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Wiki Selling TSLA Options - Be the House

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I have read this forum from cover to cover, including the cover, and I've never heard of change a P to a C ??!!? "split-flip" ????!!? split roll into more favorable strike (what is the cost of this, etc)...

Here are some words. A lot of words. A whole lot of words.

One could be forgiven for TLDRing a post a fraction the size. :cool:

TLDR for that post, the split/flip/splitflip are fundamentally no different than a standard "roll out the covered call to a better strike" strategy, other than being slightly more creative/complex.

The important thing to know that when you're rolling [in a regular full-options level account] you a) don't have to roll to an equivalent number of contracts and b) don't have to roll to the same type of contract (put vs call). So for a split, you might take your 10 put spreads and split them to 20 put spreads. For a flip you might take 10 put put spreads and flip them to 10 call spreads. For the split flip you might take the 10 put spreads and, over the course of two 4-leg trade tickets, roll them into 20 iron condors.

The reason you might split a position is because you can split the unfavorable value of those 10 spreads over 20 spreads instead, which allows you to also roll to a more favorable strike/expiry--better theta, lower ∆. The reason you might flip a position is in the event you think underlying is going to continue going in the [currently] unfavorable direction, which of course will dig an opposite position out from being underwater. Combine logic for a split flip, or make up whatever creative solution you want.

For instance, I once was in a bad way on 10 spreads, and I didn't have margin to make any of the above strategies return material recovery. So I basically just played the 'standard' roll game on 9 of the spreads, and split one of the spreads into 10 weekly ICs. It took a few weeks to burn off those ICs to expiring OTM. Then I took another spread, and split it into 11 ICs this time and again burned it off over the course of a few weeks (while standard rolling the other 8). After a few months I got out of the shitty place without massively running up my margin and without adding a massive additional amount of exposure.
 
I got the Bulliten from IB last night saying they would re-evaluate my initial margin on 12 May against the lowest 20 day moving average price over the last year (around $165). I have a decent margin buffer now but this could wipe out all available initial margin given the ITM -P's I've been rolling plus LEAPS. The result is I may not be able to withdraw any cash (needed for upcoming taxes) or take out any positions that can increase margin (much of my options selling). When they decide to move on maintenance margin (as hinted) it would likely result in liquidation of numerous positions that I would have otherwise held till a recovery or rolled up and out.

I get the distinct impression that IBKR don't want me as a client anymore. It also puts a severe dent on any plans for early retirement funded by option sales. Unfortunately in Australia there are very few brokers with direct access to US options equivalent to IB. The only one I've found that's comparible is Tastyworks but I don't know a whole lot about them. Is anyone else in a similar position of contemplating a change in broker or strategy given this move by IB?
Sorry to hear about your situation. Unfortunately, I don't have specific steps that would help with the numbers.
However, my 2 cents, get to a calm state of mind, even if briefly.
Then, think about the steps you can take to best deal with this.
One of the steps can be seeking advise from folks in this forum, some of who are better knowledgeable in the subject.

One point I notice is the margin requirement will also be adjusted, but there's no date set yet on that. Your point about exploring other brokers seem sensible. Moving to a better broker (if there's one in Australia) likely will address the maintenance margin situation.
It appears you have portfolio margin, one other option is to see if changing it to other account type will make things better. Other margin types also give reasonable margin. It appear not all margin types at IBKR have this margin requirement adjustments.

Try to, so to speak, put down on pen and paper the math, choices you can go by to alleviate the situation.

I wish you best in navigating this tough time.
 
Sorry to hear about your situation. Unfortunately, I don't have specific steps that would help with the numbers.
However, my 2 cents, get to a calm state of mind, even if briefly.
Then, think about the steps you can take to best deal with this.
One of the steps can be seeking advise from folks in this forum, some of who are better knowledgeable in the subject.

One point I notice is the margin requirement will also be adjusted, but there's no date set yet on that. Your point about exploring other brokers seem sensible. Moving to a better broker (if there's one in Australia) likely will address the maintenance margin situation.
It appears you have portfolio margin, one other option is to see if changing it to other account type will make things better. Other margin types also give reasonable margin. It appear not all margin types at IBKR have this margin requirement adjustments.

Try to, so to speak, put down on pen and paper the math, choices you can go by to alleviate the situation.

