Sure. 1) Use the ATM straddle to find the options market's implied estimate of how high the stock might move by expiration. 2) Plug that price, the current time to expiration, and the current implied volatility of our option into Black-Scholes (cross-checking with our other options pricing models) to see what our option would be worth if the stock hit that price today. 3) Lower that number to account for the likelihood that the stock isn't going to hit that target price today, but may at some point between now and expiration. This is the most inexact part of the formula. In practice, I've just been multiplying by 0.75x. 0.5x would be more conservative.
How is $1,263 the max gain on the FEIM trade if the May $65 call expires in the money? I figure it is $500, plus 3 months of time value on the August $60 call, minus the $270 to get into the trade. Seems like that would be significantly less than $1,263.
The $1,263 figure comes from Fidelity’s options analytics looking at all four legs together. It includes both the full $500 we keep from the 45/40 put spread if FEIM is above 45 in May and the modeled value of the August $60 call in a strong upside scenario, minus our $270 entry cost. It’s not just the $60/$65 call spread by itself.
I may leave out Fidelity's max gain estimates on these hybrid combos going forward though, because they can be confusing. A simpler way of thinking about this kind of trade is if the short call expires in the money, we'll make a modest profit, and if it expires close to the money, but still out of the money, we'll have a shot at uncapped gains afterwards.
How do we keep $500 from the 45/40 put spread if FEIM is above 45 in May? In that case, both the short(45) and long(40) puts would expire worthless, and there would be no $500. Please explain.
You're right, that doesn't make sense. To be honest, I don't understand how Fidelity came up with that $1,263 figure. I ran it by an AI, and I passed its explanation along above, but it doesn't seem to understand either. Going forward, I'm just not going to share Fidelity's max gain estimates on these kinds of structures, as I'm not sure how they come up with them.
My name is David Pinsen. Unless I specifically credit someone else for a trade idea (not recommendation--I am not a licensed financial advisor and I don't recommend any trades to you; I just share the trades I am making myself), you can assume I came up with it. On a couple of occasions, I have tailed someone else's options structure and credited them in the post.
Thanks for that. I pay for this service, and have recommended it to several people and have generally been happy with it. But this incident has caused me to have serious concern. How could you tell me that "we keep the $500 from the put spread if FEIM closes above $45 in May"? In the context of the trade involved, that statement is so ridiculous, it seems like it could only come from someone with no idea what they are doing. Did AI write this and you just pasted it and sent it to me? What's going on? Please explain.
Out of the FEIM short call at $0.20 yesterday.
Out of the FEIM put spread today at $0.20.
Setting a GTC limit sell price of $27.15 for our long FEIM call.
What do you have in mind for a closing price for the FEIM August long call?
Using our formula, I get $27.15.
Oh interesting. Will you please share/explain the formula? Thank you!
Sure. 1) Use the ATM straddle to find the options market's implied estimate of how high the stock might move by expiration. 2) Plug that price, the current time to expiration, and the current implied volatility of our option into Black-Scholes (cross-checking with our other options pricing models) to see what our option would be worth if the stock hit that price today. 3) Lower that number to account for the likelihood that the stock isn't going to hit that target price today, but may at some point between now and expiration. This is the most inexact part of the formula. In practice, I've just been multiplying by 0.75x. 0.5x would be more conservative.
How is $1,263 the max gain on the FEIM trade if the May $65 call expires in the money? I figure it is $500, plus 3 months of time value on the August $60 call, minus the $270 to get into the trade. Seems like that would be significantly less than $1,263.
The $1,263 figure comes from Fidelity’s options analytics looking at all four legs together. It includes both the full $500 we keep from the 45/40 put spread if FEIM is above 45 in May and the modeled value of the August $60 call in a strong upside scenario, minus our $270 entry cost. It’s not just the $60/$65 call spread by itself.
I may leave out Fidelity's max gain estimates on these hybrid combos going forward though, because they can be confusing. A simpler way of thinking about this kind of trade is if the short call expires in the money, we'll make a modest profit, and if it expires close to the money, but still out of the money, we'll have a shot at uncapped gains afterwards.
How do we keep $500 from the 45/40 put spread if FEIM is above 45 in May? In that case, both the short(45) and long(40) puts would expire worthless, and there would be no $500. Please explain.
You're right, that doesn't make sense. To be honest, I don't understand how Fidelity came up with that $1,263 figure. I ran it by an AI, and I passed its explanation along above, but it doesn't seem to understand either. Going forward, I'm just not going to share Fidelity's max gain estimates on these kinds of structures, as I'm not sure how they come up with them.
Can I ask your name? Are you the only person at Portfolio Armor who comes up with the trade recommendations, or is there more than one?
My name is David Pinsen. Unless I specifically credit someone else for a trade idea (not recommendation--I am not a licensed financial advisor and I don't recommend any trades to you; I just share the trades I am making myself), you can assume I came up with it. On a couple of occasions, I have tailed someone else's options structure and credited them in the post.
Thanks for that. I pay for this service, and have recommended it to several people and have generally been happy with it. But this incident has caused me to have serious concern. How could you tell me that "we keep the $500 from the put spread if FEIM closes above $45 in May"? In the context of the trade involved, that statement is so ridiculous, it seems like it could only come from someone with no idea what they are doing. Did AI write this and you just pasted it and sent it to me? What's going on? Please explain.