#1 is actually not a very good way of profiting. At the money, you'll only have a delta of roughly .6. (i.e. you make money at 60% of the speed of the market)Quote from optionpro007:
Gueco,
If you really "know" that the stock is going to hit 55 in 30 days, you can.
1.- Buy 1000 or as many as you possibly can, $50 calls now.
2.- Sell 1000 55 puts and buy 5000 50 calls with the money received from the puts.
Quote from FullyArticulate:
#1 is actually not a very good way of profiting. At the money, you'll only have a delta of roughly .6. (i.e. you make money at 60% of the speed of the market)
#2 doesn't make sense from a ratio perspective. If you knew it was going to move to 55, sell more puts than you buy calls. (to get the greater positive delta)
Without going crazy on ratios, you could:
1) Buy a 50 call, sell a 50 put. (Synthetic long). delta = 1.0, unlimited risk
2) Buy a 50 call, sell a 55 put. delta = 1.6, unlimited risk
3) Buy a 45 call. delta = 1.0, $5 + premium risk
In short, delta is king. If it's >1.0, you're making money faster than stock. If it's <1.0, you're making money slower.
Well, the whole question is pretty meaningless. If you "know" the stock is going to 55--why would you want to take a limited risk by buying calls?Quote from momoneythansens:
Are you missing the leverage aspect from your deductions?
If the OP wanted delta of 1, he/she could go long stock vs. synthetic or DITM call.
Quote from Gueco:
Hi everyone
Lets say I happen to know that a stock that is currently at $50 is going to hit $55 over the next month.
Now I want to chose which option strike would be the best. I'm looking for the biggest % return between today and the day it hits $55.
What tools do I have available that can help me? I would prefer free tools but any help would be great.
thanks
Quote from trading_time:
I would NOT buy OTM (out of the money) calls because time premium could shrink faster then the gain in a months time, several strikes in the money would be my suggestion. Also make sure you buy enough time on it (several months out). If your going to be buying large amounts make sure the particular strike your looking at has enough open interest SO YOU WILL BE ABLE TO EXIT! Not enough open interest could leave you stuck..
Quote from FullyArticulate:
This really doesn't make sense either. Buying "several months out" will only reduce your deltas.
Also, in this scenario, open interest is irrelevant. If you bought an ITM call, and the price got even more ITM, there's going to be no time value anyway, so just execute them.
Quote from FullyArticulate:
Well, the whole question is pretty meaningless. If you "know" the stock is going to 55--why would you want to take a limited risk by buying calls?
If you want limited risk and the best potential profit, then buy a DITM call. If you're willing to take on unlimited risk, then selling the puts and using the credit to buy calls works. It gets you a >1.0 delta, but won't incur huge amounts of assignment risk since you're pretty close to the money on the sold puts.
In other words, it's like a synthetic long, only with more delta.
If the question were, "How do I make the most amount of money using the least margin", that would be an interesting excercise. Butterflies might work well with very little margin. Maybe just a vertical? Maybe computing your beta against a futures contract and buying those?