I wish you best in navigating this tough time.
I also have another account with IB that's cash only (superannuation/retirement account) and 100% TSLA. I didn't get the bulletin in that account so it maybe limited to margin accounts. I'll call IB later and discuss. Overall I'm not overly stressed with the situation, more annoyed at the timing.

I did run the Risk Navigator software like they suggest in the bulletin. Using the settings and steps outlined it only resulted in a drop in initial margin of around $90k, leaving plenty of buffer left. I'm not fully trusting of this result given talk of minimum 1 year 20 daySMA, so will raise it with IB. Thanks for the helpful suggestions, hopefully this is just a storm in a tea cup.
 
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What were your trade tickets?
All in the web interface. In Option Chain start with clicking on the Ask price to start a Buy To Open order (puts me into the new ticket interface).

Change to a Spread ticket getting me to this (I filled out the rest):
Screenshot 2021-05-11 004703.png


I submitted and the offer was taken. I have both positions now.

The IRA acct now has 400 shares, this 1 long call, and 5 short calls in it.

EDIT to add: Trade Type is margin, not cash. The two positions also appear in the acct as margin (its still a rollover IRA though).


I haven't yet done a Roll transaction with this short call but I don't see any reason it won't work.
 
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@adiggs I know hope isn’t supposed to be a strategy but you gave me some real hope anyway … thanks

Something I figured out awhile back is that if you look at the .67 delta on longest dated LEAPs it'll usually cost you right at 100 shares = 3 contracts. You get 2x leverage in a ~2y call contract that is a little bit ITM. I'm going a lot deeper ITM with my calls but my purpose is different - and I still get nearly 2x (1.7x or so).
 
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Upon further review I've spent some more time with the Jun '23 options. I've settled on the $300 strikes.

What I found:
300 strike. .91 delta, $380 cost, $50 time value, $76k for 2 contracts (~20% more than buying 100 shares)

350 strike. .88 delta, $350 cost, $70 time value. $70k for 2 contracts

400 strike. .84 delta, $325 cost, $95 time value. $65k for 2 contracts.


The small bit of incremental cost is well worth the incremental delta and even lower strike. I'm not looking for capital efficiency. And buying a second cc contract for $50 over the next 13-25 months is entirely worth it to me. No margin and therefore more cash for stuff, including cash secured puts.


I just got the primary missing rollover IRA money today. I'll be calculating the # of call and put contracts I can write in that account given that I can also perform roll transactions when using the leap as the contract backing. Assuming yes then I also think that its a good time to be buying LEAPs :)
In comparing those strikes, are you factoring in how the Delta will eventually increase as SP rises? Isn't that what makes the 400 strikes a better value, cheaper to buy now, but eventually they'll have that same .91 delta?

When I buy far out of the money LEAPS, I always consider the gradually increasing delta to be sort of another form of leverage in buying the cheaper, farther out of the money LEAPS vs. at- or in-the-money LEAPS.

Yeah, my knowledge if pretty rudimentary, but I've done far better than I deserve despite that... so far. Sorry if I'm butting in late in a conversation, I've been glued to the main "perpetual" thread so long I've been missing lots here. Perhaps I have some assumptions that need ironing out.
 
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This morning with SP down to 584 and cratering, I noticed that in my taxed account my Jun 22 strike 260 LEAPS closed at $384, while Jun 2023 strike $250 LEAPS are $422.70; that seems to me like a relatively small difference to pay for an extra year before expiration, AND the price being low, my tax bill from selling my Jun 2022's (over a year old, so long-term cap gains) won't be all that high either, allowing me to roll my 2022's into 2023's without having to lose too much value to the tax man.
 
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January IS... but also ISN'T such a long way away, esp. if there's a big, bad, slow macro event. I tend to favor farter out of the money LEAPS, and I'm trying to figure out the cost/benefits of selling my Jun 2022's and buying comparable strike Jun 2023 LEAPS and it kind of looks like (maybe?) a no-brainer, perhaps even more so in a taxed account because I'd be paying less taxes when selling while prices are lower. Copying this to the wheel thread since I guess it's considered off-topic...
 
So fundamentally, I never exit a -C/-P at a loss. That's my #1 rule. (My other #1, as noted above, is "don't ever roll for debit"). I'll simply keep rolling until I exit through expiring worthless (or at least getting close to worthless and then closing out)--even if it takes weeks or months--by slowing burning down the negative value through progressively more favorable strikes. I certainly wouldn't suggest that's the most profitable approach as it can tie up capital that could otherwise be earning profit, but it keeps me in check on the selling side. Selling options is almost inherently a long term losing game if you don't apply some strict rules for selective entry/exit (to be fair, that's all trading, but especially with selling options), and so "never close for a loss" is my approach to never getting too deep and, ultimately, never losing.

