Option Trading Strategy: Back spread

Option is a very popular derivative because its price is cheaper than other derivative such as future. Blue chip stock is a very volatile stock but it is very expensive. However, by buying option of the blue chip stock, we could earn profit just similarly like buying the stock. Investing and trading option seem to be very easy just like buying stock. However, due to the existence of time value and also the expiration date of the option, buying naked option is very risky. This is because if the stock price is going down a lot just after you have bought the naked option, after a certain period of time, although the stock price has gone up, the option price may still below the ask price that you have used to buy this option. That why we need strategy to invest or trade option. Option is a very powerful tool in investing and trading stock. By utilizing option, we could earn profit from the stock that moves upside, downside and sideway. Moreover, option also could be used to execute arbitrage strategy to earn a profit no matter the stock price is going up, down or sideway.

Back spread is one of the option trading strategies that is quite popular. This strategy is quite similar to a Chinese gambling called big and small. In this gambling, when we stake big and the three dices after shook and opened show the total point is big, we will win one fold of the money that we have staked. That means if we stake 100, we will get back one more 100. But if we loss, we will loss 100. Back spread strategy is quite similar to this gambling game. That means if we invest USD 1000, we either get back one more USD 1000 or loss USD 1000 that has been staked in. The maximum profit and loss is USD 1000. That has fixed. You won’t loss more that that. Actually, back spread is the reversal of the ordinary spread. The maximum profit and loss is not always the same. Sometimes, it will differ a little bit and depend to current price of the stock.

This strategy could be executed by buying out-of-the-money option and selling in-the-money option. Because the price of the in-the-money option is more than out-of-the-money option, the amount of money that has been received after selling in-the-money option will be enough to buy the out-of-the-money option. Although like this, we still need to put an amount of deposit in our trading account and the amount usually is equivalent to the maximum loss that you could incur if the stock price goes to the reverse direction. So, if we are expecting the stock price will go up in the near future, we should buy out-of-the-money and in-the-money put option. Conversely, if we are expecting the stock price will go down in the near future, we should buy out-of-the-money and in-the-money call option. Just for easy to understand, we try an example. Table below shows a list of put options for MMM company stock, which will expire in Apr 07.

http://www.makemoneystocks.com/back-spread-table1.jpg

Table 1: List of put options for MMM company stock.

Current price of the stock is USD 80.94. Put option with its strike price more than current price is in-the-money option and less than current price is out-of-the-money option. If we are expecting the stock price will go up in the near future, we will buy one contract of 80 put option (MMMPP) and sell one contract of 85 put option (MNZPQ). When we sell option, we will receive an amount of money that is equivalent to the bid price multiplying with the number of unit that has been purchased. The amount of money that has been received per unit option is USD 5.2 and the amount of money that we need to pay per unit option when we buy out-of-the-money option is USD 2.7. Therefore, the net amount in your trading account after executing this strategy is USD 2.5 per unit option. That means there will be USD 250 net in your trading account. The maximum profit and loss are calculated as follow:

Maximum profit = In-the-money option bid price – Out-of-the-money option ask price

Maximum loss = (upper level strike price – lower level strike price) – (In-the-money option bid price – Out-of-the-money option ask price)

Upper level strike price is 85 and lower level strike price is 80. In-the-money option bid price is USD 5.2 and the out-of-the-money ask price is USD 2.7. After substituting all values into the equations above, we will know that the maximum profit is USD 2.5 and the maximum loss is also USD 2.5. So, if we buy one contracts each of the in-the-money and out-of-the-money option, the maximum profit is USD 250 and the maximum loss is also USD 250. The breakeven point for this strategy could be calculated using equation as follow:

Breakeven point = Upper level strike price – maximum profit

Or Breakeven point = Lower level strike price + maximum loss.

In this case, the breakeven point is 82.5. As long as the stock price goes up more than 82.5, we will earn a profit from this strategy. We only could earn the maximum profit if we keep the position until the expiration date. If we sell off early before the expiration date, we could not earn the maximum profit. But we still can earn money but with a little bit lesser than if we could keep the position until the expiration date. This is due to the incomplete gaining of the time value of the sell off in-the-money option.

