I did make a simulated options portfolio for October as well. I focused a lot more on some experimental strategies this month as compared to simple delta strategies of September. Also I apologize for not making a sheet as promised for ease of tracking of the positions instead of such screenshots. Hopefully I will get some time this series to make it. This is directly the update post like the last month. Since not all of this portfolio was built at a time, there was no point in writing a ‘Start of the month’ article. Also this time it is difficult to gauge maximum profit on portfolio since some of the strategies did not have a fixed maximum reward. So let’s get into it.
BIG DISCLAIMER - I may not have position in the strategies I post here due to margin reasons. Derivatives are the most risky instruments available to retail traders. Please do your own studies before taking any trades in the stock market. I will not be responsible for outcomes of these trades. I do not own any charts or data I share here. Everything is for educational purposes only. I assume you agree to the disclaimer if you continue reading this article.
Banknifty Double calendar spread
So what is a double calendar spread? In short, you buy options in far expiry, 26th NOV in this case, and sell options in current expiry. Unique feature of this strategy is that you get positive theta, and positive vega. Meaning, you gain from theta decay AND you gain from rise in volatility. I think this strategy deserves a post of its own. So I will discuss the details separately.
Maruti Bull Put spread
This was a relatively simple strategy. Maruti has a good support around 7000. So when the stock came around that level, I initiated this spread. Since this strategy was initiated just a week before the expiry and 200 points out of the money, the premium was very low. But that also meant that theta decay would be rapid. For about 30 thousand rupees of margin, and about 6-7 days of holding period, this was a decent trade.
Wipro Bull Call Spread
This was one of trades that went horribly wrong both in this portfolio as well as my real money trading account. Results of Wipro were declared after market. A potential buyback was announced at 400rs. So without studying other numbers thoroughly, I took a bullish position in Wipro. Not only did it open gap down, it ended the series about 10 percent down from the results day. I did try to reduce the loss a little by booking profit in 370 CE and selling 360 CE making it into a Bear call spread.
Reliance call condor
This was another one of those experimental strategies I tried out this month. I did the same strategy in Cipla in my real account. I had initiated this strategy at the beginning of the month hoping that 2200 is the lowest RIL would go. It went much lower than that. Just like double calendars, call condors have some unique properties. I will write about it in a separate article. One thing I would like to point out that I booked out on 23rd of October when reliance was at 2100. Despite that the loss I incurred in this strategy was negligible. No it is not a bug or a manipulation, that is a feature of call condors.
Infosys call condor
This was a results day trade. Results trades are designed to take advantage of volatility crash after the results are announced. Traditional results trades are designed around short straddle strategy. I decided to give it a try with a call condor. About a week before expiry I decided to cover 1200 CE short call and short 1150 CE since it didn’t look like IT pack was in the mood to give a rally. This was one of the good trade, not just because of the profit but because the system worked.
Coal India bear call spread
Coal India looked very bearish after breaking and retesting 120. I initiated a bear call spread since I didn’t expect a further sharp down move neither did I expect Coal India to reclaim 120 levels. Those with a keen eye would recognize this trade as similar to the one taken in Eicher motors in the previous month. Entry was decent. But looking back at it, I do not remember why I exited out of this trade. The trade would have ended at maximum profit had I held on to it. This trade was worse than Wipro because I broke my system though the loss is smaller than that in Wipro.
Reliance box spread
Box spread is an arbitrage strategy. You enter into a vertical call spread and a vertical put spread or vice versa. Either one of the call spread or put spread will be a credit spread and the other will be the debit spread. Since the strike prices are same, the difference between credit and debit will be your profit. And theoretically, no matter what happens to the stock your profit will remain constant at expiry. I just wanted to check MTM fluctuation in this strategy. This is another one of those things about trading that looks easy but isn’t. I will write about this separately too.
In total the portfolio made about 17 thousand profit. Applying our deductions of about a thousand rupees per strategy, we still made about 10 thousand rupees on this. Though in this portfolio the capital used would be a lot less than previous month, we would still consider 10L as our investment. That makes the ROI for this month at 1%. This is significantly less than last month’s returns. It is also less than Nifty returns for the month which are around 3%. But we must keep in mind that after continuous reduction for 6 months since April, India VIX rose by almost 27%. That is a crazy increase in volatility. So despite the rise in volatility we managed to make some profit. That is what portfolio approach is all about.
Happy Trading.
P.S. – I had said in my previous monthly portfolio update article that I will post my trades on twitter. But it turned out to be a lot more tedious task than I thought it would be. So I don’t think I will be live tweeting all of my trades from now on. I may post some of the trades some of the times.