Low VIX doesn't necessarily mean ideal time for option buyers. If premiums aren't falling consistently during the day in low VIX, it usually gives those small delta & IV spikes, just enough to irritate both option buyers & sellers. Same happens when VIX is ultra high.

@SarangSood Sarang bhai according to you what number of vix is ideal for option buyers and what is that for option sellers? And is there any common number which is ideal for both?
— Dhaval bhatt (@Dhavalb55011726) July 14, 2021

More from Sarang Sood

Sarang Sood
@SarangSood

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)

Sarang Sood
@SarangSood

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/

VIX at 20: The same delta move will be more fierce, coupled with rise in premiums. When premiums rise with movement, then the adjustment cost increases exponentially. The premiums can fall back at EOD, but the damage is done if caught in the spike.

2/

After talking to few traders, their backtest result was in favor of high VIX of 2020, rather than 2017-19. The key flaw in the backtest were the adjustments which are not easy to calculate. Combination of high theta & fixed SL during high VIX, the IV crush is cashed at EOD.

3/

Neutral option sellers who don't adjust & have fixed SL on a static straddle will not be able to benefit highly in low VIX. The straddle which moves away from ATM will increase no matter what. But if we keep on rolling our strikes, then we get good realisation of theta.

4/

I have made majority of my profits in option selling when VIX was at 13-15, mostly just relying on my adjustments. Since 2020 with high VIX, adjustments stopped working because of increase in the frequency of delta + IV spike combos & so had to shift to directional trading.

5/

Sarang Sood
@SarangSood

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.

Sarang Sood
@SarangSood

A THREAD

Topic: HOW TO TRADE IN RISING PREMIUMS SCENARIO

Option sellers specially Straddle sellers feel that rising premiums give them excellent opportunity to make easy money. So what they are seeing is the theta aspect of options & ignoring the delta/gamma/vega forces.

1/

With rising premiums come high delta moves. There is a reason why premiums are all increasing up in the first place. High uncertainty & fear is what's controlling the markets during such times. So a volatile 200 point move in nifty is always on the cards.

2/

Adjusting during such delta moves involves high slippages. Such costs go in our system & are irrecoverable. So if the ATM straddle is around 400 & after 200 point downmove, the next straddle is at 450 & the loss is not just 50points but compounded much more.

3/

Also there are chances that there is no decay throughout the day. So a straddle seller has to take that heavy risk of carrying it forward & chances of gap openings are high during such times. If converted into Ironfly, then the cost of the wings is too expensive.

4/

Thus cutting down the initial credit significantly.

There will also be very few instances when premiums don't fall till expiry day. So with each delta move the cost of holding a straddle gets accumulated & pressure keeps mounting for the stubborn option sellers.

5/

Sarang Sood
@SarangSood

AN ESSENTIAL THREAD ON OPTION ADJUSTMENTS

Adjustments can be done in variety of ways & depends totally at the discretion of the trader. To get a clear mind we need to know the following:

1) What to follow,
2) How to make the adjustment,
3) When to make the adjustment. (1/5)

1) We need a way to measure the imbalance created by a delta move in an option strategy. We can measure through premiums, distance from index or delta of greeks (i personally use delta). So basically whatever way of measure we use, both sides should be equal in it. (2/5)

2) Adjustment can either be done by selling extra quantity of profitable side, buying the quantity of losing side or shifting both the sides. I personally shift the sides because with extra quantities our Gamma gets imbalanced & the risk increases if market reverses. (3/5)

3) While the first 2pts are objective, when to make an adjustment is totally subjective. It can be fine tuned through experience. It also depends upon what strategy u are using. For a short strangle the adjustment required is faster than a ratio spread or an IC. (4/5)

Straddle/strangle require faster adjustments because they are more vulnerable to delta or IV spike. Any other strategies like ratio spreads, ironfly, butterfly have some bought option, which can negate the spikes for a while. So we need a defined system as to WHEN to adjust.(5/n)

More from Optionslearnings

itrade(DJ)
@ITRADE191

@BankniftyA ....YAAD AYA KUCH 😃😃😃

itrade(DJ)
@ITRADE191

@niki_poojary Thanks

HMK alias MANOJ
@scorpiomanojFRM

#Learning Those who are interested in options... Here is an old tweet on gamma scalping ...

