All posts by T3 Live
7 Things to Know Before Your First Options Trade
Welcome back to our Introduction to Options series! By now we’ve covered: 1) The ABC’s of Puts and Calls 2) How Implied Volatility Works 3) Theta: The Options Trader’s Kryponite 4) 3 Simple Options Strategies Beginners Should Know Today, we’re going to close out our series with 7 key things you need to know before you place your first options trade. These simple tips will help avoid common pitfalls that can destroy your profitability, so we hope you enjoy it! 1) Start with 1 Contract Yes, you want to swing for the fences and make a big fat pile of cold hard cash with your first options trade. But winning traders know that we’re not in a spring. We’re in a marathon. We recommend that you start slowly. So if you want to buy call options, just start with 1 contract, and carefully track your trade’s progress. Likewise, if you’re interested in multi-leg strategies like bull/bear call spreads or iron condors, just use one contract for each leg of your trades. A big part of your options trading education will come from actual trading — so make that education as inexpensive as possible! It’s very easy to make mistakes with options trading, particularly when it comes to order entry, and it’s best to start with small dollar amounts and work your way up. 2) Be Careful Getting in the Pool Naked Think twice before putting on naked short options positions. A naked short position is one in which you are short call or put options without an offsetting trade that limits your risk. The risk is astronomical and if the underlying stock makes a big move against you, your account will be damaged. So before putting on trades, consider the risk-reward, and makes sure the odds are in your favor. Shorting options can be very lucrative — especially in a volatile market when premiums are high — but you must be very careful. We recommend getting the guidance of a more experienced options trader before considering such a trade. Shorting options is especially risky ahead of earnings and other events. Case in point: take a look at this chart of online retail giant Amazon.com (AMZN). As you can see, it gapped up on 10/27/2017, the day after it reported a stellar third-quarter earnings report: Let’s say that when Amazon was trading around $980, you thought there was no way it could get above $1000. Ahead of earnings, you could have shorted the December $1,000 calls for around $28. So for each call you shorted, you would receive a credit of $2,800. Let’s look at what happened to this option’s price after earnings. The December $1,000 call closed at $25.15 on October 26 before the earnings report hit. And after Amazon beat expectations and skyrocketed, the option opened at $70.80. It then went over $100. It’s now trading at $131. Let’s assume you covered at $100 on the dot to keep things simple. This means you: Went short at $28 ($2,700 per contract) Covered the short at $100 ($10,000 per contract) That’s a net loss of $71, or $7,200 PER CONTRACT. A 3-contract trade would have put you out $21,600! So please, know what you are getting into when shorting options. And watch the calendar so you are aware of any stock-moving events. 3) Don’t Go Overboard with Out-of-the-Money Options In our last article on basic options strategies, we showed you this table explaining the differences between in-the-money options and out-of-the-money options: As you can see, out-of-the-money options have a higher chance of expiring worthless. But many new options traders love them because they have a lower up front cost. Beginners especially love far-out-of-the money options because they look so darn cheap. But there’s a reason they look so cheap… it’s because they’re lottery tickets. They don’t cost much, and there’s a low chance they’ll actually pay off. That’s not to say they’re inherently bad. Just be aware that with out-of-the-money options, especially those that are far-out-of-the-money, you’re rolling the dice. Plus, be aware that far out-of-the-money options can be very illiquid. It’s not unusual to get in a position (often at a bad price, because market makers often jack up the prices on out-of-the-money options), and be unable to get out because no one is interested in buying your particular options. It’s just like the roach motel: you check in but you don’t check out! 4) Be Careful with Your Entry Prices Like stocks, options have a bid and ask price. (the ‘ask’ is also called the ‘offer’) The bid is the price buyers are willing to pay. The ask is the price at which sellers are willing to sell. But if you are always buying at the ask and selling at the ask, you’re getting ripped off. Let’s look at red hot streaming media play Roku (ROKU). With the stock trading at $45.27, here are the prices of the December $44, $45, $46, and $47 calls. This is an extreme example so you can see just how easily you can get fooled by looking at the bid and ask. Let’s say we’re looking at the $44 calls. The market maker would LOVE to sell us those options at $6.80 (the ask). That’s like walking into a used car dealership and taking the first price the salesman offers up. Odds are we can actually get filled somewhere near the middle of the bid and ask. The midpoint of the $5.50 bid and $6.80 offer is $6.15. So if we bid $6.20-$6.30 or so, odds are we’d get filled. Heck, we may even get filled at the exact midpoint of $6.15. But let’s say we got filled at $6.30. That’s a savings of $0.50, or $50 per contract. On a 10-contract trade, that’s a difference of $500. This is an extreme example. Roku is a fast-moving new IPO. Options on tThese types of stocks typically have extremely wide-bid ask spreads. But we want you to understand the importance of not blindly placing orders at the bid
