Opening (IRA): SPX July 30th 3915/3965 Short Put Vertical... for a 4.00 credit.
Comments: Doing two spreads this week, one in the July 23rd, one in the July 30th expiry. Selling the 16 delta strike and buying the put 50 strikes out from there to emulate dollar cost averaging into the broad market. 8.7% ROC at max; 64.8% annualized. 4.4% ROC at 50% max; 32.4% annualized to 50% max.
Shortputvertical
Opening (IRA): SPX July 23rd 3940/3990 Short Put Vertical... for a 3.60 credit.
Comments: Selling the 16 delta strike and buying the put 50 strikes out from there to emulate dollar cost averaging into the broad market with more room to be wrong than buying at-the-money. 7.8% ROC at max; 67.8% annualized at max. 3.9% ROC at 50% max; 33.9% annualized. Generally, take profit at 50%; take loss at 2 x credit received.
Closing: AMC July 16th 5/18 Short Put Vertical... for a .70 debit.
Comments: In for 1.41 (See Post Below), out for .70 today (50% max) with 37 days to go, probably due in no small part to the volatility crush. 30-day was at 341% when I put it on; it's now at 276%. I'll take 6.0% ROC for five days' "work" any day.
Opening: AMC July 16th 5/18 Short Put Vertical... for a 1.40 ($140) credit.
Comments: Okay, okay, okay ... . I'll bite. With 30-day implied volatility at a whopping 341%, taking a really conservative approach to this by selling the 5 delta strike and buying the 0 (it's probably greater than 0, but they've rounded to the nearest delta). By buying the cheap put (it costs .08 here), I define my risk, limiting my max loss to the width of the spread (13), minus the credit received (1.40) or 11.60 ($1160) without giving up much in credit were I to just sell the 18 put. ROC at max: 12.1%; 105.2% annualized. Just looking for a money, take, run on this ... .
Opening (IRA): SPX 3900/3950 Short Put Vertical... for a 4.00 credit.
Comments: Selling the 16, buying the 13 in the expiry nearest 45 days until expiry to emulate dollar cost averaging into the market with more room to be wrong than buying shares at-the-money. Generally, take profit at 50% max, loss at two times credit received. 8.0% return on capital at max/71.2% annualized; 4.0% ROC at 50% max/35.6% annualized.
Opening (IRA): SPX July 9th 3910/3960 Short Put Vertical... for a 4.10 credit.
Comments: Instead of moving the spread in to force a given credit (which is what I did previously), selling the 16 and buying the 13 delta strikes here, in essence dollar cost averaging into the market. 8.93% ROC at max/77.6% annualized; 4.47% ROC at 50% max/38.8% annualized at 50% max.
Opening (IRA): SPX June 18th 3845/3895 Short Put Vertical... for a 5.10 credit.
Notes: Probably should wait until I get back from vacation, but wanted to take advantage of this down move a little bit here. Selling the 18, buying the 15 delta here to get into a spread paying at least 10% of the width in credit. For smaller accounts, the correspondent SPY short put vertical would be the June 18th 382/387 -- selling the 17 and buying the 14, currently paying .52 at the mid.
We'll see how things go, but will start to look at taking profit at 50% max; managing loss at 2 x credit received.
OPENING: SPY JANUARY 22ND 335/340 SHORT PUT VERTICAL... for a .54/contract credit.
Metrics:
Max Profit: .54 ($54)/contract
Max Loss: 4.46 ($446)/contract
Break Even: 339.46
Probability of Profit: 86%
Probability of 50% Max: 88%
ROC %-age: 12.1% at max; 6.1% at 50% max/96.0% annualized at max; 48.0% at 50% max
Notes: Opening a 45 days 'til expiry 10%-er in one of the smaller accounts I'm working. Will look to take profit at 50% max; take loss at 2 x credit received.
OPENING (IRA): SPX JANUARY 29TH 3290/3340 SHORT PUT VERTICAL... for a 5.10 credit.
Metrics:
Max Profit: $510
Max Loss: $4490
Break Even: 3334.90
Delta/Theta: 2.6/6.75
ROC: 11.4% at max; 5.7 at 50% max; 83.22% annualized at max; 41.61 at 50% max.
Probability of Profit: 87%
Notes: A 10%-er in the expiry nearest 45 days in duration, opened late in the session. For smaller accounts, consider selling a short put vertical in SPY where the credit received is at least 10% of the width of the spread.
OPENING: SPY JANUARY 15TH 325/330 SHORT PUT VERTICAL... for a .52/contract credit.
