Trading Blog

In a recent article, the details for estimate Delta were explained. This article deals with estimates of Gamma, which is denoted with the Greek symbol Γ. This calculation measures the rate of change in Delta and is summarized in percentage form. It is alternatively called the option’s curvature.

In the last 8 years, I trained thousands of options traders. I have seen many success stories, but also a lot of failures. There are a lot of reasons why many options traders fail. Here are the most common reasons, courtesy of our good friend and veteran options trader Gavin McMaster. 

My favorite option strategy backtester is ORATS Wheel, which includes a free trial for those interested. In the Steady Momentum PutWrite Strategy (SMPW), we sell out of the money puts on global equity indexes and ETF’s while holding our collateral in short and intermediate term fixed income ETF’s.

Options trading relies on many estimates of value and volatility. Among these, the most useful estimate is Delta. Even knowledgeable options traders might not fully understand the “Greeks” and how they operate, especially with one another. They are directly related and are useful in making comparisons of market risk and volatility.

Most covered call writers enjoy the regularity and reliability of the position. In the majority of cases, the covered call will be profitable, even when underlying shares are called away. This assumes that the strike is higher than the basis in the underlying, and that the call writer understands the real limitations to the strategy.

Bill Ackman is an American investor, hedge fund manager and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company. Ackman is considered by some to be a contrarian investor but considers himself an activist investor.

Steady Futures began trading the 50K portfolio in July 2019. It produced a 8.5% return during its 6 months of performance (18.0% annualized). We had three goals when we developed this system. First, we wanted a robust system that benefits from turmoil in the markets.

Steady Momentum had an excellent first year of publication, producing significant gains in both of the published strategies. The most popular strategy writes (sells) out of the money puts on equity indexes and ETF’s, and returned 19.1% for the year, beating our benchmark by approximately 5.5%.

Steady Options model portfolio produced 41.7% gain in 2019. This is a very good return by any standards, but well below our long term returns. In the name of full transparency and our continuous learning, we are providing a full analysis of the 2019 numbers.

Steady Options now has a full year of trading the Leveraged Anchor Account under its belt. (Technically since today is December 30, the values used herein are one day off.) To say things went as designed is an understatement - the strategy outperformed the S&P 500 in 2019 by 7.2% while being hedged.

A lot of emphasis is placed on selection of one strategy over another. Are you conservative or a speculator? Are you trying to make fast money or hedging equity positions? In fact, this is a primary concern among traders. The strategy should match the risk profile, of course. But there is much more to how and why you trade options.

I’m a fan of index funds and diversification. Low costs, low turnover, and passively managed exposure to thousands of stocks make Total Stock Market (TSM) index funds great starting points for stock market exposure. In fact, most investor portfolios I see are insufficiently diversified to a point where a TSM index fund would be a material improvement.