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Puts

📊 Exploring Basic Options StrategiesOptions are contracts that grant buyers the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a security at a predetermined price in the future. Buyers pay a premium for this privilege. If market conditions are unfavorable, option holders can let the option expire without exercising it, limiting potential losses to the premium paid. Options are categorized as "call" or "put" contracts, allowing buyers to purchase or sell the underlying asset at a specified price. Beginner investors can employ various strategies using calls or puts to manage risk, including directional bets and hedging techniques. 🔹 Buying Calls (Long Calls) Trading options offers advantages for those who want to make a directional bet in the market. It allows traders to buy call options, which require less capital than purchasing the underlying asset, and limits losses to the premium paid if the price goes down. This strategy is suitable for traders who are confident about a specific stock, ETF, or index fund and want to manage risk. Additionally, options provide leverage, enabling traders to amplify potential gains by using smaller amounts of capital compared to trading the underlying asset directly. For example, instead of investing $10,000 to buy 100 shares of a $100 stock, traders can spend $2,000 on a call contract with a strike price 10% higher than the current market price. 🔹 Buying Puts (Long Puts) Put options provide the holder with the right to sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price before the contract expires. This strategy is favored by traders who hold a bearish view on a specific stock, ETF, or index but want to limit their risk compared to short-selling. It also allows traders to utilize leverage to capitalize on declining prices. Unlike call options that benefit from price increases, put options increase in value as the underlying asset's price decreases. While short-selling also profits from price declines, the risk is unlimited as prices can theoretically rise infinitely. In contrast, if the underlying asset's price exceeds the strike price of a put option, the option simply expires without value. 🔹 Covered Calls A covered call strategy involves selling a call option on an existing long position in the underlying asset. This approach is different from simply buying a call or put option. Traders who use covered calls expect little or no change in the underlying asset's price and want to collect the option premium as income. They are willing to limit the upside potential of their position in exchange for some downside protection. 🔹 Risk/Reward A long straddle strategy involves purchasing both a call option and a put option simultaneously. While the cost of a long straddle is higher than buying either a call or put option alone, the maximum potential loss is limited to the amount paid for the straddle. On the other hand, the potential reward is theoretically unlimited on the upside. However, the downside is capped at the strike price. For example, if you own a $20 straddle and the stock price drops to zero, the maximum profit you can make is $20. 👤 @QuantVue 📅 Daily Ideas about market update, psychology & indicators ❤️ If you appreciate our work, please like, comment and follow ❤️
Education
by QuantVue
2
Short Selling Put OptionsI’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails. They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way. The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades. Short Selling Put Options When short selling put options, a question people ask me is, “Okay, Markus, how do you decide what strike price do you want to sell and whether there’s enough premium in there?” I made a put options calculator called “The Wheel Calculator” that I gave away as part of my recent class on selling put options (Theta Kings) that helps me determine just that. This calculator is now also integrated within The PowerX Optimizer Software as well. Using my put options calculator, I can enter a few different figures and it quickly lets me know if this stock makes sense to sell put options on. I started a small account with $25,380, and have continued to grow it substantially. This was all done by selling put premium using my handy put options calculator! So let’s take a look at a few examples using the airlines. Here’s how you can quickly compare if an option makes sense to sell. So United Airlines UAL , at the time of this is trading at $31.08/share. So I’m going to take a look at the April 24th expiration and the $20 strike price. I’m thinking maybe it would be a good idea to sell the $20 United