Option Repair Techniques By Jayesh Bagde At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

With Option Trading, you usually place a deal based on smart judgment. There are basic steps and useful techniques for option repair.

You cannot maintain the right position in an option trade all the time. You need to place a trade based on an intelligent judgment. It is somewhat likely to happen in the near future. You cannot control events that can hamper your forecast. There are unexpected things which can happen like:
- profit warnings
- lawsuits or
- “negative industry” news

It can cause stocks to drop unexpectedly in just one day. Rolling is one very common option of the repair technique is best suitable for it.
Here are some Steps on Option Repair Techniques

Accept when to take a loss
Take the time to consider whether a trade is worth repairing or not. Sometimes the goal of entering a certain business may vanish. This may be due to the fact that it does not meet the desired earning potential. It may also be due to some new product that does not meet the sales expectations. Rolling is a good strategy if you want to stay on a position.

Rolling an option – is the process of closing a support of an existing position. It is opening another support with the use of an option of the same type. It is in a different strike price and / or expiration date.
Rolling down – is replacing an out-of-the money option with a choice closer to the current price.

Rolling out – it means changing an option with one, having a farther out expiration month.

Rolling only helps if the stock stops going the wrong way and reverses.
Here is an example of the process to follow when deciding to repair a position or not.

On the morning of August 20, 2002 Amgen was trading at $46. The analysis says the stock has great potential. It could hit $60 by year-end. We did not want to waste $46,000 for 10,000 shares of stock. Instead, we purchased. Hence, the Jan 10, 2003 calls were for $2.00 for 10,000 shares of stocks. That’s a total of $2,000. It gives a breakeven point of $57 by January. Then, we waited to make the stocks move.

A month later, the stock price dropped to 8% on September 19th. It dropped 8% to $42. This is after Wyeth announced that they may sell a part of their stake in Amgen. Moreover, the January 10, 2003 calls were now worth $8.50 only. It went down by more than 50%. Thus, we could still do one of these three things before the four months left expires:
We can hold the option until the expiration. We will do nothing until the stock bounces back. We may be able to get all the money back.

Close the position. This is done in case the reasons why we entered the trade have disappeared. This would result in $1,150 loss. It is still less than the $4,000 loss if we had bought 10,000 shares of stocks.

Using rolling, we can try to repair the trade. The first thing to do is to sell the January 2003 calls. Using the profits of the sale, we could roll down and buy 5 of the January 2003 50 calls. We can also roll out and buy 5 of the April 2003 55 calls. Any of these 2 choices would require a little additional capital only.

It is apparent here that the best expected return is rolling out in time.
When the stock price goes past $59.50, this means that the original position outperformed the repaired position. This means that an increase of almost 50% over the next 4 months. The adjusted position gets the breakeven point down to $52.50 from $57.

The best choice depends on our future expectations for the company. It’s not important to hold the January 2003 55 calls if the original price and date is doubtful. You may lose most, if not all of your money.

The next thing to do is to look for possible option repair strategies. For instance, we still expect that Amgen will pick up again; the option is to buy more time. You may even lower your so-called breakeven point via rolling out towards the April 2003 55 calls.

If the business moves against you, it is best to take your loss. This is also applicable to repair strategies. You can roll an option once or twice. Thus, if you continue losing, it’s time to move on to something new. When the business moves against you, sometimes you don’t know what will be the next step. When you know all the possible option repair strategies, you can salvage unprofitable business.

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