Weekly Options Credit Spread Horror Story
February 24th, 2011 
Genius Credit spreads are a very simple trade.
You sell one option, buy another for protection and hope that your sold option is not in the money on expiration day.
In other words you sell the 100 put and hope the stock stays above 100. Or sell the 150 Call and hope the stock stays below 150.
And since credit spreads have such a high probability of profit, most traders make money with them most of the time. But when they lose….. ouch. Credit spreads are not very forgiving when you lose.
I learned this firsthand. I had been trading credit spreads in Apple, FXI, and Google. Doing well for several months in a row. But then there was a drop, and all the gains I had made, plus a lot more was wiped out.
It takes a while to recover mentally from a loss like that. I was reminded of this event when a member emailed me his credit spread horror story yesterday which he gave me permission to share with you.
Keep in mind that this member has been trading for 17 years so he is not new to the game.
“I now try to follow a strategy I read last year in the book of Proverbs from the Bible, of all places: it says:
” … whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.”
(Proverbs 13:11).
I was shooting for 1 or 2% per Week with Weekly options. It does not souund like a lot and takes a long time – but after 1 year, it is 50 – 100% for the year, which is great. It is like your 5% per month strategy. Making a little money on lower risk option credit spreads over and over again adds up over time.
Yes whatever you do – NEVER CHANGE your Strategy if it has proven to work. – and NEVER get greedy. When you make your 5% or so – get out. Do not try to get more. Every time I do that, I end up loosing the 5% and then loosing even more. I just lost $3,500 on a NETFLICKS Credit spread 2 Friday’s ago (a weekly position), in the last 45 Min, when NETFLICKS spiked up 8 points in that final 45 min after being flat the entire day. I went from a $200 gain to a $3,500 loss – all in that 45 min – going into the close (Expiration Friday). I was so devastated. it will take me months to recoup that – as soon as I get up the nerve to start trading again.
Urgh, I was so, so destroyed by that one trade. Prior to that trade, I hade made 29 out of 30 trades over the past 3 months – all making about $150 each (ie, “little by little”). Then BANG – all gone in 45 min.”
So as I mentioned, credit spreads can hurt if they go against you. Add the high gamma of weekly options and you can be broke in a few hours. I know that weeklies have become very popular. But they are very risky.
Before you play the weeklies, I would suggest you get good at the regular monthly option trades and know exactly how and when you will adjust or exit. Once you have some consistent winners, then try the weeklies.
Weeklies are not the holy grail they have been made out to be. Use them with caution.
I have been trying weekly options with buy write strategy,not with credit spreads which when selling far out-of-money credit spreads,in essence,we are selling time.(weekly options don’t have enough time).what I have been doing is to buy write certain securities such as uso,slv,gld,with selling out of money,in the money and out of money calls while holding shares.If called away, fine,if not,do it next week.Once in a while,I sell out-of money naked puts to aquire shares next week to sell covered calls,but I proceed with caution.
use stops or triggers to exit a trade such if u sold a weekly spy 141 call and got .40 and the option was worth .6 put a stop in at a 1.00 or when the spy gets to 141 it automatic buys the short option back and leves the long option in place for a profitable trade that went the wrong way good luck trading
Thank you for this. I am new to trading options. I have been trading monthly contracts on indexes successfully and recently started paper-trading weekly contracts. What a difference! You really do need to follow the above advice to the letter! I thought I must be “doing it wrong”, but understand more now.
I like the above statement- “Never Get Greedy”
I have had best success with weekly’s selling, out of the money, .10 delta or below covered puts. They need to be a good bit below the secondary downside support level. Problem is that most indexes/ETFs are not going to give much in premium, but you can find indexes that have the out-of-money delta and minor premium that will work. If you do on straight equity, make sure there are no earning reports that week.
Many thankks for the excellent information. These are very interesting examples, but a real puzzle remains for us papper traders and neophytes. You warned me about starting with options a while back because you had a large loss the previous month. Similarly in the key example above cCONSISTENT high gains by your correspondent were wiped out in ONE trade that went against him. I was working on the assumption that your method with the classic Iron Condor strategy protected you from huge losses (though not from ANY loss). Similarly, surely your very experienced trader above would be alive to the possibility of losses and protect against HUGE losses and turn them to smaller loses by adjusting. Your method seems to include the idea of protective puts in the Condor for just that reason. You recent adjustment on the SPX is a case in point. Am I missing something? It would be nice to know before I – or anyone of the other paper-traders start trading for real. I’d much appreciate clarification on this ESSENTIAL point. Keith H.
