I work with many traders who aspire to turn their passion for the markets into a serious trading business. And I think this aspiration is entirely appropriate – it’s critical to approach the trading problem as seriously as you would any business venture. A question that always comes up is, “Where do I start?” In …
In this article, we’ll use simulation and simple visualisations to build intuition around how different variables drive the price of an option. Building this intuition is important because it helps you react quickly and make decisions without relying on complex pricing models. Let’s get to it. The value of a call option at expiration A …
This post assumes basic knowledge of Options and Mathematical Expectation. Most of the features that you observe about options are simply due to the fact that they are expiring bets. And the features we observe in option pricing are observed in any other expiring bet. The complicated maths and terminology that surround options can make it …
Read the previous parts of this 101 series on options: There are 2 good reasons to buy put options: Because you think they are cheap Because you want downside protection. You want to use the skewed payoff profile to protect a portfolio against large downside moves without capping your upside too much. The first requires …
In this article, we explore the payoff to holding long options positions. Read the previous parts of this 101 series on options: Payoff Profile of a Long Call So far, we’ve plotted the value of an option at expiration. This is useful (as we’ll see later), but it doesn’t represent our profit and loss from …
Read the previous parts of this 101 series on options: Options have value because the future is uncertain. One thing that is known and always unchanging, however, is the value of a given option contract at expiry. This is the most fundamental thing about an option. Value of a Call Option at Expiration A call …
In the previous article, we discussed what makes an option valuable. At its core, an option is about choice—the choice to buy or sell an asset at a specific price within a set timeframe. In this article, we’ll explore exactly what this means. An option gives the holder the right, but not the obligation, to …
Financial options contracts are really just options. That is, they give us a choice or an option to do something. We’ll go through a simple example of why options are valuable. Let’s say I offer you the option to use my truck. What might the value of this option be to you? Is it Intrinsically Valuable? Maybe you need …
In much of life, success results from doing what other people expect you to be doing. You get top marks in an exam by answering the way the marker expects you to. Rising up the corporate ladder has as much to do with “being seen to do the right thing” as it has to do …
Back in May 2020, in the eye of the Covid storm, we looked at overnight vs intraday returns in US equities. Intuitively, we’d probably expect to see higher average returns overnight when the market is closed – because it’s much more difficult to hedge and manage our exposures when the cash market is closed, so …
