The Cboe Collar Index a Benchmark With Downside Protection

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    Options for Rookies Options Education for the Individual Investor

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    The CBOE Collar Index, a Benchmark withDownside Protection

    on 07/16/2009

    Ive been spending time and words both here at Options for Rookies and as a commenter

    at other blogs trying to convince anyone who will read my contributions that it's inefficient to

    manage the risk of owning a stock market portfolio without using options. Most of the time

    my comments do not draw any responses, despite my belief that they are on topic, but on

    occasion, a discussion ensues.

    I've been encouraging investors who lack any knowledge of options to consider adopting a

    collar strategy which provides insurance against large losses at the cost of sacrificing the

    opportunity to earn large profits.

    Mike at The Oblivious Investormade this reasonable request:

    "Limiting your upside is just as real of a cost as paying cash if you have any data

    whatsoever to indicate that options reduce your downside at a lower cost than simply

    reducing your stock allocation, please feel free to direct me to it."

    In other words, "Where's the beef?"

    I began a casual search for historical data and discovered that the CBOE has several

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    interesting indexes that are new to me. I've blogged about VIX (The CBOE Volatility Index)

    and BXM (the CBOE Buy-Write Index), but was delighted to find that CLL (the CBOE Collar

    Index) has been published since September 2008, with data going back to Jun 1, 1986. One

    reason for going back that far was to allow investors to see the benefits of such a strategy

    during the October 1987 meltdown.

    2009-07-15_1950CLL1987a

    Collars are flexible and the investor can chose among many calls to sell and puts to buy. The

    CBOE chose the CBOE S&P 500 95-110 Collar Index.

    This is the CBOE description of their product:

    "In September 2008 CBOE launched the CBOE S&P 500 95-110 Collar Index(CLLSM), an index designed to provide investors with insights as to how one might

    protect an investment in S&P 500 stocks against steep market declines. This

    strategy accepts a ceiling or cap on S&P 500

    gains in return for a floor on S&P 500 losses.

    The passive collar strategy reflected by the index entails:

    - Holding the stocks in the S&P 500 index;

    - Buying three-month S&P 500 (SPX) put options to protect this S&P 500 portfolio

    from market decreases;

    - Selling one-month S&P 500 (SPX) call options to help finance the cost of the put options.

    The term "95-110" is used to describe the CLL Index because (1) the three-month

    put options are purchased at a strike price that is about 95 percent of the value of

    the S&P 500 Index at the time of the purchase (in other words, the puts are about five

    percent out-of-the-money), and (2) the one-month call options are written at a strike

    price that is about 110 percent of the value of the S&P 500 Index at the time of the

    sale (in other words, the calls are about ten percent out-of-the-money).

    The CLL Index is CBOE's first benchmark index to incorporate the downside floor

    protection of protective puts on the S&P 500 Index, financed by the sale of SPX call

    options, and will be a valuable resource for investors who want to explore ways tomanage their portfolio risk in bear markets."

    There's a lot of data, and I'll look at more of that data at another time. More information on

    this benchmark index is available, but for today, I'll skip to the bottom line.

    How did an investor do when owning three different portfolios?

    a) A basket matching the performance of the S&P 500 Index, including dividends. This is

    SPTR, the S&P Total Return Index

    b) BXM, the Buy-Write Index. The same basket of stocks as above, but covered calls are

    written in the morning on the 3rd Friday of each month. The option chosen is always the

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    lowest strike price that is out of the money. Thus, these are essentially at the money

    options. No adjustments are allowed and the position is held through expiration.

    c) CLL 95-110. The trading methodology is described, but the major points are: Own the

    same basket as above, buy puts that are 5% OTM three months before expiration, and sell

    front-month calls that are 10% OTM. Sell new calls each month. There are certain conditions

    under which option posi tions are rolled (moved to a new strike and expiration month), but we

    need not get into that much detail at this time.

    The following graph shows the results from June 1, 1988 through Feb 27, 2009.

