標題: 選擇權交易員通常都放大口數，種下敗因 [打印本頁] 作者: sec2100 時間: 2017-4-4 22:00 標題: 選擇權交易員通常都放大口數，種下敗因 In my opinion there is no safe way to trade options. There is no safe way to buy options. There is no safe way to sell options. There is no safe way to buy or sell options spreads. No matter which game you play you have to guess 3 separate things correctly; direction, distance, and duration (time). Compare this to simple stock trading where 'all' you have to guess is direction (not so easy) and you can see how the deck is stacked against you with options. People love to claim that options have 'limited risk'. Oh, sure. If you just buy one or two contracts. But that's not how people trade. The temptation to load up on as many contracts as you can buy or sell is ever present and it's only a matter of time before a trader succumbs to the temptation at the worst possible moment and gets wiped out. Most options traders have been completely wiped out on several occasions, taking their accounts to absolute zero. Many of those later claim to have 'learned their lessons' but they haven't. If they are still fooling with options they will be wiped out again. Are there exceptions? A few. But very, very, very few.
Are there not a couple of hedge fund examples where the fund got wiped from naked put selling? It works for a while, maybe even a long while, then a few bad or unlucky trades and its total wipe out. It's the kind of thing Taleb argues against.
But can you make money doing it? Sure. It's about timing and luck too right? If you make money and then you get out and retire, you win and you keep your winnings. As long as you don't trade long enough until your odds eventually mean reverts leading to the inevitable, you would have dodged a bullet and you'd be fine doing risky stuff.
Also, you can make money trading the absolute most dog shiz on the market and still make money if you get out in time. Heck, many people made money on the long side in the now bankrupt stock ESI. As long as you got out before BK, you could have made money trading the long side of that dog also.
Is put selling dangerous? Yes. Can it be really profitable? Yes also.
Whatever happened to a certain 'supertrader' who was well known as a naked SPX options seller?
That being said, if you have an investment thesis, and you're willing to go out and buy the stock in cash, but instead sell an OTM put to acquire it if it ever drops, is it such a bad thing if the stock dropped and you're assigned? Certainly no worse than had you went out and purchased the stock earlier. So it's not a problem then.
I think people only get wiped out if they utilize a large portion of their NAV for this strategy to milk high returns. If you do put selling passively as a way to build positions in line with your bullish investment thesis it's fine. People who do the latter don't over lever and over expose their account as it may even be a cash secured position. The former, who sells puts as a direct form of income, do over leverage and the margin of error is small.