Zebu blog

Tag: derivatives

  • Reasons Why You Should Be Trading Options

    At least in India’s equities markets, options trading has clearly matured. In terms of daily volumes, options are not only liquid, but they are also many times larger than the cash and futures markets. We’ll look at the advantages of options trading, as well as the benefits of option trading for both buyers and sellers. Here’s a quick rundown of the advantages of trading options.

    While Options Trading has multiple benefits, trading using Zebu’s online trading platforms has its own set of benefits. We offer the lowest brokerage on intraday trading and are one of the best share broking company so we can make your investment journey seamless.

    Benefits of Options Trading

    Hedging risk is possible with options trading. If you are buying stocks of a company and purchase a put option for the same underlying, for example, your risk is minimised. If you are long a stock at Rs. 1000 and buy a Rs. 900 put option at a premium of Rs.10, your maximum loss will be Rs.110. That is the strength of options, since no matter how low the price drops, you will only lose a set amount of money.

    Options can assist you in lowering the cost of keeping a stock. For example, if you’re holding stock and the price isn’t changing, you can sell greater call options to earn the premium and lower your asset’s cost of ownership.

    Options are far more cost-effective in terms of costs, which is one of the key advantages of options trading. The trader might establish an options position with a little margin because of options. For example, an investor must pay Rs.20,000 to purchase 100 shares of a stock at a price of Rs.200. However, if he purchased equal-weighted call options, the premium required would be roughly Rs 5,000.

    Options have the potential to provide huge returns, or a multiplier effect. Here’s how to do it. If the strike is picked correctly, the option pays the same profit as straightforward stock buying. Because we are obtaining options at a lower margin while maintaining the same profitability, the percentage return would be significantly higher, at least in terms of ROI or return on investment.

    One of the major benefits of options is that they allow for the systematic transfer of risk from someone who wants to remove risk for a fee to someone who is willing to take on that risk for a fee. One of the most significant advantages of options trading is that it provides a genuine secondary market for risk, which is what distinguishes the options market.

    One of the most essential aspects of options is that they provide liquidity while also allowing price discovery in the underlying market. Options are a useful way of pricing complex risk characteristics, hence this is an important feature.

    The fact that the options-related data usually works as a lead indication is a significant advantage of the options. Data points such as option strike accumulation, changes in options interest across strikes, and significant spikes in implied volatility in options, for example, are all crucial leading indications of the future shape.

    Risks of Options Trading

    There are five disadvantages to trading options in general, and these are the same whether you are a buyer or seller of options.

    When naked options are sold, the potential losses might be enormous. As a result, vigilance is advised. Furthermore, even if you are buying options and frequently see your options expire worthless, it can reduce your trading capacity.

    Options pricing, option valuations, options trading, and other complexities make this a difficult trading landscape. Many traders are unaware of the basic hurdles of options trading and are quick to jump in.

    With Nifty or Bank Nifty options, or even very liquid stock options, liquidity may not be an issue. However, in mid-cap equities where options are authorised, liquidity is unquestionably a problem.

    If you’re working on a complex strategy, costs will be multiplied. Then there are statutory charges, exchange costs, tax costs, and so on, all of which must be taken into account.

    Time decay benefits the seller of the option but puts the buyer at risk because the option loses time to value with each passing day, even if the price isn’t changing much.


    As we mentioned earlier, trading using Zebu’s online trading platform has its own set of benefits. We offer the lowest brokerage on intraday trading and are one of the best share broking company so we can make your investment journey seamless.

  • Everything You Need To Know About Put Options

    Beginner investors should know enough about the market to be able to predict how economic, political, or social factors will change the current market trend. This will help them make profits easily. The same is true for learning about financial instruments that can give you big profits if you know how to trade them well. One type of investment tool is a derivative contract called a “put option.” As an online trading company, we understand the difficulties of working with an unresponsive platform and offer our customers with the best trading platform and lowest brokerage options.

    What are put options? How do they work?

    A put option is a derivative contract that gives you the right, but not the obligation, to sell a certain amount of the underlying asset at a certain price and date. The agreed-upon price set by the contract is the strike price. A put option is a great tool for sellers who want to protect their investment if the underlying asset’s price drops in the future. The underlying asset’s value could fall below what the buyer agreed to pay for it. The buyer loses money because of this. But because the parties have already agreed on a strike price, even if the current price is lower, the seller gets the strike price that was agreed upon. This lets the seller make a lot of money even if the market value of the asset has gone down. How are a call option and a put option different from each other? A call option is a derivative contract that gives a person the right, but not the obligation, to buy a certain amount of an underlying asset at a certain strike price and on a certain date. With a call option, you can make money if the value of the underlying asset goes up before the option’s expiration date. If the value of the underlying asset goes above the agreed-upon strike price, the investor can buy the underlying asset for much less than the market price.

