MCD risk chart

Options Safari: FXE Bearish Diagonal & MCD Bullish Diagonal

Dan’s two shows for CBOE TV Options Safari this week are:

MCD Bullish Diagonal Spread

FXE FXE Bearish Diagonal Tom suggested

MCD Bullish Diagonal Spread
FXE risk chart

FXE Bearish Diagonal

free resources, free options education, free options help, options education,

And please see our options trading for beginners page.

Options Synthetics Quiz Answers

How did you do taking the quiz on Option Synthetics? In case you want a refresher, here’s an article I wrote about them that is a good summary: What everybody ought to know about Option Synthetics. We can use an easy equation to remember the synthetic relationships:

C = U + P

The relationships can be summarized in this short table:

1. Long Call = Long Stock + Long Put (C = U + P)
2. Short Call = Short Stock + Short Put (-C = -U – P)
3. Long Put = Long Call + Short Stock (P = C – U)
4. Short Put = Short Call + Long Stock (-P = -C + U)
5. Long Stock = Long Call + Short Put (U = C – P)
6. Short Stock = Short Call + Long Put (-U = -C + P)

Armed with this information, let’s go through the quiz:

1. How would you create a synthetic SHORT CALL?
That’s #2 on our summary: Short Stock + Short Put

2. How would you create synthetic LONG STOCK?
That’s #5 on our summary: Long Call + Short Put

3. How would you create a synthetic LONG PUT?
That’s #3 on our summary: Long Call + Short Stock

4. How would you hedge an out-of-the-money SHORT CALL with a synthetic position?
To completely hedge the position, use a synthetic LONG CALL at the same strike as your SHORT CALL.
Buy LONG STOCK and a LONG PUT at the same strike as your SHORT CALL.
You now have zero risk and are perfectly hedged.

5. If your underlying is near your upside expiration on a butterfly trade, how would you reduce your delta risk with a synthetic position?
If you are near the upside expiration of a butterfly, you have negative Deltas.
New need to crease your deltas. Positive delta synthetics are #1, #4 and #5 on our summary list above. Any of them should give you more positive delta. If you need a fine adjustment, use #1 or #4 as #5 (Long Stock) is +100 deltas, which might be too much, depending on your butterfly size.

6. How can you completely neutralize a 100/110 call credit spread with puts?
Create a box spread. The 100/110 call credit spread is -1 100C and +1 110C. If you add +1 100P and -1 110P you would have synthetic Short stock at 100 and synthetic Long stock at 110. This position has zero risk.

7. You are long a futures contract at $100. The contract is now at $125. How can you lock in the $25 profit without selling the futures contract over the weekend with a synthetic option position?
To lock in the $25 profit, you just need to add a synthetic short future with futures options:
-1 125C and +1 125P should give you a synthetic short future contract, which will neutralize your long future.

I hope you enjoyed the quiz. It’s good to know these relationships and practice from time-to-time with a quiz like this!

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And please see our options trading for beginners page.

Options Synthetics Quiz

Multiple choice examination form or customer satisfaction surveyA friend was taking an exam to get Customer Portfolio Margin for his option trading account recently.  He showed me the exam and I noticed that 20% of the exam were questions about option synthetics!  If it’s that important to an option broker, it should be important to us.

My two youngest children attend the German school system.  There are no multiple-choice exams: they are all essay questions.  You have to show your work.  Let’s do the same thing.

Write down your answers for each question.  
Explain WHY the answer is what you say it is.  Don’t just say, ___ .  Show your work…you’ll learn a lot more.   This is an open book exam since I can’t watch you, but try to answer the questions without looking anything up.  You’ll get more out of it.

Here we go

1. How would you create a synthetic SHORT CALL?

2. How would you create synthetic LONG STOCK?

3. How would you create a synthetic LONG PUT?

4. How would you hedge an out-of-the-money SHORT CALL with a synthetic position?

5. If your underlying is near your upside expiration on a butterfly trade, how would you reduce your delta risk with a synthetic position?

6. How can you completely neutralize a 100/110 call credit spread with puts?

7.  You are long a futures contract at $100.  The contract is now at $125.  How can you lock in the $25 profit without selling the futures contract over the weekend with a synthetic option position?

Good luck with the quiz!  I’ll post the answers next week.

free resources, free options education, free options help, options education,

And please see our options trading for beginners page.