Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Bull Call Spreads with Positive Theta

Bull Call Spread

We know that a Bull Call spread is a bullish position, with limited profit potential and losses. It this sense, credit Call spreads are limited risks positions...

A Bull Call spread consists of Long Call and Short Call of a higher Strike price.

Let's take AAPL as a case study....with AAPL price trading at ~$196

Some traders like to establish

A) Long 200 Call + Short 220 Call and pay $5.41 premium
vs
B) Long 180 Call + Short 200 Call and pay $15.38 premium

P/L for A)
Max Profit = $14.59 ( $20 - $5.41)
Max Losses = $5.41

P/L for B)
Max Profit = $4.62
Max Losses = $15.38

A) has a lot of profit potential and losses are much lesser, when compared to B). Moreover, it costs less to establish A) than B).

QUIZ :

Which of the 2 positions is a better trade, if indeed there's any difference, given the following Greeks:

GREEKS of A)
Delta +43
Gamma +1.5
Theta -7
Vega -11.6

GREEKS of B)
Delta +37
Gamma -1.7
Theta +4.9 >> most are mistaken that Bullish option positions will always yield -ve theta.. clearly not true
Vega - 11

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great Post!!

Thank you so much for sharing this case study. I learnt a lot about Bull call Spreads from this study.

Actually, I am doing a research on forex trading from long time. So this will be a great help to me.

Keep sharing :)