    What’s good about using put options?

    When buying an options contract, you have to decide whether to buy a put option or a call option, so it’s important to know the benefits of each. When compared to each other, a put option is better than a call option.

    1. Time decay is a good thing

    If you want to make money trading derivatives, time is very important, and options are a time-bound asset that gives put sellers an advantage. The closer an option contract gets to the end of its expiration date, the less valuable it becomes. Because of this, people who sell put options are more likely to make money from time decay if they sell the contract while the option is still valuable. On the other hand, time decay does not help the person who has the call option in this case.

    2. Cost-effective

    The underlying asset or stock of an option can change in any way. Its value could change a lot depending on what is going on in social, economic, and political scenes in the world. For an investor to make money on a call option, the option must be bought for less than the strike price. When investors buy a put option, on the other hand, they might make money if the price of the underlying asset stays the same or even goes down a little. So, a trader who buys put options is more likely to make money than a trader who buys call options.

    3. Implied Volatility

    Implied volatility describes the expensiveness of an option contract. When the implied volatility of a market is high, the price of the option contract tends to be higher. If you were trading put options, you’d want to sell when the price was high and buy when the price was low. This is only a good idea when implied volatility is high but goes down slowly over time. Experts in the market have known for a long time that high implied volatility tends to go down over time. This means that traders who buy a put option will make money over time because the market is naturally in their favour.

    Conclusion

    When you first start investing, it seems like market forces are in charge, but the longer you invest, the more you learn about them and how they work. The longer you trade, the better you’ll be able to spot things that are likely to affect the market you’re trading in and take steps to protect your money. The same can be said about put options, which can bring in more money than call options. But you should make sure you know everything you need to before putting money into options trading, especially put options. An unresponsive platform can cause more problems than you anticipate so at Zebu, an online trading company we offer our customers with the best trading platform and lowest brokerage options.

  • Everything You Need To Know About Call Options

    When you first start investing, you’ll quickly discover that the Indian share market is an ocean you’ll need to master in order to avoid losses and maximise profits. Although a large number of financial instruments accessible for investment in the Indian market gives a wealth of profit-making chances, if you are unfamiliar with any of them, you may wind up losing money. When you’re looking for high-return investing opportunities, the first thing you’ll notice is an Options Contract. The value of an underlying asset, such as a stock or a security, is usually the basis for this financial contract between two parties. If you are looking for a seamless online trading platform your search ends here.

    As a share broker company we offer our customers endless opportunities and the best trading accounts to help them focus more on making profits. What Does the Term “Call Option” Mean? A call option is a contract between two parties in which one party has the right, but not the duty, to buy a specific underlying asset at a predetermined price and on a predetermined date in the future. You are not legally obligated to execute the options contract unless it is profitable to you because there is no duty on the need to make the purchase as indicated by the call options contract. Only if the previously decided amount is less than the underlying asset’s current price on the date the options contract is exercised can the purchase be profitable. The strike price refers to the underlying asset’s specified price.

    The call option will result in losses unless your strike price is lower than the underlying asset’s price on the date of execution. Consider the following illustration. If you buy a Wipro’s Call option for Rs 25 with the strike price as 500, you have the option of buying Wipro’s stock at Rs. 500 on the call option’s expiration date (before expiry). If the price of Wipro stock on settlement day is Rs. 480, however, exercising your call option would be a loss because you could have purchased the stock in the open market for a lower price. If the price of Wipro stock on settlement day is Rs. 520, on the other hand, you make a profit by exercising your call option. You paid a non-refundable fee of Rs. 25 to obtain this right to acquire the stock without any obligation to buy, which will be your maximum loss if you decide not to exercise the contract. Most investors prefer to buy call options rather than put options.

    There are a number of causes for this, which are stated below:

    1. Investing in a Cost-Effective Way Investing in shares or other derivatives involves a significant amount of capital to make the investment sustainable and profitable. Buying a call option, on the other hand, is as simple as paying the premium, which is based on the underlying asset, making it more inexpensive to purchase. You can invest in a cost-effective manner by using a call option in this way.

    2. Risks are less severe Investing in a call option is far less hazardous than investing in stock or other securities directly. Because call options are not particularly volatile, they can be an excellent risk management tool. The amount you spend as a premium for the privilege to acquire the call option is the full extent of your losses on a failed call option.

    3. Covered Calls Can Help You Earn Premium Even after purchasing a call option, you can increase your profits by selling the contract on the secondary market. If the underlying asset you acquired a while ago has risen in value, you can receive a premium by writing a call option with the strike price equal to the current market value. In options jargon, this transaction is known as a covered call, and it allows investors to gain additional earnings. Your search for a seamless online trading platform ends here. As a share broker company we offer our customers endless opportunities and the best trading accounts to help them focus more on making profits.