Continue Reading -->3 Options Strategies for New Traders
Welcome back to our Introduction to Options series! By now we’ve covered: 1) The ABC’s of Puts and Calls 2) How Implied Volatility Works 3) Theta: The Options Trader’s Kryponite Now we’re going to dig into 3 basic options trading strategies that are perfect for beginners. We’re going to teach you 3 options trading strategies that allow you to speculate on 3 scenarios: A stock making a big move higher A stock making a small move higher A stock doing nothing But before you start, there’s one thing you must understand about options trading: for every stock scenario you can think of, there are 1 million ways to play it with options. Let’s say Amazon.com (AMZN) is trading at $1,000, and you think it’s going to $1,500 in one year. Here are 7 ways a trader could use options to speculate that move: Buy call options Buy bull call spreads Sell put options Sell bull put spreads Buy a butterfly spread Buy a risk reversal Buy a call back spread Every strategy has pros and cons, and no single one is best. Please note that all examples in this article are pure hypotheticals — they are not endorsements of these particular trades. Strategy #1: Buying Call Options to Speculate on a Big Rally At the time we’re writing this, Gilead (GILD) was trading at $75.00 Let’s assume we are very bullish on the stock, and believe it can hit $100 in the next 12 months. The simplest way to speculate on such a movement is to buy call options. You’re probably asking yourself yeah, but which ones? We can choose between in-the-money, at-the-money, and out-of-the-money calls. As a quick reminder, for call options, in-the-money options have strike prices below the current stock price. At-the-money options have strike prices that are about the same as the current stock price. And out-of-the-money options have strike prices above the current strike price. You can see relationship here: So which one is best? In the money, at the money, or out of the money calls? The answer is… none of them and all of them. Let’s look at the differences. Here’s a table detailing the major differences between in and out-of-the-money options: Let’s look at some numbers to illustrate these differences. Here are the prices of GILD call options with 24 days to expiration, with the stock trading at $75: The at-the-money $75 call is priced at $1.98. The in-the-money $70 call is $5.40. And the out-of-the-money $80 call is just $0.65. And as you can see, the in-the-money options cost more up front, and the out-of-the-money options cost less. This is because the in-the-money options have intrinsic value, and have a higher chance of being in the money at expiration. And that’s the tradeoff: you pay more for in-the-money options, but the option has a higher likelihood of being in the money. On the flipside, out-of-the-money options cost less up front, but give you a lower likelihood of success. And because they cost less, out-of-the-money options can give you a bigger percentage gain if the underlying stock makes a big move in your favor. Let’s take a look at possible payoffs of each option at expiration under a variety of price scenarios. On this table, here is what each option would be worth at expiration under different price scenarios: Let’s assume GILD goes flat, and is at $75 at expiration. Focus on the middle column of that table. As you can see, if GILD went to $75, the $65 calls would still be worth $10 ($75 – $65) — just a little less than the $10.77 cost. And the $75, $80, and $85 calls would be worth zero. Now let’s take a look at the P&L of these options: As you can see on the right column on the table, if GILD is at $85 at expiration, the $65, $70, $75, and $80 calls would have value: The $85 calls would expire out of the money and be worthless, giving a 100% loss of the $0.19 premium paid. The $65 calls would give you the largest dollar profit at $9.23. Here’s a third table showing the P&L on a on a percentage basis: As you can see, the $80 calls would give you the highest profit at $669% They cost just $0.65, and rose to $4.35. But remember the trade offs we discussed earlier: Out-of-the-money options cost less up front, but give you a lower chance of success. And because they cost less, out-of-the-money options can give