing the September 650 call affords a trader the chance to make money in the case that the stock rallies. If the stock hits $650, that means it has moved 45 points. Take the 45 points and multiply that by 23 cents (option delta of .23) and you have a move of $10.35 in the call (45 X 0.23).

Conclusion
By looking at the option delta, we were able to have clear expectations for option profit based on stock movement. Does this mean that playing the delta is a fool-proof to analyze an option? No. There are other important pricing factors that affect the value of an option, too. Time (theta), volatility (vega) and more also play an important role. Delta is just one of the greeks that can be taken into account when looking for the right option to purchase. Make sure to do your homework so you can enter the option game prepared to succeed.

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 24, 2012

Learn to Adjust Option Positions

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 10:56 am

Adjusting option positions is an essential skill for options traders. Adjusting options positions helps traders repair strategies that have gone wrong (or are beginning to go wrong) and often turn losers into winners. Given that, it’s easy to see why it’s important to learn to trade and adjust options positions.

Adjusting 101

Adjusting options positions is a technique in which a trader simply alters an existing options position to create a fundamentally different position. Traders are motivated to adjust options positions when the market physiology changes and the original trade no longer reflects the trader’s thesis. There is one golden rule of trading: ALWAYS make sure your position reflects your outlook.

This seems like a very obvious rule. And at the onset of any trade, it is. If I’m bullish, I’m going to take a positive delta position. If I think a stock will be range-bound, I’d take a close-to-zero delta trade that has positive theta to profit from sideways movement as time passes. But the problem is gamma. Gamma is the fly in the ointment of option trading.

Gamma

Gamma—particularly negative gamma—is the cause of the need for adjusting.

Gamma definition: Gamma is the rate of change of an option’s (or option position’s) delta relative to a change in the underling.

Oh, yeah. And, just in case you forgot…

Delta definition: Delta is the rate of change on an option’s (or option position’s) price relative to a change in the underlying.

In the case of negative gamma, trader’s deltas always change the wrong way. When the underlying moves higher, the trader gets shorter delta (and loses money at an increasing rate). When the underlying moves lower, negative gamma makes deltas longer (again, causing the trader to lose money at an increasing rate).

Wrap Up

Therefore, traders must learn to adjust options positions, especially income trades, in order to stave off adverse deltas created by the negative gamma that accompanies income trades.

Edit by John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

May 10, 2012

Trading with Delta on AAPL

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 10:31 am

We all know options are derivatives, and their prices are derived from the underlying stock, index, or ETF.  But with other factors at work – implied volatility, time decay, etc. – how can you know how much an option is going to move with respect to said underlying?  Very simple – check out its delta.

Delta is arguably the most heavily watched Greek especially by individuals learning to trade options. It offers a quick-and-dirty way of telling us what to expect from our option positions as we watch the price action of the underlying.  Calls have positive deltas, as they typically move higher on a rise in the stock, and puts have negative deltas, as they typically move lower when the stock rises.

While some investors view delta as the percentage chance an option has of expiring in-the-money, it is really more of a way to project expected appreciation or depreciation.  A delta of 50 for an AAPL call suggests the option should move 50 cents higher when the AAPL jumps a dollar, and lose 50 cents for every dollar loss in AAPL.

But delta is only foolproof when all other factors hold static, which is rarely the case (and certainly never the case for time decay).  If an option is moving more (or less) than its delta would suggest, it is likely because other variables are shifting.  For example, buying demand might be pushing implied volatility higher, raising the price of the options.  Still, this king of all Greeks is a good starting point for gauging how your options are likely to move.

Edited by John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

April 19, 2012

Maximizing Fade Plays With AAPL and Others

Filed under: Options Education — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Dan Passarelli @ 11:55 am

Do you feel like you’ve seen this movie before? Trouble in the Europe especially Spain. People in the streets; panic in the market. Is this recent wave of trouble going to last forever? Not likely. Perhaps there is an opportunity to fade this fall. But how should an option trader play the fade to maximize chances of success and maximize option-trading returns? Trade ideas like this are discussed weekly in the MTE newsletter.

The obvious starting point for a trader to fade this fall is to take a positive-delta position. This is fancy options speak for a bullish trade. There are lots of different ways to take a bullish stance given all the various types of option-trading strategies out there. So, the question really is: Which is best?

There are a few major considerations here. First, traders must strive to maximize reward by minimizing risk. In order to do so, option traders must define their expectations. Am I looking for an extreme turn around? A mild retracement? A dead-cat bounce? The more a strategy can be tailored to expectations, the more risk can be controlled and reward can be maximized.

Next traders need to consider implied volatility. This is where option traders can get an edge in their options positions. If implied volatility is high (overpriced), option traders should consider option-selling strategies. If implied volatility is low (underpriced), option traders should consider option-buying strategies.

In the current market scenario we have a situation where if the turmoil in the Europe and Spain subsides, the market should rally somewhat, but it’s not likely to go to the moon. Further, with the levels and implied volatility of individual stocks at inflated levels, it’s easy to find overpriced options. Any clever fader trader should be looking for put credit spreads to sell. Put credit spreads have positive delta and take a short position on implied volatility. Great candidates for this sort of play are AAPL, GOOG, PCLN, et. al. Traders are best off staying away from bank stocks and precious metals that might be adversely affected by European instability.

Edited by John Kmiecik

Senior Options Instructor

Market Taker Mentoring

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