Hello Sir
A kind request ... Can you please guide new traders like me to get into
options trading. I'm still confused on whether to buy 'OTM' or 'ITM'.
In the past I've lost some money as the market did not rise according to my
expectation.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Angel!
First of all, there is no Sir over here. We are all friends and I myself is a new trader.
Coming to Option Buying, there are several major considerations. Options are not linear products and hence the risk and reward is also non-linear.
First of all, we have to define our risk-level. Greeks play a very important role. Before delving into any option trading, it's advisable to gain an understanding of them especially if one is willing to carry overnight positions.
Buying Deep OTM options is more risky and can be hugely profitable. If the market moves sharply in your favour, you can reap huge rewards and multiply your money several time. It's usually advertised that small traders can use options to enhance their returns as they may not be having significant capital to make sufficient money using other instruments. However, my understanding of options suggest that it's not the case if you limit your risk per trade as a percentage of capital to the same level as you will limit with cash or future contracts. Only when we use huge leverage, we make huge gains with options. No harm in doing it if you are devoting only a small portion of your portfolio in it. However, if you employ huge money on it, one single trade which does not go in your favour may dent your portfolio severly.
Hence, if you want to engage in option buying in India where usually options are very illiquid, I will suggest devoting major part of your portfolio to ATM or slight OTM options as usually these options are most liquid and usually have a delta of +/- 0.5. A small part of the portfolio you can keep aside to buy OTM calls whenever there is an excessive selling or buying in market and market is near to a strong support/resistence. However, At those times, volatility will be very high and even if price does not move against you and volatility drops, the option prices will go down
and you may experience losses.
A very good alternative to buying outright options is to buy a bull/bear spread as they limit your losses and you can allow trade to take its own time without worrying about unexpected losses.
I hope the message is clear. In case of any doubt, please post them and I will try to solve them.
Best Regards,
--Ashish