Next, if you're trading in a Fidelity IRA (and probably many other IRA platforms?) you're pretty limited in rolling. You can't do splits and flips like you can with a regular Level 4 account. Much to my chagrin you can't even sell a call against existing shares to back into a covered call position in a Fidelity IRA (To be fair, I haven't confirmed with Fidelity whether or not that's user error on my part...).

But to answer your question, generally when it comes to selling options and especially selling naked/cash covered, you're should be doing so at a strike where your analysis says the price won't go. So for instance on a put, if your original strike was (as it should be...) below a technical support price/zone and the price blew out the bottom of that support and now you're ITM, you'd want to identify the next area of support (using whatever method works for you) for your roll-to strike price. If that next area is pretty close and especially if its strong and especially if the stock is in general strong both technically a fundamentally, you can take your chances by just rolling outa week in expiration and down in strike or however far you can go on credit, based on the logic that your analysis suggests there could be a fairly quick reversal in underlying back into your favor. But...if the signs aren't as positive, you'd want to roll farther down and, preferably, not really farther out (you want to get out of this, after all).

So if things look really shitty you could just flip the -P into a -C. This one's a pretty agressive move and I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a go-to as it explicitly means you're getting yourself out of an ITM -P and into an ITM -C, but its also the most basic: All you're doing is buying to close the -P and selling to open an equivalent value -C, again at a strike that makes sense, and again, for credit. This is mostly useful in a major tanking scenario where the whole market is going south, but can be used around earnings too if it looks like a post-earnings dump is going to keep swirling.

Just to be clear, when I say always roll for credit, I'm talking cents on the contracts (or dollars on the position). I usually try not to go below $10 just so I know any fees and commission will be covered, but at some point the credit your taking could be used for a more favorable strike/expiration. Depending on the option B/A spread, I'm usually collecting maybe tens of dollars on the position.

The other thing you can do is a split--all this means is you buy your -P to close (or -C, or spread, or whatever--none of these strategies are just about puts) and sell multiple -P's to open, 'splitting' the value of the original -P over that number of -P's for the specific purpose of having a lower strike--ostensibly one below a strong support--and, if possible, a closer expiration. This can be a bit of a rabbit hole too so you really need to be careful about it. It ties up more capital/margin and increases your downside risk. But, in moderation and in the right scenario it can be a reasonably safe and fast way to get out of a red position.

As previously noted, my go-to is a combination of the two--a split-flip. I use it all the time to pull out of ITM covered calls when I don't just want to close the position (RSUs especially), but I'll also do it with diagonals (which are sort of the all-option version of a covered call) and vertical spreads, though rarely do I go long on a vertical spread... Anyway, in that scenario I BTC my ITM -C and STO a -C with a higher strike, and then also STO a -P (and as previously noted, usually a credit spread over a naked -P), and occasionally--especially for WAY ITM -C's--multiple -P's. This works no problem in a standard four-leg orders as it ends up looking like:

BTC ITM -C
STO less ITM -C
STO OTM -P
BTO farther OTM +P

The reason I like this strategy is that it splits the current value of the ITM -C across more contracts, giving me a more favorable -C (which is the primary thing I'm trying to get out of). It also flips some of the red value to the other side of the equation, so price movement in the unfavorable direction isn't all bad--if price keeps going up on underlying those -P's are going to lose value quickly, if price moves down that makes my ITM -C less ITM, and, assuming I was smart with where I chose my -P strike, they'll still expire worthless. Bear in mind that split-flip example was solving for an ITM -C, but you can imagine it working for an ITM -P too.


Somewhat related, I'll often sell ATM or even ITM CCs during earnings week to capture the mega high Vega. For instance, on Monday two weeks ago I sold a just-ITM ROKU weekly where the time value was (I think) something like 7% of my capital on the trade. So that meant that if earnings hit I'd make 7% on my capital in 5 (or less) trading days, and if earnings tanked I'd have something like 8% (or maybe more?) downside protection. Earnings ended up pretty shitty, but I still ended up with something like $100 profit.