  • Do Not Exercise Is Back

    With immediate effect on April 28th, 2022, the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) will reinstate the “Do Not Exercise” option in stock option contracts, providing much-needed respite to stock traders.

    There will be a mandatory physical settlement of stock derivatives in October 2019, according to SEBI. To put it another way, if you have an open position in a stock option contract on the expiration day, you will have to deliver/take stock when the option is exercised. Only if the contract is ITM (In-The-Money) at the time of expiration can it be executed.

    Are you a regular trader? Then choose Zebu’s online trading platform for analysis and make your trading journey seamless. As an online trading company we ensure our customers are benefited from our lowest brokerage for intraday trading options.

    Some traders have the option to make a ‘Do Not Exercise’ request (DNE) in order to avoid exercising their entitlement to give or receive delivery. However, this option will no longer be available after October 2021.

    On October 14, the final remaining ‘Do Not Exercise’ facility was shut down.

    Some options traders who were unable to close their open positions on the expiry date as a result of NSE’s action burned their fingertips when they had to settle their shares physically on the expiry date.

    Depending on the form of option, option holders were virtually required to either take or give physical delivery of the underlying share.

    The option buyers, who pay a specified sum known as a premium, have the ‘right’ to buy or sell a stock at a specific price on a specific date or by a specific date, were the most impacted by this change. With the notion that their liability is limited, these traders found themselves caught off guard when their “right” to buy or sell had turned into their “obligation” to take or give delivery of the shares.

    In order to protect traders who are unable to close down their holdings before the expiry date, the ‘Do Not Exercise’ option has been reinstated.

    Choose Zebu’s online trading platform for analysis and make your trading journey seamless. As an online trading company we ensure our customers are benefited from our lowest brokerage for intraday trading options.

  • An Overview of Volume vs. Open Interest

    Volume and open interest are two of the most important technical metrics for understanding options and the broader market. The amount of contracts exchanged in a given period is referred to as “volume,” whereas “open interest” refers to the number of contracts that are active, or not settled. We’ll look at these two variables and give you some pointers on how to utilise them to better understand trade activity in the derivatives markets. But before we get into that, there is one thing you will require: the best Indian trading platform with a wide range of features. With Zebu, one of the best stock brokers in the country, your online stock trading journey will be drastically enhanced.


    Volume

    In the stock market, volume refers to the number of times shares are traded between buyers and sellers. The volume metric for options markets gives the number of options contracts bought and sold in a given trading day, as well as the degree of activity for a specific contract.

    Every transaction counts against the daily volume, whether it’s an opening or closing transaction.

    The higher the volume, the more people are concerned about security. Volume is often used by investors to determine the strength of a price movement. More volume also suggests that the contract has more liquidity; this is advantageous in short-term trading because it means that there are more buyers and sellers in the market.

    Assume that the volume in call option ABC with a strike price of Rs 1000 and a three-week expiration date did not trade any contracts on a given day. As a result, the trade volume is zero. An investor buys 15 call option contracts the next session, and there are no other trades that day, thus the volume is now 15 contracts.

    The volume and open interest measurements reveal the amount of buying and selling that supports a prospective price change. In technical analysis, however, it is also necessary to determine whether the open interest is in calls or puts, as well as whether the contracts are being purchased or sold.

    Open Interest

    The quantity of options or futures contracts owned by active traders and investors is known as open interest. These positions have been created, but they haven’t been filled, expired, or exercised yet. When buyers and sellers (or writers) of contracts close off more positions than were opened that day, open interest declines.

    A trader must take an offsetting position or exercise their option to close out a position. When investors and traders open additional new long positions or sellers take on new short positions in an amount bigger than the number of contracts that were closed that day, open interest rises once more.


    Assume that the open interest in the ABC call option is 0 for example. The next day, an investor opens a new position by purchasing 10 option contracts. The number of people who have expressed interest in this particular call option has now reached ten. Five contracts were closed the next day, ten were opened, and open interest grew by five to 15.

    Open interest, along with other variables, is used by technical analysts to determine the strength of a market trend. Increased open interest signals the entry of new traders into the market and can be used to corroborate a current market trend. The current trend may be deteriorating as open interest declines, indicating that traders are closing their positions.

    Particular Points to Consider

    We’ve listed a few situations that include the volume and open interest indicators, as well as some possible interpretations.

