Understanding HIGH & LOW VIX

VIX at 16: If you check today's IV behaviour, they were not spiking much even with decent delta move in BNF. The movement was subtle, giving some time to adjust. So someone having good adjustment mechanism can stay in the game longer.

1/

Q: Sir why call option premiums are higher the put?

A: It usually happens when there is big difference between spot & future.

Example

BN Spot: 35110
BN Future: 35300
BN Synthetic Future: 35150

It depends on our perception of what is ATM & accordingly match the calls & puts.

10 mistakes in my 14 years of trading as an option seller 🧵

1. Staying neutral all the time. Majority of the years i have been a neutral option seller. I now realise that having a little sense of direction would have given me an added advantage with better utilisation of capital & also leverage (till the time it was available).

2. Too much importance on adjustments. Initially like most of the new option sellers, i had this notion that i can perfect my adjustment skills for any market conditions. Ofcourse i was wrong. Market is supreme & we need to respect it at times.

3. Not giving importance to greeks. For initial 6 years i didn't even know the existence of greeks. Since i started using them, option selling has become rather less complicated on the contrary of what most people believe.

4. Having too much confidence on the certainty of theta decay. Enough is said about it already. Theta decay is not an edge.

THREAD ON IRONFLY

These days the most preferred strategy for option sellers due to improved margins is IRONFLY. It's essentially a short straddle with long strangle. Long strangle acting as 'WINGS', which help in capping the unlimited risk associated with a short straddle.(1/n)

You can also view the position as a combination of Cal & Put credit spreads, if that makes it more easy for you.

There are 3 important things to understand while trading this strategy:

1) Initial size of the Wings
2) Risk Management
3) Adjustments

(2/n)

Since we are selling an ATM straddle, the 1st question is how far our wings should be? Ideally i sell .50 delta straddle & buy .20 or .10 OTM strangle, depending on my view on volatility. So the distance of wings depends on the IV setup. Higher the IVs, greater the distance.(3/n)

If you don't understand greeks, then ideally with 30 days to expiry (dte), wings should be around 300pts either side. If your trading in weekly then it should be not more than 200pts. Higher the premiums, higher the distance as we have more cushion of theta. (4/n)

It is important to understand that we need to reduce the distance of wings with time so as to manage our RISK in gap openings or sudden volatile move. So for eg. if you started with 300pt wings with 30dte, the wings wouldn't give the same protection when there is 7dte. (5/n)

THREAD ON DELTA (The most important GREEK)

Many traders don't indulge in understanding GREEKS because they think they are very complicated.

There are 4 primary greeks:

Delta
Gamma
Theta
Vega

In my experience, understanding DELTA is enough to take benefit of greeks.(1/n)

Delta measures the rate of change of options price based on the directional movement of the underlying.

So this means we can know in advance (theoretically) how much an option will move with the underlying & so we can prepare our strategies accordingly. (2/n)

Value of delta varies between 0 & 1 for calls and -1 & 0 for puts. This figure tells how much an option price will change, when the underlying moves 1 point. So example a delta of .2 of call indicates that for every 1 point change in the underlying, the price will move .2 (3/n)

For option writers who want to trade in neutral strategies like straddle, strangle, ratios, calendar etc, delta can be very helpful. So be it any complex strategy, knowing the NET DELTA can give you an idea of how your strategy will perform in different scenarios. (4/n)

Net delta is just the sum of the deltas of all the bull options (call+ & put-) minus the bear options (call- & put+).

So if we can track this, we will always be in the know of how much exposed our position is. It makes it easier then to adjust our position. (5/n)

Chasing extended #stocks is often not rewarded! What's extended?

1) >70% above EMA 200
2) Up 3 days in a row
3) >3 pullbacks on the EMA 21
4) >5% above trading base without pullback
5) >10% in one day It's better to wait for a consolidation before you enter.

Momentum always fade before it reverses. No abrupt reversal in it.
U can see in the pic below, it always passess through a choppy zone, before trend reversal to give a clear momentum.

With a huge gap up and no follow through today, price is still not bearish
means no short now

see stocks where open = high/low .. and see how the candle is progressing.. if going strong then the trend can continue for the day :)
also keep lookout for the OI or volume change from yesterday if big enough, then major action is on the cards

Before making ur trade entry or even before making a bias of trend as either bullish or bearish, do u use any objective measures to define the trend based on price, volume and momentum?
Price will always go back and forth move no matter how strong the trend is.

1/4

So an objecctive way of defining the trend as bullish or bearish will help u to stay out of counter trend trades which usually not only hit SL, but slippages tend to be quite high in case of those trades. If u dont believe that, u can either check ur journal .

2/4

In the pic, an example was shown with objectively defining the price trend based on momenum. If price is bullish then either take long entry while price pulls back on 20 SMA or when it makes a new breakout, its very very safe method.

3/4

Even one can use simple MACD for defining the trend. Indicator doesnt have any magic, be it custom made or default one. Trick is in identifying the bias when its quite clear and obvious and not to trade till then.

4/4