Thanks...makes sense. Are you watching the delta of the position and adjusting for severe imbalences? IOW do you enter with the idea of being delta neutral or do you have a market bias? Reason for all the questions is that I've been playing with a similar strat, selling the straddle/strangle (usually legging into it when market is technically overbought/oversold. Then using the ES cash to create a more delta neutral position. So if I'm greater than -50 delta I'll look for opportunity to go long on the cash and if I'm larger than +50 delta I'll take the opportunities to short.
What I meant above was playing with a straddle-type options, for some sophisticated traders, a strategy like Double Slingshot (playing in either direction) may be used. This thread is designed for vacationer-type players/investors. Therefore sophisticated traders who don't like collars for limited profits may also consider to use SlingshotHedge type strategy: Long 100% UL, Sell 200% OTM call, Buy 100% put & Buy 200% FOTM call.
Another typo just found below. The abobe Short signal was actually for the Week 3Jan2011, producing a losing week. For the Week 10Jan2011, signal was Long 1262.00, a winning week.
Another note is due to their equivalent profit/loss profile, some traders may prefer using vertical spreads, rather than collars. This topic has been discussed many times before on some other threads.
This thread is not intented to discuss any adjustments of collars, backspreads as dynamically converted from vertical spreads (collars equivalents), or calendar collars. People interested in this complexity/aspect of collar spreads can go to some threads like the one (There are more than 30 threads on this site talking about collars, as of today.) below for further discussions. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186575&highlight=collar*
Perhaps (and naturally) not everyone is familiar with collars. Hopefully this thread would be useful not only for vacationer-style investors, but also for some layman traders. Q http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collar_(finance) In finance a collar is an option strategy that limits the range of possible positive or negative returns on an underlying to a specific range. A collar is created by an investor being: * Long the underlying * long a put option at strike price X (called the "floor") * Short a call option at strike price (X+a) (called the "cap") These latter two are a long Risk reversal position. So: Underlying - Risk_Reversal = Collar The premium income from selling the call reduces the cost of purchasing the put. The amount saved depends on the strike price of the two options. If the premium of the long call is exactly equal to the cost of the put, the strategy is known as a "zero cost collar". [Strictly speaking the name should be "zero premium collar" as the cost of holding the position can be potentially high if the price of the underlying rises above the strike level of the call.] At expiration the value (but not the profit) of the collar will be: * zero if the price of the underlying is below X * positive if the price of the underlying is between X and (X + a) The maximum value occurs for any price of the underlying above X+a. Example Consider an investor who owns one hundred shares of a stock with a current share price of $5. An investor could construct a collar by buying one put with a strike price of $3 and selling one call with a strike price of $7. The collar would ensure that the gain on the portfolio will be no higher than $2 and the loss will be no worse than $2 (before deducting the net cost of the put option, i.e., the cost of the put option less what is received for selling the call option). There are three possible scenarios when the options expire: * If the stock price is above the $7 strike price on the call he wrote, the person who bought the call from the investor will exercise the purchased call; the investor effectively sells the shares at the $7 strike price. This would lock in a $2 profit for the investor. He only makes a $2 profit (minus fees), no matter how high the share price goes. * If the stock price drops below the $3 strike price on the put then the investor may exercise the put and the person who sold it is forced to buy the investor's 100 shares at $3. The investor loses $2 on the stock, but can only lose $2 (plus fees), no matter how low the price of the stock goes. * If the stock price is between the two strike prices at the expiration date, both options expire unexercised, and the investor is left with the 100 shares whose value is that stock price (x100), plus the cash gained from selling the call option, minus the price paid to buy the put option, minus fees. One source of risk is counterparty risk. If the stock price expires below the $3 floor then the counterparty may default on the put contract, thus creating the potential for losses up to the full value of the stock (plus fees). Why do this? In times of high volatility, or in bear markets, it can be useful to limit the downside risk to a portfolio. One obvious way to do this is to sell the stock. In the above example, if an investor just sold the stock, the investor would get $5. This may be fine, but it poses additional questions. Does the investor have an acceptable investment available to put the money from the sale into? What are the transaction costs associated with liquidating the portfolio? Would the investor rather just hold onto the stock? What are the tax consequences? If it makes more sense to hold on to the stock (or other underlying asset), the investor can limit that downside risk that lies below the strike price on the put in exchange for giving up the upside above the strike price on the call. Another advantage is that the cost of setting up a collar is (usually) free or nearly free.The price received for selling the call is used to buy the putâone pays for the other. Finally, using a collar strategy takes the return from the probable to the definite. That is, when an investor owns a stock (or another underlying asset) and has an expected return, that expected return is only the mean of the distribution of possible returns, weighted by their probability. The investor may get a higher or lower return. When an investor who owns a stock (or other underlying asset) uses a collar strategy, the investor knows that the return can be no higher than the return defined by strike price on the call, and no lower than the return that results from the strike price of the put. References * Hull, John (2005). Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-144565-0. UQ
What others say about collars: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66507&highlight=collar* Q UQ
Of course you can use verticals if you prefer to. Anyway here is a short answer. My guess is most vacationers alike would simply want to know whether the direction of the underlying is right or wrong by how many points for the trade. This type of investors would think the bought/sold options associated with the underlying are basically peripherals (to the underlying). Constantly checking the prices of associated options (or even learning complicate options or various verticals strategies) would be too much for them sometimes.