Catching falling knife with iron gloves

Alright, here we go ... let's paper trade this. Not really a falling knife, but will do.

Bot 100 AAPL $144.80
Opened Feb 15 spread for $1,110 debit


If $149.80 (+5) reached, close spread, put hard stop at BE
Else close spread after max of two weeks (~1/19) and decide what to do based on where stock is.

Plain trade would have a stop at 137.49 (-7.31) => $731 loss.


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You need to see what your overall delta delta exposure is when you put the position on. And as others have said, model for drop in vol, different prices etc.

But hold on here's another way to look at it: Why not just cut the initial stock position to an amount where you can tolerate the wider swings?
 
tsznecki said:
Why not just cut the initial stock position to an amount where you can tolerate the wider swings?
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People who trade with stops often see the stops hit only to see the stock violently reverse. If you make position size too small, you will miss opportunities to make money at turning points which do not happen that often. That is the difficulty I experienced swing trading.

I think people are misunderstanding the point of this exercise. All else being equal, is this a viable way to try to pick a bottom at the point of high uncertainty? Keep in mind that the goal is to get to the break even on the stock and let it do what it will.
I don't think I would normally buy the stock on the day of the drop with no sign of bottom. But setting it up this way, may give me a lower risk poke at it. That's all I want - low risk way to get on the trend train. Choo Choo ching :)
 
qlai said:
People who trade with stops often see the stops hit only to see the stock violently reverse. If you make position size too small, you will miss opportunities to make money at turning points which do not happen that often. That is the difficulty I experienced swing trading.

I think people are misunderstanding the point of this exercise. All else being equal, is this a viable way to try to pick a bottom at the point of high uncertainty? Keep in mind that the goal is to get to the break even on the stock and let it do what it will.
More...

I don't think you understand. Your negative deltas from the put backspread cancel out a portion of your positive deltas from long stock. Net net, you could just reduce the amount of long stock you have(cut position) and your end result would be about the same more or less.

If the stock rallies, you just add stock until you get to the initial position size you want.

You putting in a BE stop after taking a loss on the spread is not much different from buying a half position at $50 and adding the other half at $55. It is essentially the same.

It is simply easier and cheaper to use appropriate position sizing. The spread really only helps against tail risk.
 
tsznecki said:
The spread really only helps against tail risk.
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I agree with you on all points. Hedging is expensive and adds complexity. It's an experiment. Protection from tail risk is nice to have though. Actually, in a tail risk situation, this strategy should be profitable. Thanks.
 
Target hit ... still not happy.

Stock => +$500
Spread => -$615
Net => -$115 (matches Risk Profile done earlier)

So I have another week to give AAPL a shot to go over 150. Let's see what happens.

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Finally, I'm at BE.

Stock => +$900
Spread => -$809
Net => +$91

Almost closed the gap. I would assume there is going to be a pause around here (Damn it, got not time for pauses!). So let's ride it and see how far it goes(160?). Maybe close the whole thing if we break $150(really don't want to end up around 145 again). "Fingers crossed" is my new trading motto :)


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