    2009-07-15_2230CLL_corr

    It's apparent that the Collar Index under performs most of the time, but when the markets are

    heading south, CLL outperforms by enough to periodically catch up with the other two

    indexes. In addition, collars provide a smoother ride (less volatile) because the value of the

    index doesn't rise and fall as dramatically as the other indexes.

    Investors who seek the protection of owning collars are not hoping to outperform the market

    over an extended period of time. Instead, they seek protection from major losses at a

    modest cost. To me, CLL has performed as well as an investor can hope.

    For the record, On Jan 1, 1988, SPTR, BXM, and CLL are set to 100. The values on2/27/2009 were 438.76, 547.99, and 408.49 respectively.

    Investors don't have to choose a 95-110 strategy and your results will not match this index.

    I believe this data supports the idea that owning collars is a valid method for reducing risk

    when investing in the stock market.

    Mike Is this the evidence you were looking for?

    589

    Option Trading: How Important is Asset Allocation? Part II

    Guest Blog. Deleted

    23 Responses to The CBOE Collar Index, a Benchmark

    with Downside Protection

    1.

    Mark Wolfinger07/16/2009 at 7:56 AM #

    This comment was sent to me via e-mail:

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    Hi Mark

    The guy you cited in your post this morning who said the following?

    Limiting your upside is just as real of a cost as paying cash

    He overlooks the ageless quote from I think Will Rogers: I am more concerned with the

    return OF my principal than the return ON my principal. In volatile markets, limiting

    upside is perfectly acceptable if you want to ride things out and minimize significantly

    your risks. Sure, in flat-to-bullish markets, you have more wiggle room to use different

    options strategies to let your upside gains run.

    Over the past 2 years I am quite happy using collars to protect myself. IMHO collars

    serve 2 purposes: protecting profits once youve made them, and protecting principalduring times of uncertainty and volatility.

    As always, keep up the great blogging and wonderful insights!

    (feel free to use these comments as you wish)

    -rick

    Reply

    2.

    ObliviousInvestor07/16/2009 at 9:52 AM #

    Hi Mark.Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

    To Rick: Im not overlooking the importance of limiting your losses. Nor am I denying the

    effectiveness of options at doing so.

    I had simply requested data as to whether options (collars included) are a more efficient

    way of doing it than simply reducing stock allocation and increasing cash and/or bond

    allocations.

    So, for example, what if we included a simple 50/50 stock/bond portfolio in that graph?

    This spreadsheet can give us some helpful data. If we plot the 1988-2008 performance

    of a 50/50 portfolio, it looks like this.

    To me, that looks pretty comparable to the CLL index performance. (And the data

    includes a 1% management fee, which is greater than would be necessary if you were

    using low cost index funds.)

    Again, Im not denying that options are effective at limiting your losses. Im just not

    convinced that it cant be done as efficiently using a simpler strategy.

    Reply

    3.

    CBF 07/16/2009 at 9:53 AM #

    Mark: An interesting analysis. Im disappointed and somewhat surprised to see that the

    collar strategy regularly underperforms, but, as you note, it saves the day in a meltdown.

    Also, I assume that commissions are not accounted for, as is the case in most analyses

    of this type. Since the collar needs to be actively traded, the commissions could be

    significant relative to a buy and hold or covered call portfolio.

    Cliff

    Reply

    4.

    Eye Doc 07/16/2009 at 10:25 AM #

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    Maybe the answer is not to use collars all the time, but start using them under certain

    scenarios. For example, add a simple timing strategy like a 200 day moving average

    as a trigger to collaring part of the portfolio. It would be interesting to see some

    numbers on that.

    Reply

    5.

    Mark Wolfinger07/16/2009 at 10:28 AM #

    Mike,

    Thanks for data and graph.

    Reply

    6.

    Mark Wolfinger07/16/2009 at 10:38 AM #

    Cliff,

    1) Buying puts is a very costly proposi tion. There is no getting around that. Thats themajor reason why I strenuously disagree with advisors who suggest married puts as a

    legitimate trading strategy.

