Do You Have An Edge In Option Selling?
Unlocking the Potential: Gain an Edge in Option Selling?
- Unlocking the Potential: Gain an Edge in Option Selling?
- How to start in Option Selling?
- What is the risk factor in Options Selling?
- Popular and effective trading strategies for Option Selling
- Hedging-based Options Selling Strategies
- Directional Options Selling Strategies
- How to choose the right strike for Option Selling
- How much capital is required for selling options (Banknifty and Nifty)
- How to reduce the margin required for selling index options
A Common misunderstanding among new option sellers or Traders is that 90% of all options expire as worthless, so a seller of option premiums will have a higher win rate than a trader who buys options. This belief doesn’t take into account a statistic published by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) that only 10% of option contracts are actually held until expiration and then exercised. 90% are bought back and closed before expiration so they are removed from the ‘expired for a loss’ statistic. They could have been closed for a loss or a gain BEFORE expiration
just because 10% of option contracts are held and exercised doesn’t automatically mean the other 90% expire worthless. This doesn’t take into account how options are traded profitably between when they are opened and closed.
According to the CBOE, between 55% and 60% of options contracts are simply closed out prior to expiration. In other words, a seller who sold-to-open a contract will, on average, buy to close it 55-60% of the time, which could be at a profit before expiration.
Very few option premium sellers are holding the short contract through to expiration, rather they are closing their position when the risk/reward ratio favors buying them back for a profit instead of holding the open risk until expiration.
If only 10% of open options contracts ever end up being exercised, and 55-60% get closed out before expiration, then only 30-35% of contracts expire worthless. This is AFTER they could have been traded back and forth for a profit for the entire time they were in the market.
The real question that new options traders have to ask themselves is not how many options expire worthless, but of the 55-60% that get closed out before expiration, how many times did the option seller profit, and how often did they buy back their short option to close for a loss? I would think that the majority of losing short-side option trades would be closed before expiration for a loss to stop the risk exposure of a short contract that is going in the money.
Option sellers could be closing their short option trades before expiration to cut their losses short. The question about what side of an option trade is the most profitable the short or the long side can’t be answered by how they expire in or out the money but how options are traded over the full life of the contract.
Options can fluctuate wildly in price over their life span and the open interest always fluctuates. Long-side traders could be selling options for wins long before expiration. I know of almost no long-side option trader that holds options until expiration. Options are so volatile that option traders must take their profits off the table while they are there not leave their profits exposed to loss until expiration.
Options are a zero-sum game; for every long, there is a short. For every option profit, there is an option loss. Options are fungible and interchangeable so they are traded back and forth as they march toward expiration. Options will change hands many times before expiration and these trades are where option buyers can profit before their time runs out.
Options can be traded profitably from the long side by taking the profits while they are there. Option profits are not just determined at expiration, but are determined as they occur every day. Option premium sellers can be hurt during trends.
The risk and probabilities play out even over the long run with option sellers collecting a lot of small wins and some big losses and the option buyers having a lot of small losses and some big wins. The winners are not on the long or short side exclusively but with the option traders with an edge, risk management, and discipline. Consider this the next time the expiration statistic is tossed around in favor of selling option premium.
Why Option Selling is the better way to make consistent money
Trading is a game of probability. When you trade on your trading system, there is always a probability of your trading going in profit or loss. So, when you work on your trading system, you increase your probability of being profitable.
When you buy an Option, you get your profit only when the momentum of the market is in your favor. In comparison, your option will lose value if the market is at the same level or if it goes against you. This means the probability of success is 33% when you are an option buyer.
Whereas Options Selling is more profitable as compared to option buying. Because you are profitable in two out of three scenarios.
Three Scenarios of the Stock Market
Scenario 1 – Bull Market
Scenario 2 – Bear Market
Scenario 3 – Consolidating market (70-80% of times market is in this zone).
Money-making scenarios of Option Selling
Scenario 1: When the market moves in your direction.
It’s a no-brainer, you sell a put, and the market moves up. Puts lose money, and you are in profit.