Yeah its good to understand that, especially in context of The Wheel, a -P is NOT the inverse of a covered call, so you absolutely shouldn't be using the same logic on choosing strike prices and expirations. The inverse of a CC is if you shorted 100 shares and then sold a -P.



Insert same soapbox as upthread about ∆ having little to do with selling options, but again I appreciate that you're using ∆ to try and find some way to normalize risk. I just can't stress enough for folks that maybe don't fully understand that nuance that selling options to realize ∆ is a terrible way to try and make money.

Since it sounds like you're using Fidelity, look into the "Probability Calculator" and "Profit/Loss Calculator" in the options tab. In slightly different ways both of them provide a much more accurate normalization you're looking for, in a way that incorporates the whole picture of the contract and not the very small piece of the pie that's ∆. Picking a -C/-P based on ∆ is like picking a Tesla over XYZ car because you like the frunk. Yeah, no question its cool to have a trunk. But if the reason you pick a Tesla is because of the frunk.... :cool:

Otherwise, monthly CCs really aren't a bad way to go. You get more Vega on the monthlies than the weeklies which is nice for profit, less maintenance than a weekly so that's always great, more room to run (you'd have a farther OTM strike with a monthly than a weekly), and more time to pull out of an ITM scenario if you're feeling YOLOey. And most importantly with a CC vs a naked/cash covered put, its really no big deal if you go ITM on a covered call. Being ITM basically just gives you downside protection until you can roll out of it. Obviously you get no income during that time, but each roll that moves the strike up you sort of 'unlock' more profit.



Yeah, its super sketchy to open a -C/-P position without an exit at some price target that makes sense. Basically, if you're actually letting an option expire worthless, odds are you're doing it wrong. A common value to close is $5, and some (many?) brokerages will actually waive fees when you're closing a contract that low since they don't want to deal with the hassle of potential assignment. And seriously, if you're at $5 contract value--especially if its not later in the day on Friday, its kind of insane to not close out.

But...IMHO a smarter, less agressive price target is the way to go--say, closing out when contract value is 25% of what you sold it for. A potentially more practical method to implement this is to roll the value that's left to your next preferred expiration (next week, next month, whatever). WIth pretty much any OTM contract, and especially weeklies, its a better deal to roll before close on Friday and sometimes even Thursday, unless you're sufficiently OTM on that contract and have the capital/margin to open up a new position. Depending on how close to zero your current contract value goes, its very plausible that you can find a suitable contract for next week that has better theta.



So the rub with selling options is that one can easily fall into the too-good-to-be-true trap. Its easy for a trader to be a little lax on finding proper entry and exit points based on the perceived logic of "I don't have to be right, I just have to be not wrong". Unfortunately, that approach significantly increases the already unfavorable odds that one cycle will wipe out (or more) the profit collected from many previous cycles. Make no mistake, selling options still requires diligence with an entry, exit, and stop.

For a case study on the unfavorable odds, had one sold a 1450 weekly put on Friday close they would have collected a little less than ~$1k in time value--that would be for a contract that's ~$200 OTM and has a ~10% chance of being ITM. Assuming that's average collection (it won't be, but first order, that's not a problem with the case study), over 9 cycles one makes $9k on $145k worth of capital. First blush, 6% in two months ain't so bad, right?. The issue is that on the 10th cycle that's statistically ITM, the underlying drops $200, and at that point you're just hoping you found the bottom of a pretty major drawdown. If the underlying goes down more than $10 from there (equivalent to the $1k you collected on the current contract), you're eating into the past two months of profits. If the underlying goes another $100--equivalent to the $9k you collected previously plus the $1k from the current contract--your last 2 months are a wash. If it goes farther, you're progressively more and more in the hole. And of course if that statistical ITM happens sooner in the two months, it all gets more red.

Similarly, a more agressive case using 1550 would have collected ~$2.1k on a ~25% probability ITM. Assuming 3 good weeks you're at ~$6.3k profit, but now the fourth week only needs a dip of $100 in underlying to go ITM, and a ~$184 drop in underlying to wash out the ~month's work.

The same math applies at any underlying price and any expiration timeframe, and the same math applies if you're allowing yourself to be put shares (and thus you're starting in the red). Its a tight line to walk to maintain profit with that kind of strategy, and the odds of staying on the right side of the line are SIGNIFICANTLY improved by having things like proper entry, exit, and stop targets.