    When you pay for puts, the market has to really surge for investors to earn more than the

    cost of the puts. Thats why collars under-perform. Insurance is not free.

    2) In my opinion, the only way to be able to afford to buy those puts is to pay for them by

    selling calls. What this does is limit profits in return for limiting losses. Not everyone will

    want to do that, but it works for me.

    If insurance is your objective, if preservation of capital is important, collars provide very

    cheap insurance. Buying puts alone, provides a ridiculously expensive insurance policy.

    3) Commissions are ignored.

    4) Collars do not have to be actively traded. Why do you believe that to be true? If you

    use same-month collars (instead of the CBOEs three-month/one-month plan), you need

    trade only when options are about to expire. That could be monthly, quarterly, or even

    annually.

    I dont think you have to trade collars as often as a covered call portfolio because

    adjustments are not necessary. Sure, you can tweak positions when you want to do so,

    but the risk of owning covered calls is gone (along with some profi t potential) when you

    own collars.

    Reply

    7.

    Mark Wolfinger07/16/2009 at 10:42 AM #

    E.D.,

    Sure, using collars when the market threatens to move lower is a wonderful idea..

    But if you really know when the markets are going to move lower, why not sell everything

    and perhaps even go short?

    I am unable to time the markets so your idea is not for me. However, t is the right idea

    for anyone who has a proven track record of being able to predict market direction.

    You may be able to reconstruct the numbers you seek, but I dont have access to all the

    necessary data (not to mention the time) to do the work. Do You?

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    Reply

    8.

    Eye Doc 07/16/2009 at 12:19 PM #

    Hi Mark,

    No, I dont have the data unfortunately. However, there are some studies that show that

    using a drop below a long term moving average to be a fairly reliable timing method,

    although it really only works in a tax deferred account. So I thought itd be interesting tosee whether instead of selling everything after getting the timing signal adding collars

    would be a viable strategy with the goal being to lower commissions and possibly

    improve the potential upside of the portfolio.

    Reply

    9.

    Mark Wolfinger07/16/2009 at 12:43 PM #

    If you can get the timing right, you are certain to improve performance.

    But, please keep in mind that adding collars still leaves you delta long with protection

    Collars are a mildly bullish strategy (equivalent to selling a put spread).

    Thus, if you believe your signal, is staying long the best strategy? What it has going for it

    is that you are still invested if you are wrong on your signal and losses are limited when

    you are correct.

    But most traders want to win (not lose a small amount) when correct.

    Good trading.

    Reply

    10.

    X 07/24/2009 at 11:01 PM #

    On a related note, Im not doing collars but something similar in my accounts.

    If you look at S&P since 1920, i t went down more than 35% down in a year only 2 times

    (1929 and 2008). Thus there is no reason to buy straight puts (especially when the

    volatility increases, it becomes expensive).

    So you can actually buy a vertical (buy PUT at the money, sell a PUT 20 to 30% lower).

    This reduces your protection (can still have a major black swan though), but historically

    it still protects you against 99% of the market drops. And the cost is cheaper (we are

    saving 20-30% or so on the cost of the protection).

    And then there are a couple of things to avoid, like if market drops suddently big time,

    dont sell call 10% OTM on the low price but where it was before the drop (and dont sellif the credit is nothing). As the market can go up very quickly too (like in March 2003

    and March 2009). If the market stays down, you lose the potential credit but you are

    much better than the buy-and-holders anyway. If the market goes up, you are not

    missing anything. And when the period is very volatile, 3 months protection is better (as

    the vertical is more expensive). If the vol is down, a longer period is better. When the

    market goes suddently way up, you are missing some opportunities (but it happens

    every 5-10 years or so), but in all other drops you fare much better.

    When the market drops, you can also roll down your long PUT (being deeper ITM, the

    extrinsic value becomes smaller although vol increase may do the opposite). So if you

    roll your long PUT down, you can actually lock the profit in case the market goes back

    up.