This scenario is true even if the market moves slowly in your direction. Because even if the market or the stock is staying at the same levels, you will make money, as explained in scenario 2.
Scenario 2: When the market or the stock doesn’t move (consolidating)
This is the most common scenario. You see a move, you enter a trade, and the stock or the market keeps moving in a range. Most traders lose patience after waiting a few hours or even days for the trade to move in their direction.
But, as an option seller, you are in a sweet spot here. Because even when the stock price is not moving, the option prices lose time value.
So, you see, in option selling, you have two out of three market scenarios working in your favor.
How to start in Option Selling?
With the word Option Selling, it seems as if the only thing you need to do is to sell the option rather than buy it.
But, in reality, it’s not this simple. And the reason is the risk factor involved in selling an option.
What is the risk factor in Options Selling?
When you sell an option, you are expecting the premium of that option to go down. For example, if you sell a bank nifty option at a premium price of ₹ 230, you expect the price to go down below 230 (ideally as close to zero as possible).
This means the maximum profit you can earn from this trade is 230*25 = 5750/-. Whereas, if the premium price rises above 230, you will start losing money on this trade.
Thus, the main risk in the Options Selling trading style is that the profit side is limited but the losing side is theoretically unlimited.
The question here is, then why are options selling still considered to be a more consistent and profitable way to earn money in trading?
The reason for this is simple – as mentioned above – the probability of you being right and ending up in profit is higher in selling options than buying options. But, this depends on the trading strategy you decide to use for your option selling strategy.
Here in the next part, we will discuss the same –
Popular and effective trading strategies for Option Selling
Options selling trading strategies can be divided into two broad segments:
- Hedging based Options selling – for risk-averse traders
- Direction Option Selling – for discretionary traders
Hedging-based Options Selling Strategies
Heding-based Options Selling strategies are also called neutral trading strategies. These strategies are not concerned with bearish or bullish views about the market.
Instead, these strategies are focused on a range of instruments. In the Indian Stock market, these strategies are mainly used for Index Options ( Nifty and Banknifty).
Most Popular hedged option selling strategies
- Straddle
- Strangle
- Butterfly
Directional Options Selling Strategies
Discretionary traders do Options Selling based on their view about the market movement. For those who don’t know, a discretionary trader is one who trades based on his view of the market. When you trade by looking at chart patterns (technical analysis), that is discretionary trading.
So, if the view about the market is bullish, then put option selling is done and if it’s bearish, then call option selling.
Thus directional option selling is similar to what we hear about trading in general. You trade based on your observation of the market. The most popular way of doing such option selling is to sell options using support and resistance levels.
How to choose the right strike for Option Selling
When you buy an option, your only total risk is the premium you paid for buying that option, so you can simply buy an option based on a near enough strike and as per your trade capital.
Whereas in the case of Option Selling, if you choose the wrong strike to sell, then risk can increase exponentially. So, choosing the right option strike to sell is very important for an Option Selling-based trading strategy.
The most common method of choosing the Options strike to sell is to use support and resistance levels. This means that if you are selling a call option, you sell the strike either at the resistance level or just above the resistance level.
How much capital is required for selling options (Banknifty and Nifty)
As when you sell an option, profit is limited but chances of loss are unlimited, the margin required for selling an option is quite high. As per the DHAN, the margin required for selling a single lot of Banknifty option ATM is around ₹ 98,423.21
This is an approximate figure, depending on the volatility of the overall market.
How to reduce the margin required for selling index options
As you just noticed, the margin requirement for selling 1 lot of options is nearly equal to trading in 1 lot of futures. Now, if we compare this to the margin required to buy 1 lot of options, the difference is quite high.
The reason for the same is that when you buy 1 lot of options, you only pay the premium for that option. For example, let’s say, the BankNifty option of 43000 strikes is trading at a price ₹ 200, then to buy 1 lot of this option will be
25(size of 1 lot of Banknifty)*200 = ₹ 5000 only.
Whereas to sell the same, you will need around ₹ 1.4L of margin amount in your trading account.
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