Hedging the wheel

[BlueWaterSailor]

I'll have Neww answer, but there is PD in leveraged ETFs and well, vol, when you're discussing time series (tenors).

Thanks - I'm actually enjoying learning just how bad of an idea this is. The basics were pretty obvious, but it just gets worse and worse every time you look.

I've done a bit of hedging before - played around with gamma scalping - and learned quite quickly that it's not quite as simple as the books describe it. For one thing, the bloody transaction costs are not trivial.

 

[Adam777]

I use a normed RR model across all tenors. There is an arb-condition when the figure reaches 1.8 and we're currently running 1.3 which is bottom three deciles on index skew. ....

Thanks Des

I've been trading 231 flys and I understand how to apply your previous measure of skew, "pitchfork skew" from all your input over the years. When I finally got it, it looked so easy. Regards your 25D normalised RR for SPX, I've set it to the 30 day term in LiveVol, but I'm getting different values to you, so I must be doing something different to what you're suggesting (as shown in the attachment). What am I doing wrong?

 

[destriero]

I'm using something else now.

 

[LM3886]

Sure, and that can be replicate in vol with a BWB. Generically I suggested 20D but I'd probably go with the 30/40 strikes. TQQQ touches 30 and you buy the 20-put which results in the 20/30/40 synthetic fly at little to no cost. Shares <25 out to Nov and I think you're safe in carrying the synthetic straddle with no upside prot, but you're only paying 18 cents for that call. When structured at 30-body? I would go long 100 TQQQ, short 2 Nov 30C and buy the 20/40 wings on a touch of $30 on shares.

A bit late to the discussion but I'd appreciate if @destriero can answer my question: what is the motivation for the short straddle to fly conversion, as opposed to closing the short straddle altogether on a touch of the body strike? I understand that you get an arb, but the profit may reduce if the stock moves away from the strike. Why not just close the position to take the profit when it is at its peak in the near term?

 

[ET180]

A bit late to the discussion but I'd appreciate if @destriero can answer my question: what is the motivation for the short straddle to fly conversion, as opposed to closing the short straddle altogether on a touch of the body strike? I understand that you get an arb, but the profit may reduce if the stock moves away from the strike. Why not just close the position to take the profit when it is at its peak in the near term?

I can't speak for @destriero, but I think the objective was to get a cheap fly. If you buy 100 TQQQ @ 25 and sell two 30-strike calls, then you collect $2/each or $4 total (today) for the sale of the calls. That brings your lower break even to around $20. Upper break even is around $36. The wings (20-strike put + 40-stike call) on TQQQ spot $30 once some time passes should be cheap. So at that point, you basically have a cheap and wide fly and you look to close it when TQQQ is around $30 closer to expiration. If you instead just close the position once TQQQ hits $30, then the cost to buy the calls back could be more than cancel out the price appreciation on the long shares. Depending on how long it takes TQQQ to get there, the trade might not be that profitable. Btw, I'm not sure @destriero would ever do this type of trade. I think he typically sells the lowest long call ITM, but not sure why he does that. Might have something to do with skew.

 

[destriero]

I’d convert to a fly if vol remained high and I wanted to increase exposure without increasing haircut.

 

[ET180]

I’d convert to a fly if vol remained high and I wanted to increase exposure without increasing haircut.

What does haircut refer to? Guessing it's margin.

Update: found it. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/haircut.asp

 

[destriero]

I was in a t

I can't speak for @destriero, but I think the objective was to get a cheap fly. If you buy 100 TQQQ @ 25 and sell two 30-strike calls, then you collect $2/each or $4 total (today) for the sale of the calls. That brings your lower break even to around $20. Upper break even is around $36. The wings (20-strike put + 40-stike call) on TQQQ spot $30 once some time passes should be cheap. So at that point, you basically have a cheap and wide fly and you look to close it when TQQQ is around $30 closer to expiration. If you instead just close the position once TQQQ hits $30, then the cost to buy the calls back could be more than cancel out the price appreciation on the long shares. Depending on how long it takes TQQQ to get there, the trade might not be that profitable. Btw, I'm not sure @destriero would ever do this type of trade. I think he typically sells the lowest long call ITM, but not sure why he does that. Might have something to do with skew.

I was in a large TSLA combo (800 cars?) a couple of years ago. Flow was long shares -> short 2X upside calls -> buy wings when TSLA traded to neutrality basis forward. We got there really quickly and I was up on gamma as vols were nominally bid/higher than inception but gains to moneyness (or lack thereof) were the profit gigi.

So in that instance you want to add gearing as gains to gamma exceed loss to vol even with spot/vol corr impacting the opportunity (global vols lower on new deals). I still liked the vol-line so I geared up.

It worked really well but I sat on the fly too long and it blew out of the lower wing strike and my terminal gains were simply the credit that I booked on the long natural fly (via spot-synthetic fly). IIRC I only did one conversion round.

 

[LM3886]

I was in a t



I was in a large TSLA combo (800 cars?) a couple of years ago. Flow was long shares -> short 2X upside calls -> buy wings when TSLA traded to neutrality basis forward. We got there really quickly and I was up on gamma as vols were nominally bid/higher than inception but gains to moneyness (or lack thereof) were the profit gigi.

So in that instance you want to add gearing as gains to gamma exceed loss to vol even with spot/vol corr impacting the opportunity (global vols lower on new deals). I still liked the vol-line so I geared up.

It worked really well but I sat on the fly too long and it blew out of the lower wing strike and my terminal gains were simply the credit that I booked on the long natural fly (via spot-synthetic fly). IIRC I only did one conversion round.

Thanks for this example. Do you think if direction forecast is the most important factor than vol forecast for this strategy (long shares + short 2x upside calls, with or without fly conversion)?

 

[ET180]

I was in a t



I was in a large TSLA combo (800 cars?) a couple of years ago. Flow was long shares -> short 2X upside calls -> buy wings when TSLA traded to neutrality basis forward. We got there really quickly and I was up on gamma as vols were nominally bid/higher than inception but gains to moneyness (or lack thereof) were the profit gigi.

So in that instance you want to add gearing as gains to gamma exceed loss to vol even with spot/vol corr impacting the opportunity (global vols lower on new deals). I still liked the vol-line so I geared up.

It worked really well but I sat on the fly too long and it blew out of the lower wing strike and my terminal gains were simply the credit that I booked on the long natural fly (via spot-synthetic fly). IIRC I only did one conversion round.

Thanks @destriero, "when you mention buy wings when TSLA traded to neutrality basis forward", does that mean buy wings when the delta of the overall position goes negative which would be somewhere between the entry price of the long shares and the strike of the short calls?

This might be a dumb question, but how was the position up on gamma? The gamma of the shares is always 0, no? And the gamma of the short calls should have increased as spot price moved towards the short call strikes (producing losses). I assume that you are referring to the gamma of the equivalent long synthetic lower calls...when you hit neutrality, you bought puts around the same strike of your long shares to cover the downside effectively turning them into synthetic calls. And those calls gained on gamma (relative to what they would have had when you bought the long shares) enough to offset the gamma losses on the short calls? Or viewed another way, the price appreciation of the shares offset the overall premium increase in the short calls? Then after buying wings, once price dropped below your lower synthetic calls, you closed the trade by selling the entire structure (equivalent to an OTM call butterfly) for a credit. Is that correct?