2015/09/06

Start of the Butterfly Strategy for December

At the end of August I have startet the next trade for my strategy with expiration in December 2015. Due to the catastrophe with my September positions I did not find the time to describe the trade yet.

On August 21st just before the crash I started with a straddle at 3,350 points. Just after the weekend, on August 24, the market dropped further and reached the second trigger at 3,150 points. At that strike I sold the next straddle for an even higher premium. At the same time I bought insurance with expiration in September: 2 long put options at 3,000 strike.

As the market moved lower, I added one long call option at 3,700 points for December as protection for a possible rebound to the upside. I liked t he low premium and took the chance to reduce the risk for the whole time to expiration. If the markets go up again, the call can pay for further options to buy in case.

Lets have a look at the open positions (click to zoom in):


After all transactions, the premium received totals 698 points. 64 points have been paid for insurance.

The current break even points are 3,550 on the upside and around 2,950 on the downside. Further adjustments will be made if the market moves below 3,000 or above 3,500. Depending on the possible premium, the new straddle will be sold or just the in the money option.

The resulting payoff diagram looks as following (click to zoom in):


Based on my experience, I will close the position when it is possible to take 50 percent of the maximum profit. At this time, the maximal profit possible will be reached between 3,150 and 3,350 points with 434 points of profit. So the trade will be closed with a profit of 217 points.

Alternatively the position will be tied up 6 weeks before expireation -- that is after half of the trading period -- so that no bigger losses can be made after that point in time. I will have to decide who I will treat that exactly. I prefer to close the whole trade at all.

No comments:

Post a Comment