    Rising prices during an uptrend, combined with rising open interest, can indicate that new money is entering the market (reflecting new positions). If long positions are fueling the growth in open interest, this might be an indication of a bullish mood.
    If, on the other hand, open interest falls while prices rise during an advance, this could imply that money is leaving the market, which is a bearish indicator.
    If, on the other hand, open interest falls while prices rise during an advance, this could imply that money is leaving the market, which is a bearish indicator.
    Prices falling in a downtrend while open interest rises could indicate that new money is entering the market on the short side. This scenario is negative since it is consistent with a continuous downtrend. However, falling prices in a downtrend with declining open interest may imply that holders are being compelled to liquidate their positions, which is a bearish indicator.

    If open interest is high as prices are falling sharply during a market peak, it could be a bearish indicator if those who bought near the top are suddenly losing money; this could also create a panic selling scenario.

    Option Chain And Its Working

    An option chain is a table that lists all of the available options for a certain security. An option chain displays all of the published calls and puts for a given expiry date, organised by characteristics such as strike price, expiration date, volume, and pricing.

    How much open interest and volume should an option have?
    In general, a high volume and open interest both indicate a liquid market with a large number of buyers and sellers for a specific option. Market mood can also be confirmed by changes in open interest and volume. A rising price with increasing volume and open interest, for example, indicates a robust market, whereas a rising price with declining volume and open interest indicates a weak market.

    When the Volume Exceeds the Open Interest, What Does It Mean?

    If an option has a high volume but a low open interest, it has a limited secondary market, which means it may have low liquidity. A trader trying to sell that option might have trouble finding a buyer, or they might face a wider bid-ask spread than usual.

    What Does a High Open Interest Indicator Indicate?

    A huge number of traders have taken active positions in an options or futures contract with a high open interest. If open interest rises over time, it indicates that new traders are taking positions in the market and that money is flowing in. When open interest decreases over time, it indicates that traders are beginning to close positions.

  • The Ultra-Beginner Guide For Expiry Date

    An expiry date usually refers to the last day when a product or service can be used. Expiry marks the conclusion of a contract or an asset in the market. When trading in the derivatives market, such as futures and options contracts, the expiry date refers to the contract’s final date after which it will no longer be valid.

    When a derivatives contract reaches its expiration date, it has a variety of consequences for derivative traders as well as the Indian stock market as a whole.

    Before we get into the basics of expiry trading, it’s important to know that expiry day trading is extremely risky and it takes a certain level of experience before you can become profitable. However, if you would like to get started with options and futures analysis, you need access to the best trading platform from one of the best online share brokers in the country. At Zebu, we give you all of this and more – we also offer the lowest brokerage for intraday trading.

    The meaning of derivatives contracts

    Futures and options contracts on stocks, commodities, currencies, and other assets are examples of derivative contracts. Futures and options are similar in that they both convey a guarantee to buy or sell an asset at a certain price at a future date. But that’s where the resemblance ends.

    You are not obligated to keep your pledge under an Options contract. You can simply choose to ignore the contract, and it will end on the agreed-upon date. A Futures contract, on the other hand, requires you to complete the deal by the expiration date. You must not allow the contract to lapse. This is what distinguishes futures from options.

    The Indian stock exchange has a predetermined standard expiry date for the F & O market to remove any confusion among traders. Every month on the last Thursday, we call it an expiry day.

    For example, if you buy a futures contract on January 14th, 2022, the contract will expire on January 27th, 2022, the last Thursday of the month.

    If the final Thursday of the month is a trading holiday, meaning the stock market is closed on that day, the previous day, i.e. the last Wednesday of the month, is the expiry date.

    Please note that Nifty and Bank Nifty indices have weekly expiries which happen every Thursday of the week. And stocks have a monthly expiry which is the last Thursday of the month.

    What happens during the expiry date?
    Here’s what occurs when a derivatives contract reaches its expiration date in different sorts of contracts —

    Options Contracts

    You are not obligated to fulfil the contract in the case of options contracts. As a result, if the contract is not used before the expiration date, it will simply expire. The seller forfeits the premium you paid to purchase the option. You don’t have to pay any additional fees.

    Futures Contracts

    You would have to fulfil the deal on the expiration date if you were to use a futures contract. This happens in two ways.

    You can purchase a new contract to replace the existing futures contract. Assume you purchased a futures contract to purchase 1000 shares of XYZ Company. You can buy another futures contract to sell 1000 shares of XYZ firm on the expiration date.

    The first contract to sell the shares is nullified by this new contract, which will now be in your position. You would have to settle the price discrepancy, if any, in such cases. The price difference is due to the difference in the futures contract’s price. Because stock prices fluctuate every day, the price of the futures contract fluctuates as well. As a result, the price of the futures contract you buy first may differ from the price of the futures contract you buy later. In such circumstances, you’ll have to pay the price difference in order to complete your contract by the expiration date.