So, by utilizing this option trading strategy, you could earn a profit as long as your prediction accuracy is more than 50 %. That means you have to be accurate for at least six bets within ten bets. From here, the maximum continuous loss is four times. Therefore, in order that you won’t lose all your money until you could not continue to bet, you have to keep four back up moneys or more. So, if you lose one bet, you still have the money to continuously stake for the following bet. Like this, as long as you could keep your prediction accuracy more than 50 %, your money will continuously grow along the time. So, if you interested to know more about option trading strategy, just drop by our homepage and we will show you how to utilize option to maximize your profit.

Alexander Chong

Author of “Workable Option Trading Strategies”

http://www.makemoneystocks.com/

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How to make money in the stock market

There are abundant of money in the stock market. However, not everybody can get the money out from there. Some people can gain a lot from the stock market but some has lost a lot of money there. It is very indecisive. Sometime at that moment, you loss money but after a few days, you may earn a profit and sometime is reverse. So, how should we do to get the money out from the stock market? Usually, there are two ways to get the money out from the stock market; that are investing and trading. The difference between trading and investing is trading involves buying and selling share, future or option within a short period of time; whereas investing is buying share, future or option and hold it for quite a long time, usually one year or more before selling it.



What is the difference between share, future and option? What we know is that option is much cheaper than the share and future, usually is tenfold lesser than the share price. So, if you have an amount of money that enough for you to buy 100 units share, you can use that amount of money to buy 1000 units option. And the return of investment is almost the same between share and option. Therefore, you will earn around tenfold if you buy option rather than share or future. However, the disadvantage is that if you lose on that trade, you will lose almost tenfold also. When we trade option, the amount of money that we can profit and lose is almost same as if we trade share. However, we need a lot of money to buy share compared to buy option. This causes the percentage of the profit and loss for buying option is much higher than share. The example is like when you buy $10 for one unit of share and $1 for one unit of option. When the share price drops for $0.10, the percent drop for buying share is 1% but for buying option, the percent loss is 10%. That’s why the percentage of the profit and loss for buying option is huge compared to buying share even though the share price fluctuates in a small amount.



Due to the high profit and loss when buying option, trading or investing option is just like gambling. It is quite normal that the return of investment is more than 100%. But it is also quite normal that you could lose all your money in the investment or trading. In order that you can earn more than lose, you need to know some basic option trading strategy and technical analysis. Option is different from the share. Option has time value; whereas, share does not have time value. The value of one share will not depreciate due to the passage of the time. It is only affected by the supply and demand and also the company performance. However, option value will depreciate when the time has passed. When the time reaches to the option expiration date, there is no more time value for that option. That’s why, you need to use strategy to trade option, in order that you can minimize the loss and maximize the profit.



The very basic two option trading strategies are bullish call spread and bearish put spread. Bullish call spread is used when the stock price is anticipated to rise in the coming months; while, bearish put spread is used when the stock price is anticipated to drop in the coming months. Steps that are involved in this strategy are buying in the money option and selling out of the money option. In the money option is the option that has time value and intrinsic value; whereas, out of the money option only has time value. When the stock price moves to the positive side (generated money side), in the money option will generate profit and the out of the money option will cause loss. However, the minus of the profit and the loss is the net profit that has generated from this strategy. When the stock price moves over the out of the money strike price, the profit will become maximized. Continuously moving of the stock price to the positive side will not generate any profit. In this situation, we will close both positions to take the profit out from the market.



If the stock price moves to negative side (opposite side that cause loss), in the money option’s value will depreciate and the out of the money option will generate profit. However, the profit, which is generated from the out of the money, is limited to the price that you have sold. The subtraction between out of the money’s profit and in the money’s loss is a negative value. This is because the profit that is generated from the out of the money option is less than the loss that is caused by in the money option. Out of the money option’s profit is limited in this strategy and in the money option’s loss is unlimited. If the stock price continuously moves to the negative side, you may lose all of your capital. So, what is the difference from buying naked option and buying option using spread strategy? The difference is that you may lose more money if you buy naked option and lose less money if you buy spread. This is because you do not generate any profit when you just buy naked option; whereas, profit is generated from the out of the money option if the stock price moves to the negative side. The disadvantage of the spread is that the commission, which is charged by the broker firm, is double compared to the naked option. This is because, naked option only involves one position; whereas, spread involves two positions. Each position will be charged with commission separately.



