Quote from danshirley:
Atticus:
"Let me elaborate. I have read very little of the thread as selling garbage puts is of no interest."
It's interesting how one chooses words to imply emotionally something that is prima-facie idiotic.
'Garbage puts'
If they are garbage then they are worthless... and if I can get somebody to pay me for them that's pretty clever.
But if you say it with an implied sneer (Atticus's stock and trade) it seems to say that the seller is somehow a 'garbage man' for selling them.
Certainly I wouldn't want to sell puts that were very valuable...since that would by definition put me in inordinant danger of having to pay on them.
If you are going to sell puts sell garbage puts by all means.
They're garbage if the primary position. To the buyer (in isolation) as they have such a nominal probability that they're of little use outside of a lottery ticket. To the seller (in isolation) they're garbage because all of the convexity hurts the seller. Probability is very high... the probability of earning a very small amount of money.
I never sell garbage to open a position. I am a net-buyer of garbage simply to reduce the haircut on positions. Shorting an ATM straddle on AAPL is a $16k req per lot. Buying the 600/665/730 Sep fly runs a debit of 3.7k and has virtually identical (initial) greeks and limits risk at the wings. It also affords the position long gamma outside the wings.
The garbage strangle is simply a mechanism to reduce haircut. In that use they have a ton of utility. To use your metaphor; we're both garbage men.