    The impact of the stock’s expiration date on its price
    Due to the fact that the expiry date signifies the end of F&O contracts, there is a lot of volatility on the stock exchange as a whole. The stock market may turn bullish or bearish depending on the type of futures contracts settled on the expiry date.

    Arbitrage trading also has an impact on stock market prices towards the expiration date. Arbitrage trading is when F&O traders want to profit from the small price difference in the same security’s contracts on different expiry dates. They might buy on the secondary market and sell on the F & O market, or the other way around. Price changes from this buying and selling have an impact on the stock market as a whole. However, this effect is just temporary, as the stock market corrects itself once the expiration date has passed.

    In Conclusion

    Know the expiry date of the derivative contracts you buy if you trade futures and options. The settlement of your contracts is determined by the expiry date, and you should be aware of what happens on that date. Also, as a stock trader, you should be aware of the impact of the expiry date on the overall stock market. Due to increased volatility around the expiry date, you can either book short-term profits or avoid trading altogether to reduce losses.

    As we mentioned before, this is the most basic introduction to what happens on an expiry day. In future articles, we will get into more details about a few popular expiry day strategies. For now, you just need to understand that to get started with futures and options analysis, you need the lowest brokerage for intraday trading as well as the best trading platform. As a leading online share broker, we at Zebu have created the perfect trading platform with an extensive amount of features to make trading simply for you.

  • Calendar Spreads In Futures Contracts – A Simple Arbitrage Trading System

    As the name implies, a calendar spread is a spread technique in which you profit from the price difference between futures contracts for the same underlying in different expiries. When compared to taking a directional view on the Nifty or individual stocks, this is considered a lower-risk and more predictable strategy. Calendar spread trades are popular among institutions and HNIs looking for low-risk tactics that allow them to earn significant rupee returns based on volume.

    Executing calendar spreads requires a huge amount of analysis and the lowest brokerages you can find in India. As one of the fastest-growing stock broker companies in India, we at Zebu have created the best trading platform for calendar spreads and other futures and options strategies.

    Let’s take a look at what a Calendar Spread is and how it works.

    What Is A Calendar Spread?

    The Calendar spread is the purchase and sale of two futures contracts on the same underlying for different expiries. By buying one contract and selling the other, you can establish a calendar spread between Nifty June and Nifty July, for example. This way, your calendar spread payoffs depend on the spread increasing or contracting. For example, the Calendar spread definition states that you go long on the Calendar spread when you expect the spread to broaden and short on the Calendar spread when you expect the spread to reduce.

    Calendar spread process flow

    Remember that you can execute a Calendar spread in both options and futures. Both are popular in India, but for the sake of simplicity, we will focus on the calendar spread on Nifty futures. Calendar spreads on options will likewise follow the same logic. Calculate the fair value of the current month contract as the first step in the Calendar spread. The fair value of the mid-month or far-month contract can be calculated in the second stage. You can buy the underpriced contract and sell the overpriced contract once you notice the mispricing. Your Calendar spread is now complete.

    You can either buy the current month contract or sell the mid-month contract based on the relative mispricing. You can also sell the current month contract and buy the mid-month contract as an alternative. There is no restriction on this.

    Let’s look at an example
    RIL June Futures are bought at Rs.2,245 and RIL July Futures are sold at Rs.2,250. Your spread is Rs.5 and you expect it to alter in your favour so that you can benefit. Assume that the RIL June futures rise to Rs.2260 and the RIL July futures rise to Rs.2,257 after a few days. When the calendar is closed, you earn Rs.15 on June futures but lose Rs.7 on July futures. In other words, you made an Rs.8 profit on the calendar spread.

    The spread changed from a positive of Rs.5 to a negative of Rs.-3, resulting in a net profit of Rs.8 on the calendar spread. This is how spread earnings are made. In most cases, the risk associated with such calendar spreads is minimal.

    Key factors to keep in mind

    It’s worth noting that when you buy and sell a calendar spread, you’re buying and selling futures of the same stock, but from contracts with different expirations, like in the example of Reliance Industries. What is supposed to be gained here is the difference between the prices of the two contracts. Of course, in our example, you received a bonus because the calendar switched from a positive to a negative spread, resulting in a significantly larger profit. Calendar spreads have a modest trading risk, so the earnings you make on them are also small. As a result, this is better suitable for risk-averse institutions that rely on volume to generate rupee gains.

    Now we’ll look at the final feature of the calendar spread. What criteria do you use to determine if a contract is underpriced or overpriced? You must use the base approach or the cost of carrying approach for this. The predicted stock price is represented by the futures price. To put it another way, the spot price is simply the current value of the anticipated futures price. You may determine which contract is underpriced and which is overpriced using the cost of carrying method. Then, in accordance, you buy the underpriced contract and sell the overvalued, resulting in a calendar spread.