you a bigger percentage gain if the underlying stock moves in your favor. We can also choose between shorter-dated and longer-dated options. If you recall from our article on time’s role in options pricing, longer-dated options cost more than shorter-dated options. As you can see on this chart, the more days there are to expiration, the higher the price of the option is: The call option expiring in 3 days costs just $0.88. And the one with 31 days to expiration costs $2.77. Through this options series, we’ve compared options to car insurance. A call option is an insurance contract that pays off when the stock rises. Ask yourself this: would it cost more to insure your car for 1 year? Or 2 years? Obviously, you pay more for 2 years of insurance coverage than 1. Why? Because over a 2-year period, there’s a much greater chance of something happening than over 1 year. So how should you choose which call options to trade? There is no simple answer. We recommend figuring out where you think the underlying stock could go within a certain time frame. Then, decide what’s more important: paying more money up front with a higher chance of success (in or at-the-money options), or paying less up front with a lower chance of success (out of the money options). Strategy #2: Buying a Bull Call Spread to Speculate on a Small Rally At the time of this writing on November 9, 2017, shares of
Continue Reading -->Trader’s Digest: The 10 Stories We’re Reading Right Now
Wonder what traders are talking about today?We’re here with the top 10 stories we’re sharing with colleagues today, covering topics like:The stock market in the first year since President Trump’s 2016 election victoryThe post-earnings collapse in fallen tech star Snap (SNAP)Whether the lucrative, exciting world of prop trading is right for youAnd more!So check out these links right now and get up to speed:1) A year in: U.S. stock market under Trump’s shadow (Reuters) One year ago, when it became clear that Republican Donald Trump had pulled a historic upset to defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton to the U.S. presidency, futures in the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled nearly 900 points.Read the Story ==>2) Snap plunges after huge revenue miss (CNBC) Snap dropped 16 percent after it missed on revenue during its third quarter earnings Tuesday. Snap also wrote down $39.9 million as a result of losses from unsold SpectaclesRead the Story ==>3) The Ultimate Guide to Prop vs. Retail Trading (T3 Live) If you want to be an active trader in individual stocks, you really only have two general paths: Become a professional trader (prop trader) or trade in a retail account. Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of both so you can figure out the right path for you.Continued Reading ==>4) America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning (Bloomberg) The so-called retail apocalypse has become so ingrained in the U.S. that it now has the distinction of its own Wikipedia entry. The industry’s response to that kind of doomsday description has included blaming the media for hyping the troubles of a few well-known chains as proof of a systemic meltdown.Continued Reading ==>5) How Implied Volatility Works (T3 Live) We’re going to dig into the single most important options pricing concept: implied volatility. If you don’t understand implied volatility, you don’t understand options. Period!Continued Reading ==>6) Ralph Northam wins Virginia’s governor race (The Economist)Observers braced for a late night. Virginia’s polls close at 7pm, and precincts in the diverse, densely populated suburbs of Washington, DC usually take a long time to come in.Continue Reading ==>7) Trading Scans: The Foundation for Winning Trades (T3 Live) Take a look at our latest trading scans, which can help you find potential capitulations and explosions out of consolidations. Get our exact metrics and replicate them yourself.Continue Reading ==>8) Broadcom takes page from Drexel playbook with Qualcomm offer (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Broadcom is using a tactic popularized by corporate raiders in the 1980s to convince Qualcomm and its shareholders that it has the means to complete the biggest tech deal ever.Continue Reading ==>9) Deloitte Report: Over 26,000 Blockchain Projects Began in 2016 (CoinDesk) More than 26,000 new projects related to blockchain were created on code repository GitHub last year, according to data collected by Deloitte. For its new report – titled “Evolution of Blockchain Technology: Insights from the GitHub Platform” and published today – the professional services firm drew information from the development platform, which plays home to the code for over 86,000 blockchain initiatives, including major projects like bitcoin.Continue Reading ==> 10) Denzel Washington on the Power of Falling Forward (NY Times) In 2011, Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington explained why you need to embrace failure to be ready for success.
