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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
UNH - United Healthcare Overpriced?United Healthcare is trading between the upper Bollinger bands and upper Keltner channel bands and it couldn't be at a better time. The topic of the affordable care act is now making headlines as Republican-led states and the Trump administration voice their case to the Supreme Courts today, claiming that the Affordable Care Act Mandate is unconstitutional. While the outcome of this case is still pending and may not have an impact on the stock, United Healthcare has been known to react whenever there is a potential change in how Americans receive healthcare. Today, President elect Joe Biden made a speech in favor of keeping and protecting the affordable care act. Let's see if any of these recent events surrounding the affordable care act have an effect on United Healthcare's stock over the next few days. Just looking at the charts, my opinion is that the stock is overpriced. The stock is trading higher relative to the exponential moving average on the chart. So, any news related to the Affordable Care Act supreme court case could encourage a sell off. REMEMBER: Reference to specific securities should not be construed as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Specific securities are mentioned for educational and informational purposes only. YouCanTrade is an online media publication service which provides investment educational content, ideas and demonstrations, and does not provide investment or trading advice, research or recommendations.
NYSE:UNHShort
by UnknownUnicorn6775423
SPY - Bearish VibesHey Traders, I usually don't like going against the grain... especially when the SPY has gained nearly 30 points this week alone. But my trader's intuition is telling me that it's moving too fast and I am starting to get bearish vibes. Taking a look the chart above, you can see that as of today, the SPY has moved across the Keltner Channelin a matter of 4 trading days. Looking at the past three times the SPY crossed across the Keltner Channel, it took an average of about 14 trading days, or roughly 3 weeks. Based on where SPY is trading today, my opinion is that SPY will attempt to break out above its recent resistance level of 354.00... but I don't think it will. SPY has over extended past its moving averages by so much that I think it will regress towards the 8 EMA. The stock market is pumped due to the election...but once the count is over... I think the bulls will be taking profits and selling the news. Again, this is just my intuition and I could be wrong, but I am going to stick to my guns and flag this idea with a Short bias.
AMEX:SPYShort
by UnknownUnicorn6775423
PUT/CALL RATIO EQUITY MARKET WARNING SIGNALHello, Here I've analyzed the PCCE (Put/Call Ratio Equities) in the monthly time frame. Something extremely concerning is taking place for the coming months. We are close to hitting .45 on the put/call ratio which is in extremely overbought territory. What this means is when we are in this level, all of the buying power in the market is already in the market. We need to blow off steam before we can continue higher. Typically we can expect extreme volatility in the coming months after the ratio gets to this level. I've marked out historic times where price got to this level to add clarity to the chart. We've already sold off 10% in September when we almost touched. Now we are lower and can possibly touch .45 this month, if that does. Cash may gain value. USI:PCCE
USI:PCCEShort
by jakelikesstocks
26
CVX breaks 13 Day EMA and heads for the 21 Day EMAMuch like most stocks, Chevron NYSE:CVX didn't have a good month of September this year, but it looks like things might be turning around. Looking at the daily chart above, CVX, as been trying to break past the 8 EMA average throughout the last month but found little success until yesterday. Today the price broke through the 13 day EMA. As the stock heads towards the 21 day EMA, one of two things can happen. It can pull up to it and continue down or it breaks past the 21 day EMA and continues going up. Rather than trade directionally, option traders should consider selling put credit spreads. Although this way cap the upside, it also limits your downside .
NYSE:CVXLong
by UnknownUnicorn6775423
TSLA - UP or DOWN?If there's one stock I had to name for being the most unpredictable, it's TESLA ( NASDAQ:TSLA ). This rather volatile stock is expected to have some pretty big moves going into market close today as the company will be holding their annual shareholder meeting at 4:30 p.m. ET. ...But wait...there's more! Once the meeting is over, the company will immediately follow up with their highly anticipated Battery Day event, which will be used to show those in attendance what's new with TSLA batteries and what improvements could be coming to make their batteries more energy efficient. So what does this mean for the stock? Well, for one, TSLA is a volatile stock, so major events like these... only increase implied volatility since everyone is expecting a big move either up or down. Second, The stock is trading dead smack in the middle between its recent highs and lows... the lows being most recent of the two. So, taking advantage of volatility is the way to go. Options traders can benefit from inflated options prices due to higher implied volatility by being option sellers. Strategies like Short Iron Condors, feature both, a capped risk and reward profile. Setting your strike selections near the recent highs and lows could be one way to trade TSLA... but the problem is that the inner strike are so wide making the risk to reward ratio very high. You can also sell credit spreads. To trade directionally, means to either go long calls or puts... Since Volatility is high, these strategies tend to be more expensive near major announcements. If you nail it, good for you. If you dont, then know that you can't lose more than what you paid for. If you still want to trade directionally, but want to minimize the risk, you can do debit spreads. This involves buying an option which will serve as your directional trade, and then selling that same type of option a few strikes further away to bring in some credit. This option might be good if you think that implied volatility will only increase after the announcement. Usually, the day following a major events, as with earnings announcements, options have been known to experience "volatility crush," in which the implied volatility drops after the news announcement. A drop in implied volatility can affect an option's price even more so than the movement of the underlying stock price. Therefore, directional neutral trades such a long straddles, will need to have a large move in the underlying in either direction to outpace the potential drops in implied volatility the next day. Which strategy will you choose? Remember...choosing not to trade can also be a wise trading strategy.
NASDAQ:TSLA
by UnknownUnicorn6775423
2
Options Idea: Sell The September 18, 2020 Put @ $1.3ALRM seems to have stopped its downward trend. It has recovered the EMA 8 and is heading back to EMA 20 territory. I sold a Sep 18 2020 55.0 Put @ 1.3 with the idea that the uptrend will continue over the next few days or weeks. 20-ALRM-01 Opening Date: August 20, 2020 Expiration Date: September 18, 2020 DTE: 29 IV: 44% IV Percentile: 37% Odds of Winning: 68% Win: > 53.70 @ Expiration Loss: < 53.70 @ Expiration Chart Legend The green area represents 100% win zone. The yellow area is a win, but we have to give back some of the initial credit taken in. The red area is loss. 1 SD, 2 SD, 3 SD projections from Opening Date to Expiration Date are included.
NASDAQ:ALRMLong
by OptionsCoach
1