    Just a word of warning. Only by continuing to hold the position as a spread does a calendar spread remain low risk. If you’re generating money on one leg, for example, it’s not a good idea to record profits on that leg while holding a naked position on the other leg. When the logic of the calendar spread is broken, it becomes a speculative trading position with significant risk. As a result, only a combination approach may be used to open and close a Calendar spread.

    Reverse Calendar Spread

    When trading options on calendars, the reverse calendar spread concept is increasingly prevalent. The reverse calendar spread is when you buy a short-term option and sell a long-term option with the same strike price on the same underlying securities. You might buy a June 1500 Infosys call option and sell an August 1500 Infosys call option, for example.

    The majority of spreads are built as a ratio spread, which means that the investments are made in uneven quantities or ratios. When markets make a large move in either direction, a reverse calendar spread is usually the most rewarding. Because of its complex structure and larger margin requirements, it is more widely used among institutions than among individuals.

    When it comes to executing calendar spreads, you need access to the best trading platform from one of the most reliable stock broker companies in the country. We also complement our platform with the lowest brokerage for trading. Please get in touch with us to know more about our services and products.

  • Common Options Trading Mistakes And How To Avoid Them – Part 3

    In our journey to list the common options trading mistakes that beginner traders make, we are at the very end. In this article, we will cover the final 4 common mistakes that options traders make and how you can avoid them by trading smarter.

    Before we begin though, you need to understand that options can help you grow a small account into a much larger one. However, you can enjoy all of that with the lowest brokerage you can find for options trading. Zebu gives you this and more. As one of the best brokerage firms in the country, you also get the best trading accounts from us. Please get in touch with us to know more.

    7. Failure to Factor Upcoming Events

    When you trade options, there are two things you need to keep an eye on: the earnings and dividend dates for the stock you’re betting on.

    If a dividend is coming up and you have sold calls, there is a higher chance that your premium will rise due to positive market sentiments. As the holder of an option, you are also not entitled to the dividends of the company. Therefore, you have to cover your call option and buy the underlying stock.

    The smarter way to trade

    Be sure to factor in upcoming events. Also, unless you’re ready to take a larger risk of assignment, avoid selling options contracts with upcoming dividends.

    Trading during earnings season usually means you’ll see more volatility in the underlying stock and pay more for the option. If you want to buy an option during earnings season, you can create a spread by buying one option and selling another.

    Understanding implied volatility can also help you make better decisions about the current price of an option contract and its anticipated future fluctuations. Implied volatility is calculated from the price of an option and reveals what the market thinks about the stock’s future volatility. While implied volatility cannot predict which way a stock will move, it can help you determine whether it will move significantly or only slightly. It’s important to remember that the bigger the option premium, the greater the implied volatility.

    8. Legging Into Spreads
    Most rookie options traders attempt to “leg into” a spread by purchasing one option first and then selling the other. They’re attempting to reduce the price by a few pennies. It simply isn’t worth taking the chance.

    This scenario has also burnt many seasoned options traders, who have learnt their lessons the hard way.

    The smarter way to trade

    If you want to trade a spread, don’t “leg in.” Spreads can be traded as a single deal. Don’t take on unnecessary market risk.

    You might, for example, buy a call and then try to time the selling of another call to get a slightly higher price on the second leg. If market circumstances deteriorate, you won’t be able to cover your spread, so this is a losing strategy. You can be stuck on a long call with no plan to follow.

    If you want to try out this trading method, don’t buy a spread and wait for the market to move in your favour. You may believe that you will be able to resell it at a greater price later, but this is an unrealistic expectation.

    Always treat a spread as a single trade rather than try to deal with the details of timing. You have to get into the trade before the market starts going down.

    9 Ignoring Index Options for Neutral Trades

    Individual stocks can be quite volatile. For example, if there is a major unforeseen news event in a company, it could rock the stock for a few days. On the other hand, even serious turmoil in a major company that’s part of the Nifty50 probably wouldn’t cause that index to fluctuate very much.

    What’s the moral of the story?

    Index-based options trading can protect you from the massive swings that single news items might cause in individual stocks. Consider neutral trades on big indexes, and you can minimise the uncertain impact of market news.

    The smarter way to trade

    A short spread (also called a credit spread) on an index could be a good way to make money when the market doesn’t move. In comparison to other stocks, index moves are less dramatic and less prone to be influenced by the media.

    Short spreads are typically designed to profit even if the underlying price remains unchanged. Short call spreads are considered “neutral to bearish,” whereas short put spreads are considered “neutral to bullish.”

    Remember, spreads involve more than one option trade, and therefore incur more than one count of brokerage.