Airlines UAL put option. So now that I have the strike selected that I would like to sell put options on, let’s take a look at the premium these options have. This will let us know if this trade actually makes sense. Right now, the Bid/Ask is $0.74 over $0.87. So I probably can get $0.80 for selling this option. This is all I need to enter in my spreadsheet, along with the expiration. With the needed inputs entered into my handy dandy put options calculator it tells me, “United Airlines can drop 36% and you’ll still be okay.” It has to drop 36% before we get in trouble. I think that’s pretty good odds in my opinion. The cool thing is that it also says that based on my account size, I should buy 17 options, and I would collect $1,320 in premium. So this means that per day I would get $110 in premium. That’s not bad at all if I can make $100 on just one position. And I like to have 4 to 5 positions in my account at any given time. So based on the number of positions I like to have, this means that you can make $400 to $500 per day collecting premium. I like this a lot because it means annualized I would make 87%! 87% is nothing to sneeze at, right? Short Selling Put Options — American Airlines So now let’s do this same thing with another airline, American Airlines AAL , and see how the numbers look. So like we did with UAL , I’m looking at what strike price in relation to where AAL is trading would it make sense to sell. For American Airlines AAL it looks like probably the $8 strike price would make sense right here. You always want to do it below the previously established low. So let’s take a look at American Airlines AAL . The price right now is $12.26. the options strike price, we said we’d probably have to look at is $8. Here we’re able to collect $0.35 per contract at the $8 strike price. And you see, I could actually, since American Airlines is so cheap, buy 41 options based on my account size. So 41 options and I would collect $1,444 in premium. This means I would get $120. That’s not bad at all. And you see, American Airlines AAL also can drop 35% and we would still be OK. We only get in trouble if American Airlines over the next 15 days drops more than 35%. Possible? Yes. This is why you should always be willing to own the stock. And this is why you want to make sure that you’re not getting in trouble. You need to adjust your position size based on your account. Here obviously, I don’t want to trade two airlines because if airlines are crashing, they probably all do. With that said, let’s take a look at Boeing AAL . Boeing Example I like trading Boeing. I'm looking at a Boeing AAL chart to see where might be a good level here to sell Boeing. Based on where AAL is trading at right now, it looks like $100 would be a good level to take a look at. Let’s first try a strike price of $100, shall we? For $100 we get probably a $1.55 right here, with Boeing AAL trading right now at $150. So if we were to sell the $100 put option on AAL , we are looking to make $1.55/contract. And you see, this means that Boeing AAL could drop 33%, so we’re good here. However, we can only buy three options. Why? Because Boeing AAL is really expensive. So if we would have to buy Boeing at $100, this is when it gets expensive, right? So you see, the strike prices here are much, much, much lower. This is where you see I would only trade three not to overextend myself. And that’s very important when you’re selling puts. You want to make sure that you’re not overextending yourself because otherwise, you’ll get margin calls. Margin calls are ugly. A margin call means that your broker tells you, “I want more money.” You want to avoid that at all costs! Because if you don’t have the money, you would have to sell the stock at a price that you don’t want. Usually, this is how you can wipe out an account. Anyhow, you see this is how we would only make $43 a day. Let me ask you, what would you rather make? $110 to $120 per day? Or $43 per day? I don’t know about you, but for me, these are better. So it’s very easy to quickly compare which options you should be trading when you’re selling puts. One of my favorite trading strategies right now is selling puts. This is what you have seen in the past few examples. My goal is to make $400 to $500 per day by doing so. The best days to sell puts is on a down day. On a down day, the VIX is usually shooting up and options premiums are higher. This is exactly what you’re looking for as a premium seller. For experienced options traders, selling put option premium in an environment like this can be a great way to consistently generate income, even if the stock doesn’t do exactly what you want. I hope this helps!
