Options Selling For Traders
February 4, 2010 by T.D. Thompson
Filed under Call Options, Options Trading Tips, Profitable Options Trading
Options for traders give an unlimited number of strategies with various levels of risk and return. Sorry to say, some retail traders get stuck in a long option left unaware of the potential flexibility offered by alternative option strategies. Among the popular strategies is options selling. What is it? Options selling is a way where you can make money without the need to predict the direction where market is headed to.
There’s always a right time and a place for everything, even in buying outright options. In most circumstances however, it may seem to favor an alternate approach. Options selling is one of the most attractive forms of trading but proper risk management techniques play a huge role in the context.
There are beginning traders who lured to the markets and participated in long options selling strategies. The attraction stems from the fact that option buyers go through the prospects of unlimited profit potential and inadequate risk in premium paid plus commissions and fees. With this type of mindset, it is highly likely that an option buyer will lose some or for worse all of the value of the option. It seems logical that by simply getting into options selling as opposed to buying them is a privileged strategy.
In contrary, it is possible to buy a call option and lose money even when the market goes up. This is because of the time value erosion and decreases in volatility or demand for the instrument. The seller of that same call could be profitable in spite of the fact that the futures price increased assuming that time value and or volatility has eroded.
Not like buying a call, call options selling is a bearish strategy. Call options selling traders believe that market will decline in the opposite direction of the strike price or at least manage to stay below it.
It may be privileged for option sellers to initiate positions on a day in which the market is going against the position soon. Call options need to be sold during times of elevated market prices and thus important call premium. It would mean that the market is approaching the top of a trading range or just overbought. Options selling against the trend may seem like account suicide though it can be justified by inflated premiums.
Options selling has long been considered profitable for professional traders but too risky for most investors. Nonetheless, the fact that it has been surging in popularity will mean that it has given some traders the beneficial effect. To discover the technique in options selling, make sure that you will get the right references especially on the Net. Options selling should avoids dry and complex theory that will give you sweet talks about producing surprisingly consistent results with only slightly increased risk. Look through trusted sites that will explain how to make option writing on futures a profitable part of your trading and investing program as well. There are many reliable sources that will give you good points about the other strategies aside from options selling.