Continue Reading -->Trader’s Digest: The 10 Stories We’re Reading Right Now
Wonder what traders are talking about today?We’re here with the top 10 stories we’re sharing with colleagues today, covering topics like:President Trump’s choice to replace Janet Yellen as Fed ChairThe Fed’s rate decision, and what to look for in DecemberHow Sami Abusaad scored over $12K in a single tradeAnd more!So check out these links right now and get up to speed:1) Trump to Tap Fed’s Jerome Powell for Fed Chairman (Wall Street Journal) The White House has notified Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell that President Donald Trump intends to nominate him as the next chairman of the central bank, according to a person familiar with the matter.Read the Story ==>2) Fed holds off on rate hike, opens door to December (CNBC) The Federal Reserve declined to raise interest rates at its policy meeting this week and said the late-summer hurricanes likely will not have much longer-term impact on overall economic activity. There was little in the post-meeting statement Wednesday to indicate that the Fed would hold off on raising rates again soon.Read the Story ==>3) Sami Abusaad: $12K+ in 1 Profit in 1 Day with Nautilus (T3 Live) In this special video, Nightly Game Plan Moderator Sami Abusaad takes you through an Earnings Play in fitness equipment company Nautilus (NLS). On Monday, October 30, Sami went short Nautilus at $16.35, just ahead of earnings. Sami got out Tuesday morning at $13.00 for a $3.35 per share profit. Continued Reading ==>4) Facebook Tops Sales Projections While Russia Ad Inquiry Unfolds (Bloomberg)Facebook Inc. reported another quarter of record sales, underscoring how far removed the social network’s business prospects are from the raging public debate about Russian political ads on its platform.Continued Reading ==>5) What’s the Economic Cost of Brexit? (Pineapples Tell a Tale) Britain is increasingly grappling with the bewildering economic consequences of its pending departure from the European Union. For one company, Nim’s Fruit Crisps, the impact is measured in the soaring cost of pineapple.Continued Reading ==>6) Catalonia: Puigdemont ‘will not return’ to Spain for questioning (BBC)Sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont will not return to Spain to answer charges including rebellion, his Belgian lawyer has said. Speaking to the Associated Press, Paul Bekaert suggested Mr Puigdemont should instead be questioned in Belgium where he has been since Monday.Continue Reading ==>7) Options in Play: An Event-Driven CELG Trade (T3 Live) Earnings season is packed with opportunity if you know where to look. CELG came into the quarter reeling from a 1-2 punch of a downgrade and drug trial setback. There was reason to believe the stock still had room to move (either way), however, so we thought it set up well for a strangle into numbers.Continue Reading ==>8) Luxury auto brands are scrambling to avoid a blue Christmas (NPR) When financial markets surge to new records, sales of luxury cars usually rise, too. Instead, October U.S. auto sales reports on Wednesday showed that a collapse in sales of luxury sedans is accelerating.Continue Reading ==>9) The Dangerous Reason Why Bitcoin Just Hit Yet Another New High (Fortune)Bitcoin just keeps on rising in value. Just more than a week after breaking $6,000 for the first time, the Bitcoin price reached another new high of $6,300 a few days ago, and is now on track to set a new all-time record for the fourth day in a row. Continue Reading ==> 10) Hilde Lysiak, Reporter, Author, 10-Year Old (NY Times) The first book in the “Hilde Cracks the Case” series opens with 9-year-old Hilde Lysiak outside her local police station in the town of Selinsgrove, Pa., following up on a tip about a break-in on Orange Street. The on-duty officer refuses to divulge any information, but if she’s going to break the story in her newspaper, The Orange Street News, she has to investigate using six basic reporting questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Continue Reading ==>
Continue Reading -->Sami Abusaad: $12K+ in Profit in 1 Day with Nautilus