NASDAQ:UALEducation
by rockwelltrading
1
Cash Secured vs Naked PutsI’m Markus Heitkoetter and I’ve been an active trader for over 20 years. I often see people who start trading and expect their accounts to explode, based on promises and hype they see in ads and e-mails. They start trading and realize it doesn’t work this way. The purpose of these articles is to show you the trading strategies and tools that I personally use to trade my own account so that you can grow your own account systematically. Real money…real trades. Cash Secured vs Naked Puts What I want to talk about right now is the difference between cash secured vs naked puts. If you've been following Coffee with Markus, then you know that recently there was a comment from someone who said “They are the same thing!” Of course, that is not the case. So in this article, I’ll show you the differences between cash secured vs naked puts. I’ll also explain why I highly recommend that you trade cash secured puts when trading the Wheel strategy. Selling A Put Option When you sell a put option it means that you have to buy the stock at the strike price that you sold it for if the contract is exercised at expiration. This is very important, and you are obligated to do it. So, therefore, obviously what you want is that the stock stays above the strike price that you chose. Because in this case, you just keep the premium. Now, let me give you a very, very specific example here. Put Example: IBM So recently, I sold a 115 put on IBM . I did this with three days to expiration and I received a premium of $43 per option that I traded. Now, I traded two options, or two contracts. So this means that I received $86 in premium. If you divide this by three days, this means that we are looking at approximately $29 per day in premium, which is what I’m looking for. I mean, this is how I have achieved the very systematic results here of 22.7% over the last three months, and if I can keep this up, this would translate into 19.8% per year. So thus far, what does it have to do with cash secured or naked puts here? In this example, as long as IBM stays above 115 until expiration, I would just keep the $86 in premium and the option expires worthless. However, if IBM would close below 115 at expiration, then I have to buy 100 shares of IBM at a price of $115. So in my case, since I have sold two options, I would have to buy 200 shares of IBM at $115. This means that I would have to bring $23,000 to the table. But here’s the deal. In order to sell these puts, my broker only required around $4,400. Let’s take a look at this. See IBM here, it says capital required $4,453. That’s only 20% of the money that I actually need to buy the shares. The Differences Between Cash Secured vs Naked Puts Now let’s talk about the difference between cash-secured puts and naked puts. Cash secured puts mean that you have $23,000 in your account to cover the stocks if you are getting assigned. So if you only had $5,000 in your account, you could still place the trade. As you can see, the broker only required $4,453. However, you wouldn’t have enough money to actually buy the shares if you got assigned. This means that you sold the naked puts. You just don’t have enough money. You just had enough money for the broker, what he required to sell it. So why would the broker let me sell the puts for only $4,400 when I need $23,000 to buy the shares if I get assigned? Well, here is why the broker does it. He does it for two reasons. Reason number one, most options expire worthless. And number two, even if they don’t expire worthless most traders buy the option back. So they close it before they expire and the broker knows that. That’s why he’s only requesting 1/5 of the buying power that you need for buying the shares. And that’s all good as long as you close your position before expiration. However, when trading the Wheel, you actually want to get assigned. It is part of the strategy. You see, we not only sell a put option, if we get assigned we will sell calls and get the premium. So the question now is… What Happens If You Don’t Have Enough Money And You Get Assigned? Let’s say you have $5,000 in your account and you entered this trade. Now IBM is below 115 at expiration and you have to buy 200 shares at $115, but you don’t have the money. So what happens? Well, now your broker is buying them for you and you get a so-called ‘margin call’. What does it mean? A margin call basically means the broker asks you to wire the remaining $19,000 that you need for this into the account, and he wants to have this pretty much that day. What happens if you don’t have the money? If you don’t do this, the broker will sell the shares the next day at whatever price he can get. So this means that you lose all control over this trade. Your broker is now in control and that’s not good. You see, when trading the Wheel strategy you want to remain in control. After we get assigned the shares, we want to sell calls against it and collect even more premium. Summary I highly recommend that you trade cash-secured puts so that you have enough money in the account in case you get assigned. This way, you have full control over your shares and you can actually make money with them. Now you know the difference between cash-secured puts vs naked puts and you know when to use what.
