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Option Strategies for Directionless Markets: Trading with Butterflies, Iron Butterflies, and Condors
written by Anthony J Saliba
Studio : Bloomberg Press
by Bloomberg Press
Publisher : Bloomberg Press
Released : 2008-03-27
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9781576602492
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 2 reviews)
List Price : $39.95
Our Price : $22.82
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Product Description |
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If you know the right strategies, you can profit by trading options in a sideways, or directionless, market. (This is fortunate because directionless markets occur more frequently than bull or bear markets.) This hands-on workbook teaches you the most important trading strategies and how to apply them. You'll find out how to identify, enter, manage, and exit a trade. The special format makes it easy to learn; illustrations, exercises, what-if scenarios, and quizzes have you mastering the material in no time. The butterfly family of option strategies is covered, including: butterflies, iron butterflies, condors, broken-wing butterflies, pterodactyls, and iron pterodactyls. The greeks--delta, gamma, vega, and theta--are also covered. Understanding the greeks is essential to deciding how to apply the strategies. If you are a professional or an active individual trader, you can benefit from this book. |
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Option Strategies for Directionless Markets |
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I would have liked to see more information on guidelines to determine the best range (width) to buy (sell). Specifics on Condor corrections like when is the best time, how to determine how much correction, and alternatives. I would have liked to see ideas on "winging into condors" or adding one side at a time. |
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Another mediocre book describing the strategies! |
I have read a lot of books on options and most of them have one thing in common - they all just describe the various options strategies but do not provide any information on how to use the strategies effectively to make money. This book is no different.
The book delves into how a butterfly and a condor are structured. If you know that a butterfly is structured by a short straddle and protected by a long strangle further out of money, you can skip pages and pages of explanation on the structure. If you already know how to calculate the profit or loss for various prices of the underlying at expiration, you can again skip many pages. Same is true regarding the option greeks. Also, pages and pages of theory does not add much value if you already know about the construction of a condor, which is nothing but a short strangle protected by a long strangle that is further out of money.
What is sorely lacking from the book is any advice on how to practically use these strategies for profitable trading. The author mentions that you will trade these strategies when the market is range bound. The author does not give any practical suggestion on selecting the long strikes or wings of the butterfly other than mentioning in the passing that one may use probabilities, but does not go into details of how the probabilities are derived. If you are a butterfly trader you probably already know about standard deviations and probabilities and the importance of IV in calculating the expected movement. Also, once you are in a trade, how do you manage it when it goes against you? The author does not discuss that in any detail.
The chapter on 'Strategy Applications' has a lot of diagrams depicting when to leg into and out of the butterfly/condor depending on the market; whether it has broken out of a range and whether IV is falling or rising etc., This is one chapter that can be of some practical use.
All in all, if you are a beginner you might find some interesting reading on the butterfly and condor strategies. But all that and a lot more strategies are covered in depth in McMillan's 'Options as a strategic investment' book.
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