In this special video, Nightly Game Plan Moderator Sami Abusaad takes you through an Earnings Play in fitness equipment company Nautilus (NLS). On Monday, October 30, Sami went short Nautilus at $16.35, just ahead of earnings. Sami got out Wednesday morning at $13.00 for a $3.35 per share profit. In total, Sami earned $12,115.50 in this one-day trade! (watch the video to see Sami’s actual account statement) (click here to join the Nightly Game Plan and join Sami in these incredible trades!) Watch this video and learn about: Sami’s $34,000+ in profits for October How Sami measures expectations to figure out whether to go long or short The anatomy of Sami’s $12K+ in one day Nautilus play, including the entry, exit, and management plan The idea behind the unique Earnings Play Strategy, which is part of the Nightly Game Plan swing trading manual 24 successful earnings plays including Community Health Systems (CYH), Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO), and eBay (EBAY) Click here to learn about Sami’s Nightly Game Plan P.S. Earnings Season is still going strong. Be sure to check out this FREE Earnings Season resource: The Ultimate Guide to Trading Earnings Season
Continue Reading -->T3’s Top 10: Our Most Popular Articles for October 2017
What’s popular with the thousands of traders that make up the T3 Live community? You’re about to find out with our top 10 articles for October 2017, ranked by visits to our website. We’ve got a special sneak preview of Redler Ultimate Access, 3 options education articles, tips for picking stocks to day trade, and more! We’ll start with number 10 and work our way down to number 1: 10) Scott Redler’s Morning Call Video: Ultimate Access Edition To celebrate the first-ever Redler Ultimate Access weekend of trading and education, T3 Live is publishing today’s Morning Call video as a bonus for our readers. 9) Theta: The Options Trader’s Kryponite Welcome back to our Introduction to Options series! By now we’ve covered The ABC’s of Puts and Call and How Implied Volatility Works. Now, we’re going to explore another critical factor in options pricing: time 8) How to Start Trading Options: The ABC’s of Puts and Calls Are you ready to start trading options?’ Then you’re in luck. You’re about to get a 100% FREE crash course in options trading, comprised of 5 in-depth articles. 7) Scott Redler: How I Traded AMZN Before and After Earnings In this special excerpt from Redler All-Access, T3 Live Chief Strategic Officer Scott Redler broke down how he traded Amazon (AMZN) before and after its huge third-quarter earnings report. 6) 5 Ways to Know If Your Day Trade Should Last All Day Have you heard the “let your winners run?” How about “take what the market gives you” or “never let a winner turn into a loser?” While these idioms can seem like direct contradictions, they are all truths in trading that each apply to certain contexts. 5) How Implied Volatility Works In our introduction to options trading, we discussed some basics of options, like the differences between calls and puts, how options contracts work, and why options is a zero sum game. Now we’re going to dig into the single most important options pricing concept: implied volatility. 4) Deadly Waves Spotted 30 Years After Black Monday Because of the two dramatic downturns this century, investors have gone passive thinking this protects them when in reality, it probably will lead to greater risk when the virtuous circle of ETF buying revolves in the other direction. Once a parabolic arc breaks and sentiment is pierced, there is no telling how low the low can be. 3) Sami Abusaad: 32 Stocks I’m Watching for Earnings Season In this special video, Nightly Game Plan Moderator Sami Abusaad walks you through his earnings season swing trading watchlist. With volatility so low, not many trades triggered this week, so Sami’s going to take you through the 32 stocks Sami is watching for potential opportunities this earnings season: 2) 6 Tips for Picking the Right Stocks for Day Trading If you ever find yourself asking yourself “what should I trade now,” then this article is for you. We’ve put together a list of 6 simple, effective tips for picking the right stocks for day trading. 1) 9 Tips for Picking the Right Stocks for Swing Trading As a swing trader, one of the most important decisions you’ll every make is choosing which stocks to trade. You can learn all the winning setups in the world, but if you trade the wrong stocks, you’re going to lose money.