NYSE:IBMEducation
by rockwelltrading
2
Trader's Guide to Options Part 2The information in this guide is intended to get you started with your understanding of options, the terminology, and their basic characteristics. In addition to this guide, it is recommended that you study all information available under the education section of your broker’s website. Most brokers who cater to options traders provide good information that will help you learn. Types of Options: Call Options: Call options increase in value when the underlying stock rises. Buyers of calls have the right, without any obligation, to buy the underlying stock at the strike of the options contract. They retain their right until the option no longer exists, defined by the expiration date. Call buyers anticipate the value of the underlying stock will rise. When it does, the value of the option will also increase at approximately the rate of the Delta. Buyers pay for the right to buy the stock in the future, sometime before expiration of the option. When buying the option, they pay the ask price. The premium they pay is less than buying the stock, yet they will still benefit from any appreciation in the value of the stock. Say you wanted to buy XYZ stock because you think it is going to move up from its current price of $84. Instead of buying the stock a trader could buy a call option for a fraction of the price of the stock. Remember, all the trader is doing is buying the right to buy the stock without any obligation to actually buy it. The option only costs $4.00 for the right to buy the stock at some future date. Buying 1,000 shares of the stock would require $84,000 but buying 10 options contracts would only cost $4,000. Call Options – The Sellers… Sellers of call options are selling to someone else the right to buy the underlying stock from them. When/if the buyer chooses to buy the stock from the seller, (remember, the buyer has no obligation to do so) it is referred to as an exercise…the buyer is exercising the right to buy the stock. The seller is obligated to deliver the stock to the buyer. A seller’s obligation ends when the stock is exercised, the option expires, or the option is bought to close (BTC). Call sellers receive a premium from the buyer. The buyer is paying the seller for the right to buy the stock in the future. Sellers want the price of the stock to go down. Why? If the price goes down, the buyer will have no reason to exercise since they could buy the stock for less at the current market price. In this case, the seller gets to keep the premium paid by the buyer. So, what does this mean in plain English? The concept of a call option is present in many situations. For example, you discover a painting that you would love to purchase. Unfortunately, you will not have the cash to buy it for another two months. You talk to the owner and negotiate a deal that gives you an option to buy the painting in two months for a price of $1,000. The owner agrees, and you pay the owner a premium of $50 for the right to buy the painting. Consider two possible scenarios that can impact the value of this “option”: Scenario 1: It is discovered that the back of the painting has a signature of a famous artist, which drives the value of the painting up to $10,000. Because the owner sold you an option which gives you the right but no obligation to purchase the painting at the previously agreed price, he is obligated to sell the painting to you, the buyer, for $1,000. The buyer would make a profit of $8,950 ($10,000 value – $1,000 purchase price – $50 for the cost of the option). Scenario 2: After closer review of the painting, it is discovered that the signature on the back is not of a famous artist, but is the brother of a famous artist. This actually drives the value of the painting down to $500. If the buyer exercised their option to purchase the painting it would cost $1,000. This would not make sense because the buyer could instead just buy it at “market price” for just $500. Since the buyer had no obligation to purchase based on the option contract, the agreement, or contract, would just expire and the buyer would lose the $50 premium paid. The example demonstrates two important points. When you buy an option, you have a right, but not an obligation, to do something. You can always let the expiration date pass, at which point the option becomes worthless. If this happens, you lose 100% of your investment, which is the money you paid for the option. Put Options Put options increase in value when the underlying stock decreases in value. Buyers of puts have the right, without any obligation, to “put” the underlying stock to someone else at the strike price of the options contract. They retain their right until they sell to close (STC) the option or it no longer exists, defined by the expiration date. Put buyers anticipate the value of the underlying stock will go down. When it does, the value of the option will increase at approximately the rate of the Delta. Buyers pay a premium for the right to be able to put (sell) the stock to someone else in the future, sometime before expiration of the option. When buying the option, they pay the ask