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    Finally during big moves, you can also sell verticals when the charts are really over-

    extended to get more credit for the protection. It works on the downside (you bring back

    the risk but you are also in better position than a buy and holder so you can afford it

    more) and on the upside (do we really all believe that we can rally by 50% or more in 5

    months and continue even longer? Yeah it happened in 1929, before dropping 70%

    ).

    And BTW none of these are timing the market. Just simple hedged strategy. If one

    wants to time the market and has a real idea of the direction, then it can use this

    strategy and play some directional diagonals. The risk is pretty minimal if setup

    correctly and still i t has an happier ending than buy and holding. It is more involvedthough but can significantly increase the return (like 2x without the 2x drop if things dont

    go your way).

    X

    Reply

    11.

    Mark Wolfinger07/25/2009 at 10:27 AM #

    Hi X (US Steel?),

    Thanks for this important note. It reads like a well thought plan.1) The advantage to buying the put spread per your suggestion is that you get to

    own the ATM put, rather than one with a larger deductible. The disadvantage is

    (obviously) the limited coverage.

    Overall, I do like the idea of owning the ATM put. But this will not satisfy everyones

    comfort zone. Is it better to avoid the 5% deductible and give up black swan protection?

    Not an easy decision.

    Off the top of my head it seems to me that one could compromise by buying a cheap

    put (40 to 50% OTM) for protection against an unprecedented total disaster.

    2) By paying less for the put spread than you would pay for naked long puts, you can, if

    you want to do so, sell higher-strike call options, giving yourself a better upside play.

    Or you could sell the same call and keep the extra cash. Writing calls (BXM strategy)

    performs at least as well as buy and hold (over the past 21 years), and keeping the

    cash seems to be a better play. But, it just makes your idea even more flexible.

    3) There is one point you are not considering when you state that the market has been

    down 35% only twice. Duringany large market downturn is when investors get scared

    and may panic.

    Consider this scenario: The market declines by 20%; your protective put is about to

    stop providing protection because the strike price of the put sold (as part of the spread)

    is rapidly becoming an ATM put. Will the investor panic? Granted, being protected

    against that initial 20% decline would provide that investor with a sense of security. But

    with protection running out, what would happen?

    I dont have the answer. Being so far ahead of the game (losing nothing during a free-

    fall), that investor could afford to spend money on additional protection.

    One could close the original spread (what you referred to as locking in the profit) and

    open a new one. Better yet, the investor can buy an ATM put and sell TWO OTM puts

    (assuming he/she already owned that cheap put as part of the original position).

    This is a real difficult choice: And its the same choice investors who routinely sell OTM

    options face. Do you want to save money with the put spread [equivalent to selling

    OTM options and collecting the 'income' every month] and be very happy with the result

    most of the time. In fact, its more than most of the time. Its almost all the time. But

    occasionally the cost of selling those far OTM puts is very large. And not necessarily

    because the market moves through the strike price and continues. Often that loss

    occurs because the strike price becomes threatened and the investor covers the trade

    at a big loss. Its not so easy for the option seller (when selling naked) to close ones

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    eyes and hope for a good outcome.

    I grant you there is a huge di fference between selling a naked OTM put and having the

    market move far enough so that your portfolio previously protected 100%, loses its

    protection. I agree that having an extra, viable choice is a good thing.

    4) Changing the usual policy of deciding which call to sell is timing the market. But I

    believe one can be forgiven for doing that. There is far less need to sell those not-too-

    far-OTM calls after a big decline when that decline has not cost the investor any money.

    With little, or no loss to hurt the investors portfolio, there is far less need to try to get

    some money back by writing calls. As you state, one can play for the big recovery and

    forgo writing calls.5) As far as rolling down your long put goes, I have a quibble. You dont really have a

    profi t to lock in. That profit in the put option represents the loss you did not incur

    because you owned the put.