    As we have mentioned before, avoiding these mistakes while starting on your options trading journey can go a long way in protecting your capital. While you take care of your options trading strategy, we take care of the rest. As one of the fastest-growing brokerage firms in the country, we provide our clients with the best trading accounts as well as the lowest brokerages for options trading. To know more about our services and products, please get in touch with us now.

  • Common Options Trading Mistakes And How To Avoid Them – Part 2

    In the previous article, we saw 3 of the most common mistakes beginner options traders can make and the smarter ways to overcome them. This article is a continuation of the list and we will cover 3 more common mistakes that can be avoided by trading smartly.

    But do people make mistakes only with strategies? No, it is important to choose the right technologies as well. As one of the top brokers in the share market, we at Zebu offer trading accounts with lowest brokerage, and an online trading platform to help you focus only on executing your strategies efficiently.


    4. Not Trying Out New Strategies

    Out-of-the-money options and in-the-money options are two types of options that many traders say they won’t buy or sell. These rules don’t make sense until you’re in a trade that’s going against you.

    We’ve all been there. A lot of people break their own rules when they face this situation.

    You can find several options trading strategies that can be integrated into your own system. The most important point here is that buying a call option is so much different than buying a stock or its futures. But it can be a lucrative career if you are starting out with a smaller capital.

    The smarter way to trade

    Be willing to learn new ways to trade options. Remember that options aren’t the same thing as stocks. This means that their prices don’t move the same or even have the same properties as the stock they’re linked to. Time decay always needs to be taken into account when you make plans.

    Find a new trade that makes sense to you. Options can be a great way to get a lot of leverage on a small amount of money, but they can also quickly lose value if you dig yourself in too far. Be willing to lose a small amount of money if it gives you the chance to avoid a disaster in the long run.


    5. Trading illiquid options

    Liquidity is all about how quickly a trader can buy or sell something without creating a big change in the price. A liquid market is one with ready, active buyers and sellers at all times.

    Here’s another way to look at it: liquidity is the chance that the next trade will be done at the same price as the last one.

    It’s simple: Stock markets are more liquid than option markets because they have more people buying and selling them. Stock traders only trade one stock, but options traders may be able to choose from dozens of options contracts.

    If you want to trade stocks, you’ll only be able to buy one type of TCS stock. Options traders, on the other hand, can choose from 3 different expiration dates and a wide range of strike prices to trade. With these many options, the options market will probably not be as liquid as the stock market.

    Stock or options traders don’t have to worry about having enough of a stock like TCS because it’s usually a lot bigger than that. There is more of a problem with small stocks.

    If the stock is illiquid, the options of the same stock will likely be even more inactive. This is usually going to make the spread between the bid and ask price for the options look a little too big.

    For example, if the bid-ask spread is Rs 0.20 (bid = Rs 1.80, ask = Rs 2.00), and if you buy the Rs 2.00 contract, that’s a full 10 percent of the price paid to establish the position.

    It’s never a good idea to start your trade with a 10% loss right away, just by choosing an option with a wide bid-ask spread.

    The smarter way to trade

    It costs more to do business when you trade options that aren’t easy to sell. A simple rule you can follow is to make sure that the associated open interest for the strike price is at least equal to 40 times the number of contracts you want to trade.

    For example, if you want to trade a 10-lot, you should have at least 400 open orders. Open interest represents the number of outstanding options contracts of a strike price and expiration date that have been bought or sold to open a position. Any opening transactions increase open interest, while closing transactions decrease it. You can trade options that are easy to buy and sell. This will save you money and stress. Plenty of liquid opportunities exist.

    6. Waiting Too Long to Buy Back Short Options

    There is only one piece of advice for those who do not buy back short options and it is as straightforward as it gets: Be willing to buy back short options early.

    There are a lot of times when traders will wait too long to buy back the options they’ve sold. There are a million reasons why. For example:
    You don’t want to pay the commission.
    You’re betting the contract will expire worthlessly.
    You’re hoping to make just a little more profit out of the trade.

    The smarter way to trade

    Know when to buy back your short options. If your short option becomes OTM and you can buy it back to take the risk off the table profitably, do it.

    A Rs 100 premium option might go down to Rs 2 at expiry. You wouldn’t sell a Rs 2 option to begin with, because it just wouldn’t be worth it. Similarly, you shouldn’t think it’s worth it to squeeze the last few paisas out of this trade.

    Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you can keep 80 per cent or more of your initial gain from the sale of the option, you should consider buying it back. As one of the top brokers in the share market, we at Zebu offer trading accounts with lowest brokerage, and an online trading platform to execute your strategies. To know more, please get in touch with us now.