price. Say you thought XYZ stock is going to move down from its current price of $84. Buying a put with a strike of $85 gives the buyer the right in the future to sell or put the stock to someone else at $85. So, if the stock declined to $75, the buyer of the option could buy the stock at $75 and immediately exercise their right to sell/put the stock at $85, making a $10 profit. Remember, all the trader is doing is buying the right but has no obligation. Put Options – The Sellers… Sellers of put options are selling to someone else the right to sell/put the underlying stock to them. When/if the buyer chooses to put their stock to the seller, this is referred to as being assigned……the buyer of the put option is assigning the stock to the seller. The seller is obligated to buy the stock based on the strike price of the contract. A seller’s obligation ends when the option expires or the option is bought to close (BTC). Put sellers receive a premium from the buyer. The buyer is paying the seller for the right to sell the stock to the seller in the future. Put sellers want the price of the stock to go up. Why? If the price goes up, the buyer will have no reason to assign the stock since they could sell the stock for more at the current market price. In this case, the seller gets to keep the premium paid by the buyer. Exercise and Assignment Most stocks and ETF’s are American style options. This means that if the buyer of an option chooses to exercise or assign their rights they may do so at any time prior to expiration. Indexes such at SPX , NDX and RUT are European style options. This means that any exercise or assignment may only occur at expiration. Who wins when the stock moves? 1. Buyers of Calls – win when the stock goes up 2. Sellers of Calls – win when the stock goes down 3. Buyers of Puts – win when the stock goes down 4. Sellers of Puts – win when the stock goes up Are you new to options trading? Stay tuned for Part 3 of Trader's Guide to Options which will include in-the-money, at-the-money, and out-of-the-money options as well as the reality of trading.
Editors' picks
SP:SPXEducation
by NewCycleTrading
8
Trader's Guide to OptionsThe information in this guide is intended to get you started with your understanding of #options, the terminology, and their basic characteristics. In addition to this guide, it is recommended that you study all information available under the education section of your broker’s website. Most brokers who cater to options traders provide good information that will help you learn. What is an option? An option is a financial contract between a buyer and a seller. It is an agreement to buy or sell the underlying equity (stock or index) at a set price by a pre-determined date. Instead of buying the stock a trader could buy an option for a fraction of the price of the stock. Options have the following characteristics: Traded as contracts and each contract represents 100 shares of the underlying stock or index. Pre-set expiration dates. Standard monthly options expire the third Friday of each month. Some index options like TVC:RUT , TVC:SPX , and TVC:NDX cease trading on Thursday before the third Friday. Weekly options expire each Friday. Price points, referred to as the strike price, are the prices at which buyers and sellers trade option contracts. Options are, usually, available to trade in standard price increments of $5 and $10. Quotes to buy or sell an option are presented as the bid and ask. When selling an option, the bid price is used. When buying an option, the ask price is used. Sell the bid / Buy the ask. Delta is the change in the value of an option relative to each $1.00 change in the value of the underlying stock. If an option has a Delta value of .45, it will change in value by 45 cents for each $1.00 change in the value of the stock. - NASDAQ:GOOG is trading at 1445. -The 1445 call strike has a Delta of .50 -GOOG goes down $10 -The 1445 call will decline in value by $5.00 = ( $10 * .50) The Options Chain: All option information for any stock or index is listed on an options chain. The options chain can be found on the website of the broker you use to trade. The chain will list all available strikes and expirations, the Delta, and the bid and ask prices. It will also display both Call and Put options. Ways to trade Options: There are four actions that could possibly be taken when trading options: 1. Buy To Open (BTO) - buying an option as part of opening a new position. 2. Sell To Open (STO) - selling an option as part of opening a new position. 3. Buy To Close (BTC) - buying back an option that was originally sold to open 4. Sell To Close (STC) - selling an option that was originally bought to open When a position is Bought-To-Open, it is referred to as a long position . When a position is Sold-To-Open, it is referred to as a short position . When a position is Bought-To-Open, it is done for a debit . When a position is Sold-To-Open, it is done for a credit . Are you new to options trading? Stay tuned for Part 2 of Trader's Guide to Options which will include teaching about call and put options. <- Direct link to chart image.
NASDAQ:GOOGEducation
by NewCycleTrading