MicroStrategy stock forum
Osis.co is showing bullish signals for MicroStrategy (
MSTR), so I'm looking at going long.
Trader 2: With the stock at $360, opens a $360/$400 bull call spread by buying $360 calls and simultaneously selling $400 calls (within the same transaction) with the same 6/6 expiration. It is cheaper to buy a spread because spreads can trade down to the penny (vs. nickels for straight calls or puts); You are spreading vig across a blended trade; You get credit for the sold OTM calls to lower the price of the ITM calls you are buying; And finally market makers quote tighter spreads on combo orders because they can hedge deltas more precisely (it is a self-balancing position).
Now, in this new scenario if MSTR reaches $372.75, you've broke even ($32.25 below Trader 1's breakeven price). From $387.25 - $400, you have made 213.7% more than a long shareholder. Chances of this happening: 36.2% vs 0% for the $400 call buyer.
Can Trader 1 outperform Trader 2? Yes, but only if MSTR finishes at or above $432.25 on expiration day. At current IV (70%), probability of MSTR > $432.25 in 5 days is extremely low (~1%), barely better than a lottery ticket.
And that doesn't even account for exit friction at or near expiration. You will normally have to sell your open calls at a slight discount to get rid of them due the buyer facing a gamma risk, whereas a spread faces much less friction at exit. A call spread may even reach full value early, a day or 2 before expiration, due to price mismatches caused by volatility in the underlying long and short calls. In extreme cases I've seen them reach max value 2 weeks prior to expiration.
If you are going to trade options, do a deep dive into them. Understand all the math, terms, risks and available option structures available to trade. You can do 2 leg spreads, 4 leg spreads, vertical spreads, horizontal (calendar) spreads, diagonal spreads, straddles, strangles, iron condors, iron butterflies, ratio spreads, backspreads, collars, and synthetic long or short positions. Each has a purpose and best scenario for when to use.
Finally, remember roughly 30% of all options expire worthless, and that number jumps to OVER 90% for OTM options and short-dated speculation.
Trader 1 (mogulxtrades): Buys the $400 calls when the stock is at $360, expiry 6/6. This means the stock must climb to $405 in the next 5 trading days just to reach breakeven. Using implied volatility of 70% for MSTR and its 30d historic volatility of 50%, there is a 11.6% chance to reach break even.
But wait, there is more... This means the stock must also gain to the tune of 12.5% ($45) in those 5 days. That annualizes to a 117,500% return. Yet the options only broke even.
So to outrun the return you would get simply buying the stock, the stock will need to reach $450 in the next 5 days. Chances of that happening are 1.16%.
The NAV premium will continue to contract as more copycat products chase the same customers, right down to the point they all have NAV premiums of 1.0, or even slightly less.
DJT announced today they are getting in on the action with a $2.5 billion raise to buy BTC. GME is doing it. Mining stocks are doing it. DFDV is buying Solana, and is up over 3000% this year. NAKA, a medical services company, is getting in the on the action. Soon XXI will be coming to market as a BTC holding company.
It's a race to the bottom, all competing in the same space with each other and against relatively clean ETFs like BITX and SBIT for 2x BTC exposure. Consolidation in the industry is not an option, as any company with even a faint pulse — as proven by MSTR — can make the transformation with a short press release and a few investment bankers working a cold call list.
The gold rush of the 1800s produced untold amounts of newly minted millionaires and wealth. Unfortunately, most were by the makers of picks and shovels (Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices) and not by gold buyers (MSTR, GME) or gold miners (MARA, CleanSpark).
Using MSTR short proceeds to buy BITX when the MSTR NAV premium is at or below 2.0 is a dream arbitrage. If I use MSTR short proceeds to cover 5% margin requirements for a long BITX position, this effectively gets a 20x yield on upside BTC movements relative to MSTR. If its NAV premium continues to shrink (now down to 1.79), the effect is magnified up to 40x.
With the NAV premium at 1.79, if BTC rises and MSTR rises in sympathy, BITX gain still outstrips short loss on MSTR by 42% on capital invested.
If BTC falls and MSTR falls in sympathy, the MSTR short gain outpaces BITX loss by 21% if I simply eliminate margin usage on BITX by the start of the next trading day. I can do this by using existing equity in the account, or by using some short equity to purchase OTM puts on MSTR that will gain in value as MSTR falls in value.
Or for far less capital spent to hedge against downside risk, I can use MSTR short equity to purchase OTM MSTZ calls that will effectively yield a 35.8x return on BTC downside.
If BTC & MSTR goes down, I make good money. If BTC & MSTR go up, I make great money. If BTC goes up and MSTR holds station, I make mint. If MSTR eventually regains it 2.0 NAV premium, I close the MSTR position until the next cycle, leaving BITX open for BTC upside.
By creating a complex Rube Goldberg, semi-quasi financial instrument out of MSTR, Saylor has opened the door for reverse engineering that short-sellers can leech onto. The underlying mechanisms can be used in reverse order to make money both to the downside AND upside of BTC, with very little risk.
This effectively strips away the holy grail — aka "Bitcoin Gain" — from MSTR shareholders, and transfers it directly to the MSTR/BTC arb traders. Ooops.
As Michael Saylor would say: Lather, rinse and repeat.