Notes: Opened a 10%-er (credit received is 10% of the width of the spread) in the expiry nearest 45 days 'til expiration. Will manage at 50% max or 2 x credit received.
For larger accounts, consider going wider with the SPY spread, or spreading /ES (e.g., January 15th 3220/3270, paying 262.50) (the equivalent of a 5 x 5* SPY) or SPX (e.g., January 15th 3275/3325, paying 5.10) (the equivalent of a 10 x 5 SPY).**
* -- 5 contracts of five-wide spreads.
** -- 10 contracts of five-wides.
OPENING (IRA): SPX JANUARY 8TH 3200/3250 SHORT PUT VERTICAL... for a 5.20 credit.
Notes: A 10%-er in the expiry nearest 45 days 'til expiry. Take profit at 50% max or greater; take loss at 2 x credit received. For those with smaller accounts, consider going 5-wide SPY (although it doesn't look like a January 8th expiry is open yet in SPY, QQQ, or IWM).
EDUCATION (IRA): SPY SHORT PUT VERTICALS VS. SHORT PUTSShort puts or short put verticals in a cash secured environment? Here's a comparison and contrast of the advantages of going short put vertical over naked put.
Pictured here is a 50-wide* SPY short put vertical in the January monthly with the short option leg camped out at the 17 delta and the long 50 strikes out from there. Here would be the metrics for the short put and the 50-wide:
Stand-Alone 332 Short Put:
Buying Power Effect (Cash Secured): 328.65
Break Even: 328.65
Max Profit: 3.35
Return on Capital at Max: 3.35/328.65 = 1.02%
Return on Capital Annualized: 1.02% x (365/50) = 7.45%
Trade Management Advantages/Disadvantages: Easier to roll for a credit
282/332 Short Put Vertical:
Buying Power Effect (Cash Secured): 47.27
Break Even: 329.27
Max Profit: 2.73
Return on Capital at Max: 2.73/47.27 = 5.78%
Return on Capital Annualized: 5.78% x (365/50) = 42.19%
Trade Management Advantages/Disadvantages: Difficult to roll for a credit on break even test
Seems like a no brainer to go with the short put vertical over the short put every time: The buying power effect is less than 15% of the naked short put while the ROC%-age at max is 81.5% of what you'd get for "going naked." That being said, this doesn't mean that you should deploy 100% of your buying power in short put verticals, since there is one aspect of these that people overlook, and that is assignment risk on the short option leg,** so you either (a) have to keep buying power free in the eventuality that price does break your short option leg and/or break even; (b) cut your losses short at particular loss metrics;*** and/or (c) trade cash-settled products that don't have that risk.
Consequently, when I'm on an acquisitional bender, I tend to take a short of hybrid approach with spreads, deploying them with the notion that I'm fine with acquiring shares at the short option leg price (minus any credit received, of course), but limiting my max loss in the event that the underlying totally breaks down below the long option leg. On assignment, this makes my selling call against task potentially easier because the ground I have to make up is limited to the width of the spread.
For example, SPY goes to 250. In the case of the spread, I exit the long option at or near max (closing for a 32.00 credit -- the difference between the long option strike and current price) and get assigned shares at the short option strike (a 332.00 debit): I can sell call against at current price + the width of the spread or at the 300 strike and still get out of the trade profitably if SPY pops back up to 300.****
With the short put, I'm generally forced to sell call against at or above my cost basis if I want to potentially exit the trade profitably, which would be around 329 here in this example.
* -- I'm using a 50-wide here just for comparison and contrast purposes, put there is actually a "sweet spot" where ROC%-age on the spread is the highest. I generally start out with the 16 delta for the short option leg (it's the 2 x expected move strike) and then fiddle with the long to get 10% or greater ROC%-age for the spread. I'm using SPY here, but the general principles apply to any underlying.
** -- This is naturally only in products like SPY, QQQ, IWM, etc. which are not cash-settled. SPX, RUT, and NDX are cash-settled, so the risk of assignment isn't an element of those trades, which is why I go for those products over the exchange-traded funds when I'm not interested in taking on or risking taking on shares in the underlying.
*** -- I have previously used 2 x the credit received as a good rule of thumb.
**** -- Here's the math: On fill: 2.73 credit + 32.00 credit for closing the long put at or near max - 332.00 debit for the assignment at the 332 strike = 297.27. I will also get a credit for selling a call the shares I was assigned. I can actually sell a call at the 297 strike and still be profitable on a finish above 297 because of this.