Continue Reading -->Sami Abusaad: Breaking Down a $5,774.21 Trading Day
In this special video, Nightly Game Plan Moderator Sami Abusaad takes you through his swing trading watchlist, and how he’s successfully trading through earnings season. You’ll get his take on the broader markets, how he’s playing the names on his earnings watchlist, and 4 fresh opportunities he’s playing now: Watch the video and learn about: How Sami made $5,774.21 on earnings plays and options trades in one day Why he is closely watching QQQ’s 20 day moving average A possible breakout failure on QQQ’s monthly chart Grubhub’s (GRUB) weekly buy setup The Weekly Sell Setup in New York Community Bankcorp (NYCB) The picture-perfect breakdown in Arlington Asset (AI) How you can take earnings plays alongside Sami 4 earnings plays Sami may be about to take 2 day trades Sami took in the Black Room Click here to learn about Sami’s Nightly Game Plan P.S. Earnings Season is still going strong. Be sure to check out this FREE Earnings Season resource: The Ultimate Guide to Trading Earnings Season
Continue Reading -->Trader’s Digest: The 10 Stories We’re Reading Right Now
Wonder what traders are talking about today?We’re here with the top 10 stories we’re sharing with colleagues today, covering topics like:Can Apple Overcome iPhone 8 Rumors?Amazon Putting Packages In Your Home When You’re Not ThereHow Changing the World Starts With Making Your BedAnd more!So check out these links right now and get up to speed:1) Scott Redler: Can Apple Overcome iPhone 8 Rumors? (T3 Live) There is lots of talk about soft demand for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 8. There are also rumors that they will run short on iPhone X supplies. So let’s focus on the technicals.Read the Story ==>2) Amazon Can Soon Put Packages in Your Home When You’re Not There – Here’s How it Works (Business Insider) Amazon will now allow deliveries inside your home when no one’s there. It’s part of the new Amazon Key program announced on Wednesday. To participate, customers need to be Amazon Prime members and own some special equipment, including a compatible smart lock and a security camera specially made for the program.Read the Story ==>3) Jeff Cooper: The End of the Volatility Fire Sale (T3 Live) The SPX went flat Tuesday, unable to rally back to prior day’s highs. It appears there is a lot of shorting just as big mutual funds try to keep this leviathan levitating into their October 31 fiscal year-end.Continued Reading ==>4) How A Two-Person Montana Company Ended Up With The Biggest Energy Contract In Puerto Rico (BuzzFeed News)Ten miles south of Whitefish, Montana, a paved road turns into gravel, before turning into forest. On one side, there’s a small horse farm. On the other, signs read “Private Property” and suggest the area is being patrolled in order to prevent poaching. At the end of a long private drive lined with towering pines, an RV is parked on the grass in front of a log and stone cabin.Continued Reading ==>5) US New Home Sales Soar to Highest Level in a Decade (U.S. News) Sales of new U.S. homes jumped last month to the highest level since October 2007, a sign that Americans — unable to find existing homes — are turning to new construction. Damage from last month’s hurricanes may have also inflated the data.Continued Reading ==>6) Google and Cisco Have Teamed Up in the Cloud Wars Against Amazon and Microsoft (Business Insider) Google Cloud has signed a partnership with Cisco to bridge their two technological worlds, in a bid to catch up with Amazon Web Services and its domination of the fast-growing cloud computing market.Continue Reading ==>7) 32 Stocks I’m Watching for Earnings Season (T3 Live)In this special video, Nightly Game Plan Moderator Sami Abusaad walks you through his earnings season swing trading watchlist. With volatility so low, not many trades triggered this week, so Sami’s going to take you through the 32 stocks Sami is watching for potential opportunities this earnings season:Continue Reading ==>8) Honolulu’s ‘Distracted Walking’ Law Takes Effect, Targeting Phone Users (NPR) Police in Honolulu on Wednesday will begin writing tickets for people who get distracted by their cellphones while walking in a crosswalk. Honolulu is the first major city in the country to pass such a law, citing a high rate of pedestrians being hit in crosswalks.Continue Reading ==>9) Will Facebook Kill All Future Facebooks? (Wired)In 2010, FOURSQUARE co-founder Naveen Selvadurai believed that his company, and several other social-media upstarts—Twitter, Tumblr, Path—could carve out successful niches against Facebook.Continue Reading ==> 10) One of the Most Motivational Speeches You’ll Ever Hear (YouTube) Watch this video and learn how the simple task of making your bed can set you up for success.