    Nevertheless, rolling it down or perhaps closing the original put spread is one way

    to say thank you for the insurance, and holding the portfolio unprotected (or as

    mentioned above, open a new put spread).

    The problem and its a real problem with this idea is that investors may feel the

    market has declined enough and rush to take that profit and lose needed protection.

    It will be tempting to forget that the put was not purchased to make money, but as an

    insurance policy. The danger is that the investor may feel great about being insured,

    believe he/she is a market-timing genius, and sell out protection well before the market

    bottoms. I know that investor is still better off but investing is not a competition.6) I would omit your vertical selling plan based on the charts, but thats my comfort one.

    I do like your ideas. How long have you been doing this?

    Reply

    12.

    X 07/25/2009 at 12:01 PM #

    Yeah, the adjustments on the downside are not easy, but at least Im not panicking when

    the market is tanking (Mar 09 has not been a big deal to me). On the upside, I recently

    bought back my short PUT for a small amount of money, and will resell it i f the market

    tanks again.

    I thought about buying a deep OTM put for another protection (40-50% ar you said) as

    thats pretty cheap ($10 for SPY PUT 50 DEC 09 for example). Could be bought after a

    10% market drop though (It would be more expensive but at the same time the time

    premium would be lower than buying it too far ahead in all cases).

    I like your idea about selling a back spread. In similar idea if one wants to protect its

    portfolio after the drop, one could do a butterfly too (maybe unbalanced). After the drop,

    vol would be high, thus offering a good profile in this case. But any way, its much easier

    to trade when we dont have the feeling we need to earn back the ton of money we lost.

    This strategy helped me invest on equities that I would not have invested otherwise (like

    commodities). But here the result is mixed, still positive as a whole though. When KOL

    or MOO goes up +50% in few months, the short call obviously prevents the big profits.

    Never the less I ended up being +10% on those for 6 months or so. For SLV and UNG,

    they actually tanked and I may be 1-2% under right now but the profile still looks great.

    Other than that I do this with indexes with good results. Obviously I lost a bit of the profit

    with the crazy bear market rally (I guess well see ) but Im still ahead.

    I also backtraded this on several market conditions to see how it did. And that went

    pretty well, again its underperforming under big bull markets, but because they happen

    after big bear markets (where the stratgey does not lose much or even at all) then it is

    not a big deal.

    I found this website that seems to employ similar strategy (reading between lines when

    they describe their strategy):

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    http://www.swanconsultinginc.com

    They have a 10 year history. Their results roughly compare to what I backtraded in the

    past few years.

    Now I just need to create an ETF for this.

    X

    Reply

    13.

    Mark Wolfinger07/26/2009 at 11:36 AM #

    Not panicking and being able to find new positions calmly is a huge bonus. It doesnt

    happen all that often, and thats a good thing. We have enough people already suffering

    from financial hardship.

    No one want to sacrifice the upside, but safety has its own rewards.

    If you are making 10% on trades you would not have been able to make without put

    ownership theres no reason to complain that you missed 50% or more. Im glad you

    are pleased with those results. One of the things that amazes me is this combination:

    a) Investor would not make trade, except for strategy A.

    b) Strategy A limits profits when stock make gigantic move

    c) Stock makes that move and investor resents strategy A because it limited profits.d) The total lack of logic in this situation. Greed makes people think in strange ways.

    I note you lost a bit of profit I dont look at it that way. Because you wanted the

    benefits of owning protection, you accepted a strategy with limited profits. You earned

    the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE REWARD from the strategy you chose. Ho can you have

    done better that that?

    Regarding the link you posted. I agree with his premise: This is the crux of where asset

    allocation or modern portfolio theory breaks down. Risk is not defined; instead it is

    merely expressed in historical standards.

    I decided to re-post our original conversation as a blog post (tomorrow, Jul 27, 2009)

    so that more people will see it.

    Reply

    14.

    X 07/26/2009 at 10:51 PM #

    Funny about your a) b) c) d) steps, as I had the exact same exemple few months ago.

