A total of 76 options trades were placed in May, June, and July as the market rebounded after the COVID-19 market lows. During this timeframe, all 76 trades were winning trades to lock-in a 100% option win rate with an average income per trade of $190 and an average return on investment (ROI) per trade of 7.6%. After the tumultuous market lows of March and into early April, leveraging a minimal amount of capital, mitigating risk and maximizing returns was paramount. The objective of an options-based portfolio can offer the optimal balance between risk and reward while providing a margin of downside protection with high probability win rates.
As the market continues to rebound, optimal risk management is essential when engaging in options trading as a means to drive portfolio performance. When engaging in options trading, risk mitigation needs to be built into each trade via risk-defining trades, staggering options expiration dates, trading across a wide array of uncorrelated tickers, maximizing the number of trades, appropriate position allocation and selling options to collect the premium income.
Getting creative and customizing your option trade structure is another element that can be layered into the overall strategy for long-term success in options trading. Maintaining disciple via continuing to risk-define trades, leveraging small amounts of capital while maximizing return on investment, is essential despite the impressive streak of 76 consecutive winning trades.
3 Months Post COVID-19 Results
After placing 76 trades throughout May, June, and July, a 100% win rate, 99% premium capture, and 7.6% ROI per trade was achieved. This was accomplished via leveraging a minimal amount of capital and maximizing return on investment with risk-defined trades. Deploying a combination of put spreads and custom put spreads was used to optimize the risk-reward profile for these 76 trades. Whether you have a small account or a large account, a defined risk (i.e., custom put spreads) strategy enables you to leverage a minimal amount of capital, which opens the door to trading virtually any stock on the market regardless of the share price. Risk-defined options can easily yield double-digit realized gains over the course of a typical one month contract (Figures 1, 2, and 3).
Figure 1 – Average income per trade of $190, the average return per trade of 7.6% and 99% premium capture over 76 trades in May and June
Figure 2 – Options win rate of 100% across 27 unique tickers using put spreads and custom put spreads with an options winning streak of 86 consecutive trades
Figure 3 – Average return on investment (ROI) per trade of 7.6% using a risk defined strategy via leveraging a minimal amount of capital to maximize returns
Figure 4 – Average premium capture per trade of 99% with numerous trades with greater than 100% premium capture using a custom put spread strategy
Overall Options-Based Strategy
Options are a leveraged vehicle; thus, minimal amounts of capital can be deployed to generate outsized gains with predictable outcomes. A combination of put spreads and custom put spreads is used as the foundational strategy as an ideal way to balance risk and reward in options trading. This strategy involves selling a put option and buying put options while collecting a credit in the process. When selling the put option, a premium is collected and simultaneously using some of that premium income to buy a put option at a lower strike price. The net result will be a credit on the two-leg pair trade with defined risk since the purchase of the put option serves as protection.
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By selling the put option, you agree to buy shares at the agreed-upon price by the agreed-upon expiration date. By buying the put option, you have the right to sell shares at the agreed-upon price by the agreed-upon expiration date. Thus risk is defined, and capital requirements are minimal since you have the ability to sell shares at a specific price regardless of stock movement. This will cap any losses beyond the price at which you have the right to sell shares.
Additionally, trading across uncorrelated tickers, targeting a delta of 0.15 (translating into ~85% probability of success at expiration), trading very liquid tickers in the options market, maintaining a large portfolio cash position and managing winning trades are a few of the keys that underpin this strategy.
An Effective Long-Term Options Strategy
A slew of protective measures should be deployed if options are used as a means to drive portfolio results. One of the main pillars when building an options-based portfolio is maintaining a significant portion of cash-on-hand. This cash position provides the ability to rapidly adapt when faced with extreme market conditions such as COVID-19 and Q4 2018 sell-offs. When selling options and running an options-based portfolio, the following guidelines are essential (Figures 5 and 6):
- 1. Trade across a wide array of uncorrelated tickers
- 2. Maximize sector diversity
- 3. Spread option contracts over various expiration dates
- 4. Sell options in high implied volatility environments
- 5. Manage winning trades
- 6. Use defined-risk trades
- 7. Maintains a ~50% cash level
- 8. Maximize the number of trades, so the probabilities play out to the expected outcomes
- 9. Continue to trade through all market environments
- 10. Appropriate position sizing/trade allocation
Figure 5 – 10 Options trading rules that should be followed when engaging in options trading
Figure 6 – A composite of ~80 tickers was used as a means to trade uncorrelated tickers across diverse sectors
Conclusion
Options are a leveraged vehicle; thus, minimal amounts of capital can be deployed to generate outsized gains with predictable outcomes. A total of 76 options trades were placed in May, June, and July as the market rebounded after the COVID-19 market lows. During this timeframe, all 76 trades were winning trades to lock in a 100% option win rate with an average income per trade of $190 and an average return on investment (ROI) per trade of 7.6%.
A combination of put spreads and custom put spreads underpins this options-based strategy. These types of options trades are an ideal way to balance risk and reward in options trading. The overall options-based portfolio strategy is to sell options that enable you to collect premium income in a high-probability manner while generating consistent income for steady portfolio appreciation despite market conditions. This options-based approach provides a margin of safety while mitigating drastic market moves and containing portfolio volatility.
Options trading is a long-term game that requires discipline, patience, and time. The COVID-19 black swan event reinforces why keeping liquidity, spreading out expiration dates, maximizing sector exposure, maximizing ticker diversity, risk-defining trades, and continuing to sell options through all market conditions is essential. Despite the COVID-19 market meltdown, continuing to trade options through all market conditions is also necessary to maximize the number of trades, so the probabilities reach their expected outcomes, given enough occurrences. Put spreads and custom put spreads offer superior risk mitigation in the event the underlying security moves against you during the option lifecycle.
Thanks for reading,
The INO.com Team
Disclosure: The author holds shares in AAPL, AMZN, DIA, GOOGL, JPM, MSFT, QQQ, SPY and USO. The author has no business relationship with any companies mentioned in this article. This article is not intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any stock or ETF mentioned.