Right now I’m working on covered calls with weekly options on etfs. Every trade is backed up with a protetive put a few months out. If the stock gets called out, I just replace it, if not I just sell another call. If the market tanks, I’ve got protection. So far, so good. JB
I’ve been buying 8 to 10 weeks out calls and selling weekly options, most of the time in the money, the premium I am getting per week is almost 25% of what I paid for the spread. Doing so on not so volatile shares such as GE INTC and MSFT. Since I am adding every week from the revenue and adjusting the position the average strike price is staying close to the stock price. The killer will be a wild swing on either direction. Any feed back or suggestions regarding this will be appreciated.
If you are selling ITM calls you have the risk of early assignment which would leave you short the stock since you dont have it and are using calls as a substitute.
A move to the upside will not hurt a smuch because you can roll the weekly call higher.
A move to the downside will hurt but the risk is defined. So if you are making 25% a week, do it for 4 weeks, take your money out, and play with the house’s money because eventually there will be a down move.
Thanks for the feedback. I don’t understand why will someone assign the calls if he can sell and pocket the time premium ?
NFLX implied volatility is like 61.65% very risky! I have had very good success trading SPX weekly credit spreads. My record so far is 10 wins and 0 loses. Last week my 1350/1355 credit spread expired worthless, I made $0.30 on that trade. This week I have 2 SPX put spreads 1280/1275 and 1315/1310. I brought in $0.30 for each credit spread. It’s not a lot of income but I think it’s decent income for a week.
SPX Implied volatility is 15.24% much less than NFLX!
Just be careful. I am reminded of a fellow who created a system last year to trade SPX weeklies. He would sell iron condors as far away from the money as he could as long as he made 1% on each side – so 2% minimum for the trade. He tested it and made money something like 30 weeks in a row. Then one week it went against him and he lost all he made and more.
Thank you for the advise , but don’t understand why will someone assign early if he can sell the call and benefit more because of the time premium?
If your sold option is in the money – there is always a chance of early assignment. It won’t happen often, but can happen. So it is something you have to be aware of. Sometime whoever owns the call just wants the stock. Normally though it is will calls way in the money but you never know.
Your strategy is very similar to playing craps in the casino. Win small for a little time and loose all when 7 rolls out. Can’t win when you know “7″ is waiting for you around the corner…
Actually we dont sit around waiting for the 7. In craps you have no control over the dice. Here we can exit when we think the 7 is coming. So no it is nothing like craps.
I like Thomas Zhang’s strategy of selling naked puts with the intent of acquiring the stock at a discount if it gets put to you then writing covered calls. Seems to be a fairly safe strategy if you like the underlying stock at the put strike price.
Ton Dahiby: I would be interested in learning more about the Thomas Zhang’s strategy for selling naked puts.
Thanks, Jim
He’s been trading for 17 years and still trading for $150 gains?? What’s the big deal about a $3,500 loss ?? Thats’ chickenfeed !! Hardly credible !! The solution is easy — don’t trade iron condors, or credit spreads on individual stocks, only on indexes such as SPY and IWM. Individual stocks can get downgraded, upgraded, file for chapter 11 or 7, or get bought out, all of which can result in a huge move in the stock. None of these things can happen to indexes. For individual big mover stocks try short butterflies a few days before earnings, as was recently the case with GOOG, AAPL, NFLX, CAT. All of those short butterflies came out smelling like a rose !!
Trading Index options vs. Stock Options
Study the volatility of the Security underlying the option = VARIANCE statistic.
A large volatility will yield a large option $ PREMIUM and a large Time Value for the options.
Individual Stocks can have large volatility.
Indexes have low volatility and low $ Premium and a low Time Value for the options.
02/01/12
Recent volatility / variance examples:
Stocks:
AAPL 25.42
BBY 33.98
DECK 36.25
PCX 84.26
SHLD 79.85
X 49.67
INDEX ETF:
QQQ 09.68
SPY 08.53
Indexes options are safer than stock options, but the time value and profit potential for selling Index ETF options is nuch much lower.
The Index ETF options are safer but the $ return is lower.
Thanks for sharing this. I agree that weeklies can be very volatile and dangerous. What is described has happened to me a couple of times as well..most recently with Mastercard [MA]. But then I trade weeklies on securities only once in a while. One has to take it in stride. What I normally do on a consistent basis is wait for Wednesday morning and check out the iron condors on SPX, NDX etc. With just 2 days in the trade and a large spread – I have had 100% success so far. 48 hours in the trade for 2% – 5% is not bad. Also I keep myself well ‘diversified’ – collars, monthly spreads, weekly covered calls and one or two weekly option spread trades. Thanks again, all.
I’m interested in weeklies, would like to know what indicators the successful traders on the post are using to trade with weeklies?