    A friend of mine did some dividends play protected with ITM covered calls. That was 2-

    3 months ago in the middle of the bull market. The strategy worked but he felt that the

    strategy was not for him as if we did not sold the call he would have earned much more.

    Even when I told him that his strategy worked exactly as expected, he focused on the

    missed opportunity.

    On the other end, if the market had been sideways or even down, he would have been

    ahead. And certainly felt better even if he had lost 1-2% but the market lost 10%. We

    are always trying to compare ourselves to others (a.k.a the market) and this often

    creates bad trade choices.

    Good blog BTW.

    Reply

    15.

    Mark Wolfinger07/27/2009 at 10:29 AM #

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    Thanks,

    I always tell readers that if they must have the best possible outcome on every trade,

    then using options to hedge positions is not for them.

    Thats just a polite way to tell people not to be greedy fools.

    Reply

    16.

    Tristan Grayson04/14/2011 at 5:46 PM #

    Mr. Xs strategy is interesting: sell a lower put to help fund a higher purchased put, or to

    help fund a collar. One risk with this strategy is that the lower funding put is sold on the

    same security as the collar. This seems like it could be ill-advised to be the same

    security.

    This got me thinking to how Equity Indexed Li fe Insurance/Annuities work. The life

    insurance company has a giant investment-grade bond portfolio which pays them

    interest. They use the interest to pay for collars on stock market indexes. So basically,

    their source of funding for the collar is not as deeply correlated to the security that

    theyre collaring.

    In my mind, thats something to consider: perhaps the funding source for a collar should

    be based on a different security than what youre collaring.

    Thanks.

    Reply

    Mark D Wolfinger 04/14/2011 at 7:34 PM #

    I dont see a problem with the same stock put sale.

    If you are going to sell the put (and I would not), I dont see the harm in limiting the

    protective power of the long put rather than selling a put elsewhere.

    Reply

    Tristan Grayson 04/14/2011 at 10:23 PM #

    I just meant that if the stock falls through the purchased put, that puts the

    lower sold put at perhaps more risk than if you collar stock A and you sell a

    put on stock B. If stock B isnt correlated as much with stock A, then if Afalls, perhaps the put on stock B will be at less risk of being exercised.

    I guess Im just thinking that if I was going to collar WorldCom back in the

    day, to fund the collar, maybe Id rather sell puts on say, some utility

    company instead of WorldCom itself.

    I like Xs idea, Im just rolling the idea around. Thanks.

    Reply

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    Mark D Wolfinger 04/14/2011 at 11:55 PM #

    Tristan,

    What if stock B falls by the grater amount?

    Why would a trader want to add correlation risk to his/her bag of risk?

    Thats gambling.

    Correlated risk is easier to manage.

    Dont worry about being assigned an exercised notice. It is not a

    problem and is easily reversed.

    I dont like Xs idea. It completely defeats the purpose of owning a

    collar.

    [Addendum: After this discussion continued, I decided to take

    the time to read the details of the much earlier post. It turns out

    that X did not make the trade to 'finance' the original collar. I

    should have taken the time to verify your statement before

    responding. This discussion is continued in a blog post of Apr

    18, 2011]

    And I dont like your idea of owning a collar and selling a naked put onsome other stock with the purpose of reducing the cost of the collar.

    The risk/reward is way out of line.

    To collar WorldCom, one buys a put on WorldCom and thats the end

    of put trading. Selling a put on another stock has nothing to do with the

    collar. Its a separate play made for the wrong reason (to pay for the

    collar). Sometimes simple is best.

    Thank you

    Reply

    Tristan Grayson 04/15/2011 at 2:24 AM #

    Yes, the risk does exist that stock B can be the one that falls the

    greater amount. It is a trade-off the benefit being that if there

    is a huge drop that affects A or As sector, perhaps it wont

    affect B. But yes, definitely a risk.