Besides, the purpose of selling out of the money option in the spread strategy is to minimize the loss of the time value of the in the money option. Actually, both in and out the money option’s time value would depreciate when the time has passed. Because we do not own the out of the money option; therefore, we can keep the money that we have received from selling that option. When the time value of this out of the money option has depreciated, we used lower price to buy back the option. So, we sell at high price and buy back at low price; therefore, we earn money. The money that we have earned usually is enough to cover the loss of the time value from the in the money option. However, you still lose the intrinsic value of option if the stock price moves to the negative direction.



So, bullish call and bearish put spreads are two of the very basic option trading strategies. However, it is not guaranteed 100 % win from the stock market. You still need to learn to predict the stock price direction accurately using technical, fundamental and news analysis.

Alexander Chong

Author of “Workable Option Trading Strategies”

http://www.makemoneystocks.com/

Trading Options

Option is a legal agreement between buyer and seller to buy or sell security at an agreed price in a certain period of time. It is quite similar to insurance that you pay an amount of money in order that your property is protected by the insurance company. The difference between these two is option can be traded whereas, insurance portfolio cannot be traded. There are two types of option contracts; call options and put options. We buy call option when we expect the security price will go up and buy put option when we expect the security price will go down. We also can sell call option if we expect the security price will go down and vice versa if we sell put option. Usually, option is counted by contract, one contract equivalent to 100 unit options. 1 unit option protects 1 unit share. So, one contract protects 100 unit shares.

Before learning how to trade option, terminologies that you need to know are as follow:

a) Strike price: Strike price is the price that is agreed by both buyer and seller of the option to deal with. That means if the strike price of the call option is 35, seller of this option obligates to sell security at this price to the buyer of this option even though the market price of the security is higher than 35 if the buyer exercises the option. Buyer of this option can buy a security with a price that is lower than the market price. If the current market price is $39, the buyer will earn $4. If the security price is lower than the strike price, buyer will hold the option and leave the option to expire worthless. For put option strike price, buyer of the option has the right to sell the security at the strike price to the seller of the option. That means if the put option strike price is 30, seller of this option obligates to buy the security at this price from the buyer if he or she exercises the option even though the market price is lower than this price. If the market is $25, the option buyer will earn $5. It looks like a lot of transactions have been involved; but actually, seller of the option will not buy a security and sell it to the buyer. The broker firm will do all the transaction but the extra money that has used to buy the security has to be paid by the seller. This means, if the seller loss $4, the buyer will earn $4.

b) Out of the money, in the money and near/at the money option: Option price comprises of time value and intrinsic price.



Time Value + Intrinsic Value = Option Price



Time value is the amount of money that the option worth due to the time the option has until its expiration date. Longer the time the option has until its expiration date, higher the time value of this option. Time value of an option will become zero if the option has expired. Intrinsic value for in the money call option is the difference between current market security price and option strike price. Conversely, in the money put option’s intrinsic value is the difference between option strike price and current market security price. If the current security price is lower than the call option strike price, this option is an out of the money option. It only has time value. Call option with strike price that is lower than the current market security price is an in the money option. This option has time value and also intrinsic value. Near or at the money option is the option, which strike price is close to the current market security price.

c) Delta value: Delta value shows the amount of the option price will change when the security price changes by $1.00. It is a positive value for call option and negative value for put option. It ranges from 0.1 to 1.0. Delta value for in the money option is more than 0.5 and out of the money option is less than 0.5. Delta value for deep in the money option usually is more than 0.9. If the option delta value is 0.6, meaning that when the security price goes up $1, option price will go up $0.60. If the security price goes up $0.10, the option price will goes up $0.06. Usually, $0.06 will round up to $0.10.

