Are there any studies... selling options when VIX (premium) high, buying when low?

S

Saltynuts

I've seen results of studies of selling options all the time. But what if one sold options when premiums were big, bought them when premiums were small? Rather than going all one way or the other all the time. Are there any studies on this? Seems that might be the best way to make money off options, but no idea really. I'm really talking mostly index options, not so much on individual stocks, I know premiums on those can differ so much about underlying company facts and what not.

Thanks!
 
When you boil the selling options strategy for 8 hours and then strain it you get the meat of the situation:

Selling options is in general more profitable because you dont have to be exactly right or better but rather just a little less wrong. A long option with low premium is colloquially known as a lottery ticket. Its premium is low because volatility (the strong winds that drive stocks) is low enough that the probability of it finishing ITM justifies the cheap price. You have to be exactly right - that is the underlying must finish above (call) or below (put) the strike by expiration.

With short options all you have to do is set a base line that you know the stock probably wont cross (2 SD for example), sell, and wait. Easy money - until it's not.
 
Saltynuts said:
I've seen results of studies of selling options all the time. But what if one sold options when premiums were big, bought them when premiums were small? Rather than going all one way or the other all the time. Are there any studies on this? Seems that might be the best way to make money off options, but no idea really. I'm really talking mostly index options, not so much on individual stocks, I know premiums on those can differ so much about underlying company facts and what not.

Thanks!
More...
It is not too difficult to run a backtest and test your hypothesis.

Intuitively, I don't think it will be too profitable because in general IV goes up when the underlying goes down, high IV means underlying is at minimum and low IV means it is at maximum, so you will be selling a call when underlying is low and buying a call when it is high.

gaussian said:
When you boil the selling options strategy for 8 hours and then strain it you get the meat of the situation:

Selling options is in general more profitable because you dont have to be exactly right or better but rather just a little less wrong. A long option with low premium is colloquially known as a lottery ticket. Its premium is low because volatility (the strong winds that drive stocks) is low enough that the probability of it finishing ITM justifies the cheap price. You have to be exactly right - that is the underlying must finish above (call) or below (put) the strike by expiration.

With short options all you have to do is set a base line that you know the stock probably wont cross (2 SD for example), sell, and wait. Easy money - until it's not.
More...

@Maverick74, one of my heroes, used to say:

1. It is all priced in.

2. Selling option is not an edge.

3. You can make money buying or selling as long as your method has positive expectancy.

After I read @Maverick74's comments on the thread selling options for a living, I stopped mechanically selling options for a living and never looked back.
 
TVIX and UVXY stocks/ETFs move very similarly to LEAP SPX options, so by observing them and figuring out whether you could trade them, you’ll be looking at something very similar to what you described.
 
traider said:
sell puts?
sell calls?
sell straddles?
sell option on VXX?
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For some reason they default to selling 1 SD strangles
... when every study they produce shows that ATM straddles outperform

If it moves ... Sossy sells it ... which is why he ends up with positions in over 80 different underlying instruments ... and often cannot remember what positions he has on ... until someone calls the show to remind him ... madness !
 
Saltynuts said:
I've seen results of studies of selling options all the time. But what if one sold options when premiums were big, bought them when premiums were small? Rather than going all one way or the other all the time. Are there any studies on this? Seems that might be the best way to make money off options, but no idea really. I'm really talking mostly index options, not so much on individual stocks, I know premiums on those can differ so much about underlying company facts and what not.

Thanks!
More...

Realised vol (RV) is positively autocorrelated in the short term (high vol tends to follow high vol) and mean reverts in the long term. You want mean reversion, since if RV has been high IV will be high and you then want RV to fall. So if you are going to do this, try and do it at least 3 months out and preferably longer. If you do it too close then the RV won't fall. This also has the advantage of giving you more theta, but the disadvantage is that these options are less liquid.

There is also the chance that the market knows about this, and IV will fall as you head out into the term structure. Indeed if we look at periods when VIX is high (eg http://vixcentral.com/ choose historical prices it defaults to October 2008) then we can see the normal rising IV curve replaced with a falling IV curve. This also means that if we sell VIX futures when vol is high we'd have negative carry.

GAT
 
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