I've spent most of the past few evenings reading up on spreads, and my local Borders' is quite happy with my patronage...the Cohen books are rather well-written and easy to follow, explaining much to me. Also, this forum has also been a big help in getting some additional insights along the way, and I sincerely thank you all very much.
I think my earlier confusion was thinking only of calls and not that you could use puts when feeling cautiously-bullish and/or want to generate some income at expiration time. After doing some reading, I went ahead and explored Bull Put Spreads:
I ran a paper trade P&L on a Bull Put Spread on ABC:
ABC trades at $18.05. I enter a Bull Put Spread for a 10-contract APR 12.5/17.5 spread -- buy the 12s, sell the 17s -- for $1.45 credit. (I use 10 contracts just for demonstration purposes since it's a nice round number.)
This is what the brokerage system graph shows come expiration:
Stock Price Profit/Loss
$7.50 ($3,650)
$10.00 ($3,650)
$12.50 ($3,650)
$15.00 ($1,150)
$16.15 $0 ----------- BEP
$17.50 $1,350
$20.00 $1,350
$22.50 $1,350
As I understand it, as long as ABC doesn't go below my 16.15 BEP come expiration, I'm okay -- and if the underlying stock price is $17.50 or greater on expiration, I would earn $1350 as my 'capped' profit potential for the spread. (I also like that there's a cushion between the current stock price and the BEP, which is helpful to accomodate small near-term fluctuations in price.) Time decay isn't a factor per se since I'd be holding the contracts through expiration rather than selling them sooner. If so, this meets my desires to trade in a rather conservative manner that results in a lower-risk, lower-profit potential using Bull Put Spreads on positions I'm neutral-to-somewhat-bullish about.
In general, as a sanity check, am I reading this correctly? While I've done rather well with basic calls/puts, I'm just trying to do my due diligence before jumping into even the most basic of spreads.
Thanks again for the insights, and hope y'all are having a good weekend!
I think my earlier confusion was thinking only of calls and not that you could use puts when feeling cautiously-bullish and/or want to generate some income at expiration time. After doing some reading, I went ahead and explored Bull Put Spreads:
I ran a paper trade P&L on a Bull Put Spread on ABC:
ABC trades at $18.05. I enter a Bull Put Spread for a 10-contract APR 12.5/17.5 spread -- buy the 12s, sell the 17s -- for $1.45 credit. (I use 10 contracts just for demonstration purposes since it's a nice round number.)
This is what the brokerage system graph shows come expiration:
Stock Price Profit/Loss
$7.50 ($3,650)
$10.00 ($3,650)
$12.50 ($3,650)
$15.00 ($1,150)
$16.15 $0 ----------- BEP
$17.50 $1,350
$20.00 $1,350
$22.50 $1,350
As I understand it, as long as ABC doesn't go below my 16.15 BEP come expiration, I'm okay -- and if the underlying stock price is $17.50 or greater on expiration, I would earn $1350 as my 'capped' profit potential for the spread. (I also like that there's a cushion between the current stock price and the BEP, which is helpful to accomodate small near-term fluctuations in price.) Time decay isn't a factor per se since I'd be holding the contracts through expiration rather than selling them sooner. If so, this meets my desires to trade in a rather conservative manner that results in a lower-risk, lower-profit potential using Bull Put Spreads on positions I'm neutral-to-somewhat-bullish about.
In general, as a sanity check, am I reading this correctly? While I've done rather well with basic calls/puts, I'm just trying to do my due diligence before jumping into even the most basic of spreads.
Thanks again for the insights, and hope y'all are having a good weekend!
I had done so well with my DNDN long calls the last week that I am debating trying a basic spread out this time in a relatively low-risk manner. Obviously DNDN's IV is high as a kite, and its returns wouldn't be anywhere like it might be for a lower-IV range-bound position.