  • Let’s Make Sense Of Option Greeks – Part 2

    In the last article, we got to understand the basics of what moves an option’s premium. There are several factors like implied volatility, moneyness and time to decay that affect its price. In this article, we take a detailed look at each of the options Greeks and how they work.

    Before we begin…
    As we have mentioned in part 1, Zebu is fast emerging as the top broker in share market and provides the lowest brokerage for intraday trading. As an options trader, we will complement your strategies with Zebull, the best Indian trading platform. It comes with a variety of features that will help you analyse option greeks effortlessly.

    For every 1 Re change in the price of the underlying securities or index, Delta estimates how much an option’s price can be expected to vary. A Delta of 0.40, for example, suggests that the option’s price will move 40 paisa for every 1 Re movement in the price of the underlying stock or index. As you may expect, the higher the Delta, the greater the price variation.

    Traders frequently utilise Delta to determine whether an option will expire in the money. A Delta of 0.40 is taken to signify that the option has a 40% chance of being ITM at expiration at that point in time. This isn’t to say that higher-Delta options aren’t profitable. After all, you might not make any money if you paid a high premium for an option that expires ITM.

    Delta can alternatively be thought of as the number of shares of the underlying stock that the option mimics. A Delta of 0.40 indicates that if the underlying stock moves 1 Re, the option will likely gain or lose the same amount as 40 shares of the stock.

    Call Options

    The positive Delta of call options can range from 0.00 to 1.00.
    The Delta of at-the-money options is usually around 0.50.
    As the option’s price goes deeper into the money, the Delta will rise till it eventually reaches 1.
    As expiration approaches, the Delta of ITM call options will approach 1.00.
    As expiration approaches, the Delta of out-of-the-money call options will almost go down to 0.00.

    Put Options

    The negative Delta of put options can range from 0.00 to –1.00.
    The Delta of at-the-money options is usually around –0.50.
    As the option goes deeper ITM, the Delta will fall (and approach –1.00).
    As expiration approaches, the Delta of ITM put options will reach –1.00.
    As expiration approaches, the Delta of out-of-the-money put options will almost go down to 0.00.

    Gamma

    Gamma represents the rate of change in an option’s Delta over time, whereas Delta is a snapshot in time. You can think of Delta as speed and Gamma as acceleration if you remember your high school physics lesson. Gamma is the rate of change in an option’s Delta per 1 Re change in the underlying stock price in practice.

    We imagined a Delta of.40 choice in the previous case. The option’s Delta is no longer 0.40 if the underlying stock moves 1 Re and the option moves 40 paise with it. Why? The call option is now considerably deeper ITM, and its Delta should move even closer to 1.00 as a result of this 1 Re move. Assume that the Delta is now 0.55 as a result of this. The Gamma of the choice is 0.15, which is the difference in Delta from 0.40 to 0.55.

    Gamma falls when an option acquires further ITM and Delta approaches 1.00 since Delta can’t reach 1.00. After all, when you near top speed, there’s less room for acceleration.

    Theta

    If all other factors remain constant, theta informs you how much the price of an option should decline each day as it approaches expiration. Time decay is the term for this type of price depreciation over time.

    Time-value erosion is not linear, which means that as expiry approaches, the price erosion of at-the-money (ATM), just slightly out-of-the-money, and ITM options generally increases, whereas the price erosion of far out-of-the-money (OOTM) options generally drops.

    Vega

    Vega is the rate of change in an option’s price per one percentage point change in the underlying stock’s implied volatility. Vega is used to estimate how much the price of an option would vary with respect to the volatility of the underlying.

    More information on Vega:

    One of the most important elements impacting the value of options is volatility.
    Both calls and puts will likely lose value if Vega falls.
    A rise in Vega will normally raise the value of both calls and puts.

    If you ignore Vega, you may end up paying too much for your options. When all other conditions are equal, consider purchasing options when Vega is below “normal” levels and selling options when Vega is above “normal” levels when choosing a strategy for options trading. Analysing the implied volatility with respect to the historical volatility is one approach to analyse this.

    Implied volatility

    Despite the fact that implied volatility is not a Greek, it is still important. Implied volatility is a prediction of how volatile an underlying stock will be in the future, but it’s only an estimate. While it is possible to predict a stock’s future movements by looking at its historical volatility, among other things, the implied volatility reflected in an option’s price is an inference based on a variety of other factors, including upcoming earnings reports, merger and acquisition rumours, pending product launches, and so on.

    These are the different option greeks that you need to use in conjunction with other bullish and bearish strategies and mathematical models that you might use to determine market moves.

    As the top broker in the share market, we have created Zebull. the best Indian trading platform with the lowest brokerage for intraday trading. With Zebull, you can easily analyse option Greeks and filter out stocks that work for you.