How do you know whether volatility will rise or fall in the future?

Discussion in 'Options' started by nxt7, Apr 15, 2016.

  1. Good lord, you're so confused, man...
     
    #41     Apr 16, 2016
  2. rmorse

    rmorse Sponsor

    Sure. I buy 1000 XYZ at 100 and sell 10 Jan 100 calls for $5.00. You do the other side. The stock moves up to 115 in three months. If you exercise your calls early, and I get assigned, I lock in my profit early, don't have to hold that position until expiration, releasing margin, and no longer have the risk of the stock dropping.
     
    #42     Apr 16, 2016
  3. rmorse

    rmorse Sponsor

    MTM only relates to ignoring unrealized gains as unrealized and booking them at their EOD market prices. For tax purposes, this is done on December 31st.
     
    #43     Apr 16, 2016
  4. Huh? You're telling me that PNL is irrelevant? That it has no impact on the position itself? I have a feeling that your broker might have a slightly different view of how things work...
     
    #44     Apr 16, 2016
  5. botpro

    botpro

    You would make a net loss of about $8075 :D Resulting from a -146.15% loss in the options position. The gains of the stock aren't enough to cover that huge options loss...

    But you have not mentioned any vola changes which was the main dispute.
    So, in above calc I used and kept the same HV=20%.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2016
    #45     Apr 16, 2016
  6. rmorse

    rmorse Sponsor

    At 115, if the calls are trading at parity, I'm up $5000. If the calls are trading at parity, the IVol is not relevant. The Vega on these DITM options is very low.
     
    #46     Apr 16, 2016
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  7. botpro

    botpro

    As said my calc shows a net loss $8075.
    But the topic was about change in (historical) volatility.
     
    #47     Apr 16, 2016
  8. rmorse

    rmorse Sponsor

    You never asked a question about "change in (historical) volatility". You focused on american vs European style options and of you are short or long. And you get me worried when you say, "As said my calc shows a net loss $8075." It is not possible for me to lose money if the stock is up 15 points and I have a buy write. And, it not possible for you to lose more than 5 points if the stock is up and you have the synthetic put.
     
    #48     Apr 16, 2016
  9. botpro

    botpro

    No, in nearly all of my postings in this thread you can find also "volatility changes" mentioned together with the others.
    Or, are some people perhaps really trying to predict the IV of each (or some) strike(s), instead of the HV of the underlying? I would assume vola change means change in HV.

    Why are you worried? As said, the calc used a const HV.
     
    #49     Apr 16, 2016
  10. samuel11

    samuel11

    omg you are hilariously ignorant :D

    Long stock at 100 (1000 sh) and short 10 calls at 105 strike for 5.

    As rmorse said, if he gets assigned on the calls (his shares are taken away), he receives 105 * 100 * 10 = 105,000

    He originally paid 100,000 for the shares, and received 5,000 for the calls.

    Net P/L = 105,000 + 5,000 - 100,000 = 10,000
     
    #50     Apr 16, 2016