d) Theta value: Theta value is a negative value, which shows the decay of the option time value. Option, which has longer time to expiry, has lower absolute theta value than option, which has shorter time to expiry. High absolute theta value means the option time value decays more than the low absolute theta value option. A theta value of -0.0188 means that the option will lose $0.0188 in its premium after passage of seven days. Options with a low absolute theta value are more preferable for purchase than those with high absolute theta value.

e) Gamma value: Gamma value shows the change of the delta value of an option when the security price increases or decreases. For an example, gamma value of 0.03 indicates that the delta value of this option will increase 0.03 when the security price goes up $1. Option, which has longer time to expiry, has lower value of gamma than option, which has shorter time to expiry. The gamma value also changes significantly when the security price moves near the option strike price.

f) Vega value: Vega value shows the change of the value of option for one percent increase in implied volatility. This value is always positive. Near the money option has higher vega value compared to in the money and out of the money option. Option, which has longer time to expiry, has higher vega value than the option, which has shorter time to expiry. Since vega value measures the sensitivity of the option to the change of the security volatility, higher vega value options are more preferable for purchase than those with low vega value.

g) Implied volatility: Implied volatility is a theoretical value, which is used to represent the volatility of a security price. It is calculated by substituting actual option price, security price, option strike price and the option expiration date into the Black-Scholes equation. Options with a high volatility stocks are cost more than those with low volatility. This is because high volatility stock option has a greater chance to become in the money option before its expiration date. Most purchasers prefer high volatility stock options than the low volatility stock options.



Actually, there are twenty-one option trading strategies, which most of the option investors and traders use in their daily trading. However, I’m only introducing ten strategies as follow:

a) Naked call or put

b) Call or put spread

c) Straddle

d) Strangle

e) Covered call

f) Collar

g) Condor

h) Combo

i) Butterfly spread

j) Calender spread



Naked call and put meaning buy call and put option only at the strike price, which is close to the market security price. When the security price goes up, the profit is the subtracting of the security price to the strike price if you buy call and the reverse if you buy put.

Call and put spread is established by buying in the money or near the money option and selling out of the money option. When the security price goes up, in the money call option that you buy will generate profit and the out of the money option that you sell will loss money. However, due to the difference of the delta value, when the security price goes up, in the money call option price goes up with a higher rate compared to the out of the money call option. When you deduce the profit from the loss, you still earn money. The purpose of selling the out of the money option is to protect the depreciation of time value of in the money call option, if the security price goes down. However, if the security price continuously goes down, this will cause an unlimited loss. Therefore, stop loss has to be set at certain level. This strategy also has a maximum profit that is when security price has crossed over in the money option strike price.

Straddle can earn money no matter the security price goes up or down. This strategy is established by buying near the money call and put option at the same strike price. The disadvantage of this strategy is the high breakeven level. The sum of the call and put option ask price is the breakeven level of this strategy. You only generate profit when the security price has gone up or down more than the breakeven level. If the security price fluctuates within the upside and downside breakeven level, you still loss money. The money that you loss is due to the depreciation of the option time value. This strategy is usually applied for the security, which has high volatility or before the release of the earning report. The maximum loss of this strategy is the total amount of call and put option price. This strategy can generate unlimited profit at either side of the market direction

Strangle is quite similar to straddle. The difference is strangle is established by buying out of the money call and put option. Because both the options are out of the money option, therefore, both options have different strike. The maximum loss of this strategy is less than the straddle strategy, but difference between the upside and downside breakeven level is slightly higher than the straddle strategy. For this strategy, the upside breakeven is calculated by adding the total call and put option prices to the call option strike price. While, the downside breakeven level is calculated by subtracting the put option strike price with the total call and put option prices. The difference between the strike prices usually is about 2.50 or 5 depending to which stock that you select to buy with this strategy. If the security price fluctuates within the upside and downside breakeven level, you still loss the money due to the loss of the option time value. Application of this strategy is the same as the straddle strategy.

