Opening (IRA): IWM Feb 16th 187 Monied Covered Call
... for a 183.65 debit.
Comments: Doing things a little bit differently here, buying stock and selling the -75 delta call against to emulate the delta of a 25 delta short put, but with the ability to immediately defend the position with the short call, rather than waiting to roll the short put.
First, the metrics:
Max Profit: 3.35 ($335)
Buying Power Effect/Cost Basis/Break Even: 183.65
ROC at Max as a Function of Buying Power Effect: 1.82%
ROC at 50% Max: .91%
Delta/Theta: 23.1/6.31
Now, the why ... .
Previously, I looked to ladder out short puts targeting the shortest duration <16 delta strike paying around 1% of the strike price in credit and utilize a portfolio-wide short delta hedge which used buying power to put on and maintain.
Here, I'm looking to manage risk on a per-position basis and to take advantage of some IV skew on the call side (i.e., the IV on the call side is greater than the IV on the put side at the correspondent put strike). Because of this, the premium/max profit is a smidge richer doing things this way relative to just selling a put.
This only makes sense in a cash secured environment, where you don't get much BP relief going short put over covered call. On margin, this wouldn't make a lot of sense from a buying power efficient standpoint, so I'd use a different setup where I could manage side risk more effectively (e.g., short strangle, iron condor, Jade Lizard). Naturally, there are more BP efficient, IRA-friendly setups (e.g., Poor Man's Covered Call), but they have some warts of their own.
From a trade management standpoint, I'll still look to take profit at 50% max, as I would've with the short puts and look to roll out the short call for a credit if it's tested, reducing cost basis further and improving my break even. Since I have nothing on here, I'm going shorter duration than I ordinarily would, but will start building out in longer duration at intervals as I did previously.
On a side note, most people (unscientific survey, gleaned from culling through relevant Reddit posts) who "wheel" or do covered calls do not like this setup because it caps out profit, and I fully understand the preference to sell out-of-the-money calls against your stock and manage the position from there, particularly if the stock pays dividends that are decent. My personal preference, however, is to book realized gains "liberally," have a minimal of crap piles on at any given time, and generate a fairly regular cash flow. As we know from the past year, the market doesn't always go up, and the important thing is to be able to reliably make money in up, sideways, and to a certain extent, down markets with a minimum of headaches which is what these setups (out-of-the-money short puts, monied covered calls) allow me to do. Does it have a hugely sexy ROC that I can show off to chicks at bars? No. Does it pay for the bar tab? Certainly ... .
Comments: Doing things a little bit differently here, buying stock and selling the -75 delta call against to emulate the delta of a 25 delta short put, but with the ability to immediately defend the position with the short call, rather than waiting to roll the short put.
First, the metrics:
Max Profit: 3.35 ($335)
Buying Power Effect/Cost Basis/Break Even: 183.65
ROC at Max as a Function of Buying Power Effect: 1.82%
ROC at 50% Max: .91%
Delta/Theta: 23.1/6.31
Now, the why ... .
Previously, I looked to ladder out short puts targeting the shortest duration <16 delta strike paying around 1% of the strike price in credit and utilize a portfolio-wide short delta hedge which used buying power to put on and maintain.
Here, I'm looking to manage risk on a per-position basis and to take advantage of some IV skew on the call side (i.e., the IV on the call side is greater than the IV on the put side at the correspondent put strike). Because of this, the premium/max profit is a smidge richer doing things this way relative to just selling a put.
This only makes sense in a cash secured environment, where you don't get much BP relief going short put over covered call. On margin, this wouldn't make a lot of sense from a buying power efficient standpoint, so I'd use a different setup where I could manage side risk more effectively (e.g., short strangle, iron condor, Jade Lizard). Naturally, there are more BP efficient, IRA-friendly setups (e.g., Poor Man's Covered Call), but they have some warts of their own.
From a trade management standpoint, I'll still look to take profit at 50% max, as I would've with the short puts and look to roll out the short call for a credit if it's tested, reducing cost basis further and improving my break even. Since I have nothing on here, I'm going shorter duration than I ordinarily would, but will start building out in longer duration at intervals as I did previously.
On a side note, most people (unscientific survey, gleaned from culling through relevant Reddit posts) who "wheel" or do covered calls do not like this setup because it caps out profit, and I fully understand the preference to sell out-of-the-money calls against your stock and manage the position from there, particularly if the stock pays dividends that are decent. My personal preference, however, is to book realized gains "liberally," have a minimal of crap piles on at any given time, and generate a fairly regular cash flow. As we know from the past year, the market doesn't always go up, and the important thing is to be able to reliably make money in up, sideways, and to a certain extent, down markets with a minimum of headaches which is what these setups (out-of-the-money short puts, monied covered calls) allow me to do. Does it have a hugely sexy ROC that I can show off to chicks at bars? No. Does it pay for the bar tab? Certainly ... .
Trade closed manually:
Calling it "close enough." Closed for a 185.23 credit. In for a 183.65 debit; out here for a 185.23 credit; 1.58 ($158) profit; 47.2% of max.
