Mark Sebastian of Options911 had a great article in SFO Mag in regards to "Weighted Vega"
See: http://www.sfomag.
Registration (free) might be required to access the article.
-Vic
I look at calendars and flies as basically the same trade. I say this in terms of the basic "what you want to happen" common sense version of trading strategies.
In either your 125 calendar or 125 fly you basically want the same thing: ibm closes exactly at 125 at july expiration. If that were to happen the fly of course would be worth $10 and the net profit would be 6.23. compare that to the calendar. If ibm expires at exactly 125 at july expiry then the jul call is of course worthless and the remaining oct 125 call would be worth whatever the IV at the time would be. To equal the profit on the fly, the oct call would need to be trading at or above 9.78 (your initial 3.55 debit plus the 6.23 profit on the fly) to equal the july fly trade's profit. To get to that price with ibm's dividend thrown in that would mean IV has to be about 35-37% which is higher than it is today. So think about that a second, you basically are entering a position that wants ibm to do absolutely nothing for the next 6 weeks or so and , with the calendar, you want IV to rise. Under almost no scenario is that likely to happen.
Now the calendar does not exactly equate to the ten point wide fly you have as the supplement to your trade, it's more like a five point wide fly. But even so hopefully I've shown that the calendar is really a trade that is strategically very similar to a fly but with a contradictory wish for volatility to increase while price action peters out. If your forecast is for trendless action, you're much better off simply going with the plain old fly in my opinion.
From: OptionClub@yahoogro
ups.com [mailto:OptionClub@yahoogroups.com ] On Behalf Of Joey Huckabee
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 10:51 PM
To: OptionClub@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [TheOptionClub.com] Combine fly and calendar
One of the disadvantages of calendars is they are a + vega trades so if IV drops by a significant amount then you loose money.
So in this time of increased volatility would it be dumb to place a Calendar + Butterfly combination trade?
Let me give an example:
IBM - $125.28
Calendar BUY +1 IBM OCT 10 $125 CALL
SELL -1 IBM JUL 10 $125 CALL
DEBIT $3.55
DELTA 0.35
GAMMA -1.66
THETA 2.37
VEGA 13.19
Bitterfly BUY +1 IBM JUL 10 $115 CALL
SELL -2 IBM JUL 10 $125 CALL
BUY +1 IBM JUL 10 $135 CALL
DEBIT $3.77
DELTA -7.96
GAMMA -2.51
THETA 2.75
VEGA -10.49
Combined
DELTA -7.61
GAMMA -4.17
THETA 5.12
VEGA 2.70
This lowers your vega from 13.19 to 2.70 and the interesting part is if you simulate IV increasing by 10% you make money and if it drops by 10% you make money.
You have a little more -delta now but that could be offset by buying 7 shares of stock.
Ok so outside of the stock moving outside of the profit zone... what am I missing here? I realize the greeks change but adding or subtracting some positions can adjust for these changes. This looks like a pretty good way to make money (I know that must sound pretty sophomoric).
Thanks in advance for any input.
Joey
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