Continue Reading -->Theta: The Options Trader’s Kryponite
Welcome back to our Introduction to Options series! By now we’ve covered: 1) The ABC’s of Puts and Calls And 2) How Implied Volatility Works Now, we’re going to explore another critical factor in options pricing: time You’re about to learn: How the passage of time impacts the value of an option The differences between short-dated and long-dated options How you can buy a call option, have the stock go up, and still lose money! This article is somewhat technical in nature. You don’t need to understand all the math. You certainly don’t need to know this formula: So just focus on learning the basic principles, and you’ll be a step ahead of options traders that fail to grasp the role of time in options. The Basics of Time’s Effect on Options Prices In our recent article on implied volatility, we identified the 7 basic factors that determine an option’s price: The price of the stock The strike price Type of option Time to expiration Risk-free interest rate Dividend policy Implied Volatility While implied volatility is the most important factor in an option’s price, time is a close second. Remember what we said about options — they’re a form of insurance. A call option is an insurance contract that pays off when the stock rises. And a put option is an insurance contract that pays off when the stock falls. And like a car, the faster a stock moves, the higher it costs to insure it with options. But what else affects the price of insurance? Time. Would it cost more to insure your car for 1 year? Or 2 years? Obviously, you pay more for 2 years of insurance coverage than 1. Why? Because over a 2-year period, there’s a much greater chance of something happening than over 1 year. And so it goes with options: the longer the time to expiration, the higher the price of the option (insurance). A Time Example with Facebook Options Let’s take a look at Facebook (FB) $175 call options across a wide range of expirations. As of the time of publication, the stock was trading at $176.46. Here are the prices for all FB $175 call options that are currently trading. They have expirations ranging from 2 to 793 days from today: As you can see, the $175 call option expiring in 2 days is priced at just $2. The option expiring in 93 days costs $9.61. And the call option expiring in 793 days costs $32.10! Why? Because again, options are a form of insurance. And it’s only logical 793 days of coverage costs more than 2 days of coverage. Theta Is Kryptonite to an Option Remember what I just said about our Facebook example. 793 days of coverage costs more than 2 days of coverage. And you know what? 793 days of coverage also costs more than 791 days of coverage… and 790 days of coverage, and 789 days of coverage… and so on. So all things being equal, options lose value as time passes. And theta is a measure of how fast that loss of value happens. Is Inherently Bad? No. Theta is simply a reality of the world of options trading. And it’s a concept you have to understand if you want to make money with options. Plus, there are strategies that actually take advantage of theta, though they are beyond the scope of this article. An Example of Theta, and How It Eats an Option’s Price At publication, the Facebook $175 call option expiring in 9 days is currently priced at $3.18. The stock is trading at $176.46. This means there is a premium of $1.72 built into the option. This is calculated as the strike price + the options price – current stock price, or $175 + $3.18 – $176.46 = $1.72. The amount of premium built into the option is affected by implied volatility and other factors. The higher the implied volatility, the higher the premium. Theta, or time decay, is the dollar amount by which this premium declines each day. You can find the theta of an option on virtually any trading platform. Theta is displayed as a negative number, typically without a dollar sign. So if you see a theta of -0.10, that means the option will decline by $0.10 per day, all things being equal. (we use dollar signs in this article to reinforce the fact that it is indeed a dollar amount) The theta for our Facebook $175 call expiring in 9 days is -$0.12. This means that if Facebook’s stock doesn’t move at all, it will be worth $0.12 less tomorrow, or $3.06. And that’s why time is an option’s kryptonite. If the underlying stock or ETF doesn’t move, the passage of time will reduce the value of your option. How Theta Varies Over Time Theta continually changes. And the closer an option is to expiration, the faster it loses value. Here is the theta for our Facebook $175 call options by each expiration: As you can see, the option expiring in 2 