    You ask why one would want to add correlation risk to the bag of

    risk. If one uses the same security, the correlation is definitely 1.

    If you use different securities, the correlation is not definitely 1,

    so that is a new uncertainty, but its a trade-off. Im just

    suggesting diversification instead of having everything ride only

    on A.

    Ill carefully re-read your reply to Xs idea. When I read your reply

    to his comment, I thought that you found some aspects

    intriguing. Thanks for the correction, I will re-review.

    I am surprised that you find the idea so egregiously out of line. If

    one purchases a collar, the funds used to purchase the collar

    may have been from other earlier trades perhaps even

    involving stock B, and wed clearly find this reasonable. So why

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    is i t so unreasonable to simultaneously buy a collar on A with

    funds from selling a put on B?

    In other words, in my trading business , I purchase posi tions

    with funds from other parts of my business, and that may involve

    other trades, investments, etc.

    Thanks.

    Mark D Wolfinger 04/15/2011 at 8:35 AM #

    Tristan,

    This discussion began as a comment by someone who

    suggested a way to modify a collar. I dont like that idea.

    Now we are talking about diversification etc. Thats way off

    topic.

    This is not diversification. Selling a put on stock B while owning

    a collar on stock A has nothing to do with diversification.

    Why take the risk? What does this trade idea have to do with

    collars? Nothing.

    If you want a collar, you want a collar.

    If you want sell naked puts, then sell naked puts. Dont call i t a

    modified collar. Thats my message to X

    I must confess that I do not remember the discussion and did

    not take the time to read it again.

    It is not unreasonable if your goal is to be naked short a put on

    stock B. It is unreasonable if you are selling that put as a risk-

    free way to generate cash to pay for collar on stock A.

    Isnt it part of your goal to be certain that each trade can stand

    on its owns as well as be suitable for the entire portfolio. In this

    example,I see no meri t in selling puts on B. It was done for cash/

    It was not done because X wants to be long B or is willing to buy

    the shares. It was done for cash. Thats too risky for me.

    If you purchase positions using cash from other positions, dont

    you care which positions are purchased. Do you make a

    random trade just to generate cash to be sued elsewhere.

    Out Mr X wanted a collar and then sold an extra put for no

    apparent reason. Other than to generate cash. Thats not an

    efficient way to trade.

    Regards

    17.

    Tristan Grayson04/15/2011 at 4:55 PM #

    Thanks Mark for your time and energy in your replies. Sorry for going off topic, I thought

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    this was related, hence why I posted.

    I was not intending to suggest that shorting a put on stock B was risk-free. I was

    actually thinking that stock B was a stock that the trader was willing to own (i.e. part of

    their watch list for the next 1-2 years). In other words, this short put can stand on its

    own as well as i t brings in premium that can be used to offset other trades such as a

    collar.

    In my mind, this is the progression of a trader:

    Step 1: One learns about a put, so theyd like to purchase a put to protect a longposition.

    Step 2: To help finance the put, they sell a call, thus they have a collar. Theyre willing to

    part with the stock at the call strike.

    Step 3: Like in step 2, they want to help finance the position, so they think of selling a

    put on the same stock. (this is where you and I agree that this may not be a good idea)

    Step 4: They realize that selling a put on the same stock may not be a good idea

    because they dont really want to own it at that strike price. Essentially, they want to sell

    the put for the wrong reasons and theyre exposed i f the stock drops below that lower

    strike (I think this is where were agreeing). Thus, they try to think of other ways to

    finance. Perhaps they could just use existing funds they already have, or they could usethe premium from other positions that they would like to own, like by shorting puts on

    stock B which they are intending to invest in.

    So thats the thought process to me of how one gets to this point. The journey doesnt

    seem that unreasonable even if individual steps may be ill-advised (i.e. step 3). Thanks.

    Reply

    Mark D Wolfinger 04/16/2011 at 9:01 PM #

    Tristan,

    I dont know what happened to my earlier reply, but Ill respond at length via a blog

    post.

    Reply

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