Covered call is established by buying a security at the current market ask price and selling out of the money call option. Selling out of the money option has limited the profit that generated from this strategy. If security price continuously goes down, it will cause an unlimited loss. Therefore, stop loss must be set. When the option has comes to its expiry, if the security price is not moving up significantly, you still earn the total option premium that you have received. If the security price goes up, sure you will earn a limited profit. If the stock price continuously goes down, it will cause an unlimited loss. Therefore, stop loss must be set. Usually, stop loss is set at the security ask price after subtracting by the option bid price. If this security price goes down and passes over the price that you set as stop loss, the loss that is incurred to you is about half of the total option premium that you have received. This is because the delta value of the out of the money call option that you have sold is about 0.4 - 0.5. The out of the money call option strike price must be the closest strike price to the entering security price.

Collar is also known as medium covered call. It is quite similar to covered call strategy. It is only added one more step in order that stop loss is unnecessary to be set in this strategy. This strategy is established by buying a security and near the money put option and following selling an out of the money option. Due to the put option that you have bought, it is unnecessary to set a stop loss because put option will protect the security if the security price goes down. However, out of the money option premium that you have collected has to be used to pay for the put option premium. If the security price goes down, you still loss about half of the total put option premium. This is because out of the money call option premium is less than the near the money put option premium. This strategy is for half or one year long term investment.

Condor strategy has four combinations. Two of them are for stationary market and the other two are for dynamic (volatile) market. Long call and put condor are for stationary market whereas short call and put condor are for dynamic market. The former strategy involves four steps that are buying and selling in the money and out of the money call option with an equivalent amount of contract. With this strategy, profit can be generated as long as the security price does not fluctuate out from the upside and downside breakeven level. Short call and put condor are for dynamic market, which also involves four steps like the long call and put condor strategy. The difference is that in short call and put condor, the strike prices of the options that have bought must be within the strike prices of the options that have sold. For short call and put condor strategy, profit can be generated as long as the security price has fluctuated out of the upside and downside breakeven level. The upside breakeven level is calculated by adding the whole position total pay out or receive to the highest strike price in the strategy. The downside breakeven level is calculated by subtracting the whole position total pay or receive to the lowest strike price in the strategy.

Combo strategy has two combinations that are bullish and bearish combo. Bullish combo strategy is for bullish market and the bearish combo strategy is for bearish market. This strategy involves two steps that are buying out of the money option and selling in the money option. If the security price goes up more than the higher strike price, profit can be generated. But if the security price goes down lower than the lower strike price, loss is incurred. If the security price fluctuates within the higher and lower strike price, you won’t loss anything. This strategy can earn an unlimited profit but also will cause an unlimited loss depending to the market direction and also which strategy you have used.

Butterfly spread strategy is quite similar to the condor strategy. It has also four combinations that are long at the money call and put butterfly spread and short at the money call and put butterfly spread. Long at the money call and put butterfly spread are for stationary market and short at the money call and put butterfly spread are for volatile market. Steps that involve in long at the money call butterfly spread are buying in the money and out of the money call option and following selling at the money call option. At the money option means the strike price of this option is quite close to the current market security price. Number of contract of the at the money call option must double the number of contract of in and out of the money option. Profit can be generated as long as the security price does not move out from the upside and downside breakeven range. The upside breakeven level is calculated by adding the total pay out of this position to the highest strike price. The downside breakeven level is calculated by subtracting the lowest strike price with the total pay out of this position. The short at the money call butterfly spread is established by selling in and out of the money call option and following by buying at the money call option. Number of contract of at the money option must be double the number of contract of in and out of the money option. As long as the security price has move out the upside and downside breakeven range, profit can be generated. This strategy generates limited profit and also cause limited loss if the security price does not go to the right direction.

Calendar spread is also known as horizontal or time spread. This strategy is solely used to earn money from the security, which price trades sideway. There are quite number of stocks have this kind of price trend. This strategy is established by selling at the money call or put option, which has a shorter time to expiry and buying at the money call and put option, which has a longer time to expiry. This strategy merely generates the money from the time value of the option. The option that has shorter time to expiry depreciates the time value faster than the option that has longer time to expiry. Usually, the option that has shorter time to expiry is left for expire worthless. The total money that you receive after closing this position will be more than the total money that you have paid out when opening this position.

With these ten strategies, you can use to earn money from upside and downside market and also the market that trades sideway.

Alexander Chong

Author of “Workable Option Trading Strategies”

http://www.makemoneystocks.com/