days has a theta of -$0.16. And the one expiring in 793 days has a theta of just -$0.02. This is a simple illustration of one of the most important concepts in options: the closer an option gets to expiration, the bigger the theta is. Why? Think of of it this way: if an option expires in 9 days, each day accounts for 11.1% of the time left to expiration. And if an option is expiring in 793 days, each accounts for just 0.13% of the time left to expiration. So it’s not going to change much. Now, let’s look at the theta table one more time, because there is an exception to the rule that the closer an options gets to expiration, the bigger the theta is. As you can see, the option expiring in 16 days has a theta of -$0.15, which is bigger than the -$0.12 theta of the option expiring in 9
Continue Reading -->Trader’s Digest: The 10 Stories We’re Reading Right Now
Wonder what traders are talking about today?We’re here with the top 10 stories we’re sharing with colleagues today, covering topics like:Why Hayman Capital Management’s Kyle Bass sees parallels with 1987The widespread belief that volatility is dead10 tips for success from Apple (AAPL) founder Steve JobsAnd more!So check out these links right now and get up to speed:1) Kyle Bass says this will be the first sign of a bigger market meltdown (MarketWatch) The stock market may never go down again. Maybe not such a far-fetched notion, when you consider the Dow industrials yesterday nailed its 50th record close of the year and paid a visit to the 23,000 milestone, which it looks set to revisit and maybe stick to today.Read the Story ==>2) Traders have never been more confident that volatility is dead (Business Insider) Traders have never been so sure that volatility in US stocks is over, at least looking one month ahead. Nothing quite demonstrates that mindset more than the chart below.Read the Story ==>3) How Implied Volatility Works (T3 Live) If you don’t understand implied volatility, you don’t understand options. Period. Read this article and learn how implied volatility impacts the price of an option.Continued Reading ==>4) China’s Xi lays out vision for ‘new era’ led by ‘still stronger’ Communist Party (Reuters)Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday laid out a confident vision for a more prosperous nation and its role in the world, stressing the importance of wiping out corruption and curbing industrial overcapacity, income inequality and pollution.Continued Reading ==>5) Bitcoin is a ‘speculative bubble’ and unlikely to become a real currency, UBS says (CNBC) Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are in a “speculative bubble” and are unlikely to become mainstream currencies, according to UBS. There are over 1,000 cryptocurrencies, bitcoin being the biggest by market capitalization, and many have seen huge rises in value over the past few years. Bitcoin for example is up over 470 percent year-to-date.Continued Reading ==>6) Treasury secretary: Pass a tax bill or markets will tank (Politico) Steven Mnuchin has a stern warning for Congress: You could blow up the stock market if you fail to cut taxes. The Treasury secretary said Wall Street’s big run-up following the election of President Donald Trump is largely based on expectations of Congress passing a major tax-relief bill, and failure to do so could have significant consequences.Continue Reading ==>7) 6 Tips for Picking the Right Stocks for Day Trading (T3 Live) You can spend years learning about moving averages, gaps, trendlines, and indicators. But if you’re day trading the wrong stocks, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you ever find yourself asking yourself “what should I trade now,” then this article is for you.Continue Reading ==>8) Volvo Prepares to Take on Tesla with a Revamped Polestar (Wired) Volvo is in the midst of a reincarnation. The Swedish automaker is leaving behind its former life as the maker of super safe, super boxy wagons, and embracing an existence dedicated to technological prowess, electric propulsion, and svelte design.Continue Reading ==>9) Google’s AI can create better machine-learning code than the researchers who made it (TNW)Google’s AutoML system recently produced a series of machine-learning codes with higher rates of efficiency than those made by the researchers themselves. In this latest blow to human superiority the robot student has become the self-replicating master.Continue Reading ==> 10) Get Steve Job’s 10 Rules for Success (YouTube) Watch this video and learn 10 important rules for success from Apple (AAPL) founder Steve Jobs, including why you must have passion for what you do.
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