#Straddle #Gammascalping #Learning Success In option writing can be achieved only by adjustments based on the market developments. The same goes with straddle strategy as well. A method called gamma scalping helps to minimize potential loss in straddles. pic.twitter.com/qgSmgd8RWM
— HMK alias MANOJ (@scorpiomanojFRM) June 19, 2020

Subhadip Nandy
@SubhadipNandy16

Since 99% of my own trades are in options, the calls I give are also on options. I am of the firm belief, that a basic knowledge of option greeks is necessary for any trader aspiring to trade options. For this, there are numerous books and even more resources on the net/youtube

However, a trader trying to learn Greeks face the problem of information overload. The problems are mainly 3
1. Either the text is too mathematical
2. Or the explanation is too simple just skimming the surface
3. In some cases, outright wrong info ( specially on youtube)

I have decided to make a video on options greeks in which I will try to explain simply ( without the maths 😀) but will go a bit more in-depth so that the info is usable by traders doing actual trades

Spent the major part of today designing the ppt ( 40 slides), hope to upload the video in the next few days. I will also provide the names of other resources which I have referred in making the video so that viewers can refer those texts for a more comprehensive understanding.

The video will be from the view of a trader/practitioner and not just a theoretical discussion.

I sincerely hope starters will be benefitted from my effort 🙏

Chartsbank
@Chartsbank

Sharing a simplest ever to trade options.

Chalk out Support & Resistance.
Play contra.
Like make bullish positions on support
Or
Bearish on resistance.

Bullish means sell ATM PE & OTM CE
or bearish means ATM CE & OTM PE

Exit if support or resistance broken.
As it gonna be a trending day.
Hold another leg to breakeven.

If moves comes into favour, one gonna make awesome.

1) 💜 THE EVENT 2020 - THE 1221 MULTIDIMENSIONAL STARGATE 💜
PLEIADIAN LIGHT FORCES TRANSMISSIONS - 12182020
CHANNELED BY MICHAEL LOVE
A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE STARSEEDS OF NEW EARTH, FOR IMMEDIATE PLANETARY BROADCAST…
PRELUDE:
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS DERIVED FROM DIRECT,

2) DECODED ETHERIC TRANSMISSIONS FROM BENEVOLENT LIGHT FORCES DOCKED IN EARTH’S SOLAR SYSTEM AND SOME OF THE DATA COMES DIRECTLY FROM CERTAIN INSIDE EARTH ALLIANCE MEMBERS KNOWN AS THE WHITE HATS, AND THE GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD STRATEGICALLY PLACED IN KEY POSITIONS OF POWER BY

3) THE GALACTICS ON THE SURFACE OF PLANET EARTH!
THE DATA HEREIN IS RECEIVED AND TRANSMITTED FROM THE 5D LEVEL! THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE STARSEEDS OF EARTH!
GREAT ONES,
WE HAVE SPOKEN OF THE EVENT 2020 THIS ENTIRE EARTH YEAR AS ALL PLEIADIAN AND EARTH ALLIANCE INTEL

4) SHOWS INDEED THAT A MAJOR COSMIC EVENT IS GOING TO OCCUR IN ONLY 3 EARTH DAYS FROM NOW!
ON DECEMBER 21, 2020, A MAGNIFICENT CELESTIAL STARGATE WILL OPEN IN THE HEAVENS WHICH MARKS THE DAWN OF THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF AQUARIUS AND THE 1ST DAY OF THE SATYUGA OF CENTRAL SUNLIGHT!

5) IN THE MORNING HOURS OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE, THE LONG-AWAITED NEW ERA OF LIGHT WILL FINALLY DAWN AND THE NEW 5D EARTH WILL BE BORN!
THE COSMIC GATES WILL BE FULLY OPENED ON 12/21/20 ALLOWING POWERFUL STREAMS OF COSMIC LIGHT TO ENTER EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE, UPGRADING ALL SENTIENT

$MaMaMia \U0001f1ec\U0001f1f7\U0001f1e8\U0001f1fe\U0001f1e6\U0001f1f2 SupportGreekProducts$

MaMaMia 🇬🇷🇨🇾🇦🇲 Support...
@MaMaMia73189983

Following @BAUDEGS I have experienced hateful and propagandist tweets time after time. I have been shocked that an academic community would be so reckless with their publications. So I did some research.
The question is:
Is this an official account for Bahcesehir Uni (Bau)?

Bahcesehir Uni, BAU has an official website https://t.co/ztzX6uj34V which links to their social media, leading to their Twitter account @Bahcesehir

BAU’s official Twitter account

BAU has many departments, which all have separate accounts. Nowhere among them did I find @BAUDEGS
@BAUOrganization @ApplyBAU @adayBAU @BAUAlumniCenter @bahcesehirfbe @baufens @CyprusBau @bauiisbf @bauglobal @bahcesehirebe @BAUintBatumi @BAUiletisim @BAUSaglik @bauebf @TIPBAU

Nowhere among them was @BAUDEGS to find