Welcome to this article on credit spreads. With this class we will be learning the importance of adjustments and what can happen if you do not know how to correctly handle your option positions. The best liked option spreads is called a "credit spread". We will take a good look at this particular spread today. There are those that consider this to be the best type of trade to do, but until working with this trade you will not know nor understand the high risk it can be. If it is traded by itself, an options credit spread can be very risky. This means it is not being guarded by any other option trade.
The "credit spread" is the first spread learned by most beginners. It is a very simple trade, but as a beginner with option trading you do not realize that this type of trade can be very dangerous. On the internet you will find many courses that teach this way of trading. The real reason is not because it's a safe trade, but it is easy to learn and easy to sell. Teaching "credit spreads" to a beginner in option trading is a great business, but if you only trade "credit spreads," you can lose a lot of money each year. Not only can you lose lots of money, but it is a very stressful way to live. Let's see why.
It's well known that an option trader can enter into a credit spread with a 90% probability that he will make money on the trade. That is well known. That is the popular belief, especially amongst beginning option traders. This is true, but do not ignore the other side of the picture. Even though you have a 90% probability to make a profit on the trade, you must consider what goes on while the trade is in play. People don't talk about the level of stress involved.
People don't talk about how they can be way behind on the trade sometimes the whole time they're in the trade. People don't talk about how they get down to the very last day and they are risking 90% just to make a small 10%, and they don't talk about how they can't sleep at night and how they are praying to God for their stock to go up tomorrow. Finally, one of the most important things that nobody tells you about the credit spread is that a 90% probability doesn't mean that you're going to make money nine times in a row and then lose one time. The sad truth is that you might lose 90% on your first trade. This happens often to new option traders.
The "credit spread" is the first spread learned by most beginners. It is a very simple trade, but as a beginner with option trading you do not realize that this type of trade can be very dangerous. On the internet you will find many courses that teach this way of trading. The real reason is not because it's a safe trade, but it is easy to learn and easy to sell. Teaching "credit spreads" to a beginner in option trading is a great business, but if you only trade "credit spreads," you can lose a lot of money each year. Not only can you lose lots of money, but it is a very stressful way to live. Let's see why.
It's well known that an option trader can enter into a credit spread with a 90% probability that he will make money on the trade. That is well known. That is the popular belief, especially amongst beginning option traders. This is true, but do not ignore the other side of the picture. Even though you have a 90% probability to make a profit on the trade, you must consider what goes on while the trade is in play. People don't talk about the level of stress involved.
People don't talk about how they can be way behind on the trade sometimes the whole time they're in the trade. People don't talk about how they get down to the very last day and they are risking 90% just to make a small 10%, and they don't talk about how they can't sleep at night and how they are praying to God for their stock to go up tomorrow. Finally, one of the most important things that nobody tells you about the credit spread is that a 90% probability doesn't mean that you're going to make money nine times in a row and then lose one time. The sad truth is that you might lose 90% on your first trade. This happens often to new option traders.
Short-term credit spreads is that they're very directional trades. Even though they have Theta on their side, they have Delta and Gamma working against them, and that's the trouble. For the small amount of Theta you get from a short-term credit spread, you end up picking up even more danger by trading this option spread with very high Gamma. This means as the price of the underlying changes, the profit and loss on the trade also changes rapidly. These are a lot more volatile and risky than most beginning option traders know.
In ending this class on the high risk in "credit spreads", I would just like to say that there are many other types of trades that are much safer than this "option spread". If you do trade "credit spreads", please try to combine them with other trades so they are not so risky.