I think we should think about downside first, and then upside to avoid being tempted.
Therefore, I'd like to talk about the downside of "cash-secured puts".
1. Limited gain per contract: $30-200
If you pursue a high safety margin, let's say 20-30% or even more safety cushion, annualized return is range between 3%-20% (based on the cash-secured amounts, it will be 4-5 times higher if based on the margin).
My average gain per contract is around $30-200.
2. The loss is huge even it's a 1/10 probability
If you use leverage with a gambler's mentality, then you my lose 10 times the money you made earlies when you encounter the market crashes.
A. In the process of the decline due to insufficient margin, you are forced to close the position resulting in a loss.
For example, $Tesla (TSLA)$ is now more than $700. You choose the proper strike price like $200, which is very safe.
But as soon as the stock falls, the margin required for the put will rise sharply.
If you don't have enough money, when $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ falls to 400 you will already be forced to close your position.
B. The float loss is huge.
For example, $Bilibili Inc.(BILI)$ 's was $157 at its high last year. When it fell to $80, I sell put at the strike price $55, which was very safe then.
First of all, $Bilibili Inc.(BILI)$ has fallen by half from the high. Second, I also left a 30% downside safety cushion.
After I bought the shares, the price of $Bilibili Inc.(BILI)$ continued to fall and now it is $25.
I sell covered call weekly / monthly and earn 30 cents - 50 cents to dilute the cost. I persisted for most of half a year. I need another 60 months (if the positive shares are flat) to break even.
3. High risk because it's easy to use leverage
As the gain and the number of contracts are positively correlated, the investor is prone to leveraging, and can't stick to the rule of cash-secured.
4. Higher requirements for risk & position control
Compared to buying and selling stocks, you need to be clear about timing of stopping losses and the stocks trend in the certain period, and so on. You can't just bet on the options before you really know how to do it.
5. Failing probability is higher than the statistics
The actual volatility of the broader market often exceeds the historical statistics. The black swan is always present.
In the past year, I had 12.05% probability of buying the underlying shares because the stock fell below the strike price.
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