The general idea:
When selling short options it is important to enter trades with a high probability of expiring Out Of The Money (OTM). Short options have limited upside and unlimited downside and so it is crucial to get both the direction and magnitude correct before entering a trade. However, this can be tricky to do reliably and so it's also a good idea to write options with a strike price far enough away from the underlying's price so that if you are directionally wrong, there's still a good chance of making a profitable trade.
But how far from the current price is far enough for a given underlying? How much is too much?
This indicator seeks to help short options traders answer these questions.
This script is fairly simple and is meant to work only on a daily chart. The basic idea is to show "if I had entered a trade with X days till expiration and a $Y strike, would the actual price change in the underlying have threatened my position before the option expired?"
To answer this question we take the closing price of each day and compare it with the closing price X number of days prior. If the current day closed higher than the day X days prior (Option entry), then we draw a positive bar with the value of the price change. Conversely, if the current day closed lower than the day X days prior we draw a negative bar with the value of the price change. For each bar we draw, we compare it with a given "max range" or "buffer". This buffer is how far OTM with which you are seeking to enter your options trade. If the actual price difference between the theoretical start and end of your trade is greater than the buffer you specified, the bar is drawn in red. Otherwise, if the total price change is safely within the buffer you built into your trade, the bar is drawn in gray.
Obviously, if you are really good at picking the direction of the underlying, the buffer you build into your options contract doesn't matter, you get a profitable trade no matter what! Good job, and please share your charts with me! However, for those of use a bit less clairvoyant, this indicator seeks to help options traders get a sense for whether or not their contracts have enough wiggle room to account for the price moving against them unexpectedly. This indicator gives you the ability to adjust expiration and buffer and get a sense for how well that configuration would have done historically if you had taken each contract to expiration. The assumption being: if it worked really well in the past, then it might work well for this trade. Obviously, past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Just because a particular buffer has worked well in the past doesn't mean that it will work now. Please trade at your own risk. This is just meant to help give a better sense of scale by offering historical comparisons. You can think of this as a rudimentary live backtesting tool.
How to use:
First, add the indicator to your chart and select an underlying. The example chart shown above is for RUT. In the example, I am interested in knowing whether a $200 buffer within 10DTE trades is sufficient to produce a likely winning trade even if I'm wrong about the direction of the underlying. To do this I push the settings button of the indicator and type in 10 for "Interval (days)" and 200 for "Buffer". Next I select only "Monday", "Wednesday", and "Friday" from the expiration checkboxes; leaving "Tuesday" and "Thursday" unchecked. This is because RUT has 3 expirations per week unlike most others that have just one per week (Friday). If you are looking at weekly options you should just check "Friday".
How to interpret the chart:
- Gray bars are your friends. Gray bars mean that if you had entered into a trade with the given DTE and buffer and you happen to be wrong about the direction (it happens to us all!), you would have still ended up with a winning trade. Good Job!
- Red bars indicate possible trouble. This means that your option would have likely been exercised if held till expiration given the amount of buffer you built into the contract. You might have needed to close for a loss or roll or take assignment.
How this can help:
I find it useful to adjust the DTE and buffer when I am going to enter a trade. It helps me see whether a similar trade has historically been resilient to lapses in directional judgement or not. If I'm really confident in the direction, then this won't be so useful. I could then sell closer to the money and feel like I have a winning position. But if there is less certainty and I want to dial back my risk, then this indicator helps me find the right risk/reward with regard to picking expirations and strikes.
When selling short options it is important to enter trades with a high probability of expiring Out Of The Money (OTM). Short options have limited upside and unlimited downside and so it is crucial to get both the direction and magnitude correct before entering a trade. However, this can be tricky to do reliably and so it's also a good idea to write options with a strike price far enough away from the underlying's price so that if you are directionally wrong, there's still a good chance of making a profitable trade.
But how far from the current price is far enough for a given underlying? How much is too much?
This indicator seeks to help short options traders answer these questions.
This script is fairly simple and is meant to work only on a daily chart. The basic idea is to show "if I had entered a trade with X days till expiration and a $Y strike, would the actual price change in the underlying have threatened my position before the option expired?"
To answer this question we take the closing price of each day and compare it with the closing price X number of days prior. If the current day closed higher than the day X days prior (Option entry), then we draw a positive bar with the value of the price change. Conversely, if the current day closed lower than the day X days prior we draw a negative bar with the value of the price change. For each bar we draw, we compare it with a given "max range" or "buffer". This buffer is how far OTM with which you are seeking to enter your options trade. If the actual price difference between the theoretical start and end of your trade is greater than the buffer you specified, the bar is drawn in red. Otherwise, if the total price change is safely within the buffer you built into your trade, the bar is drawn in gray.
Obviously, if you are really good at picking the direction of the underlying, the buffer you build into your options contract doesn't matter, you get a profitable trade no matter what! Good job, and please share your charts with me! However, for those of use a bit less clairvoyant, this indicator seeks to help options traders get a sense for whether or not their contracts have enough wiggle room to account for the price moving against them unexpectedly. This indicator gives you the ability to adjust expiration and buffer and get a sense for how well that configuration would have done historically if you had taken each contract to expiration. The assumption being: if it worked really well in the past, then it might work well for this trade. Obviously, past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Just because a particular buffer has worked well in the past doesn't mean that it will work now. Please trade at your own risk. This is just meant to help give a better sense of scale by offering historical comparisons. You can think of this as a rudimentary live backtesting tool.
How to use:
First, add the indicator to your chart and select an underlying. The example chart shown above is for RUT. In the example, I am interested in knowing whether a $200 buffer within 10DTE trades is sufficient to produce a likely winning trade even if I'm wrong about the direction of the underlying. To do this I push the settings button of the indicator and type in 10 for "Interval (days)" and 200 for "Buffer". Next I select only "Monday", "Wednesday", and "Friday" from the expiration checkboxes; leaving "Tuesday" and "Thursday" unchecked. This is because RUT has 3 expirations per week unlike most others that have just one per week (Friday). If you are looking at weekly options you should just check "Friday".
How to interpret the chart:
- Gray bars are your friends. Gray bars mean that if you had entered into a trade with the given DTE and buffer and you happen to be wrong about the direction (it happens to us all!), you would have still ended up with a winning trade. Good Job!
- Red bars indicate possible trouble. This means that your option would have likely been exercised if held till expiration given the amount of buffer you built into the contract. You might have needed to close for a loss or roll or take assignment.
How this can help:
I find it useful to adjust the DTE and buffer when I am going to enter a trade. It helps me see whether a similar trade has historically been resilient to lapses in directional judgement or not. If I'm really confident in the direction, then this won't be so useful. I could then sell closer to the money and feel like I have a winning position. But if there is less certainty and I want to dial back my risk, then this indicator helps me find the right risk/reward with regard to picking expirations and strikes.