Countering those case studies--and obviously a different strategy completely--for a comparison in profit, remember my "looks like we might see it drop down to high 1300's" from upthread? Had one bought an ATM call on the first drop down and back through $1400 on 7/24 (I'm using November for expiry as its a good rule of thumb to never buy calls/puts closer than ~3 months expiration), one would have laid out ~$25k in capital and would be sitting at ~$13-14k profit. In three weeks. (To be clear, that was before I made the statement). Had that same call been purchased the second time price dropped down and back out of the high 1300's, confirming that support, (that would have been on 8/10, so after I made the statement), one would have even more profit.

As it stands I bought calls a little too aggressively on that price target, risking a bigger drawdown in an attempt to beat the flag breakout. I bought near close of 7/31, which was around $1430 underlying--and I bought $1600 (Nov) calls to reduce my ∆ exposure a bit, so I'm "only" sitting at $9.4k/contract profit right now. Futures are looking good right now and while Asia-Pac is split, Shanghai is up like 2.3% (to be fair, TSLA seems to deviate from the market more than other stocks...but TSLA is increasingly heavy in China so seeing DJSH up can't be bad news), so there's a good chance I'll open to a nice jump in profit.

The point is that the level of effort is basically equivalent in the two strategies (I'm actively charting TSLA either way), the position I took basically waited for [what I deemed] a quality entry point, whereas the -P strategy relies on quantity over quantity to return results. And, since any kind of trading or investing is all about making money, it does seem to make sense to focus on quality of unbounded profit positions over quantity of bounded and limited profit positions...
I printed this... 7 pages!
Thank you
 
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I got the Bulliten from IB last night saying they would re-evaluate my initial margin on 12 May against the lowest 20 day moving average price over the last year (around $165). I have a decent margin buffer now but this could wipe out all available initial margin given the ITM -P's I've been rolling plus LEAPS. The result is I may not be able to withdraw any cash (needed for upcoming taxes) or take out any positions that can increase margin (much of my options selling). When they decide to move on maintenance margin (as hinted) it would likely result in liquidation of numerous positions that I would have otherwise held till a recovery or rolled up and out.

I get the distinct impression that IBKR don't want me as a client anymore. It also puts a severe dent on any plans for early retirement funded by option sales. Unfortunately in Australia there are very few brokers with direct access to US options equivalent to IB. The only one I've found that's comparible is Tastyworks but I don't know a whole lot about them. Is anyone else in a similar position of contemplating a change in broker or strategy given this move by IB?
IIRC reading old forum posts (advanced options thread), reducing margin seems to have been used in the past as an additional assistance to the MMs/hedgies short interest. They up the requirements, force people to sell to get in balance, thus reducing pressure on the SP. Eventually, Tesla breaks through with increased production/sales/profits and the SP explodes. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same scenario is being replayed this week. I expect the SP to languish until new Q2 sales information is released. A full-throttle run probably won’t happen until Fall.
 
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In comparing those strikes, are you factoring in how the Delta will eventually increase as SP rises? Isn't that what makes the 400 strikes a better value, cheaper to buy now, but eventually they'll have that same .91 delta?

When I buy far out of the money LEAPS, I always consider the gradually increasing delta to be sort of another form of leverage in buying the cheaper, farther out of the money LEAPS vs. at- or in-the-money LEAPS.

Yeah, my knowledge if pretty rudimentary, but I've done far better than I deserve despite that... so far. Sorry if I'm butting in late in a conversation, I've been glued to the main "perpetual" thread so long I've been missing lots here. Perhaps I have some assumptions that need ironing out.
This is an excellent observation and all true. In my case I am primarily interested in the confidence that I can sell covered calls against these leaps for the next 2 years, rather than the increase in value of the leaps (which I also want exposure to). For my situation / context this is the more conservative and reliable contribution to my retirement, rather than the incremental exposure to the upside.

My primary goal here is to be confident I can sell covered calls for the next 2 years and the 1.7x leverage to the upside (and downside) is plenty.


I've found that around the .67 delta you'll find slightly ITM or OTM max duration leaps at a price of close to 3 contracts per 100 shares. That'll get you 2x leverage at the start and will grow to that .9 delta (2.7 delta over 3 contracts) reasonably quickly given a share move in that 2 years we think possible. I don't know if that is still the case right now.

I just know that I'm loving this drop today :) I'm about to go shopping and the stuff on my list is getting cheaper.

EDIT: Bought 2 of the Jun '23 300 strike calls at around $375 ($75k for the 2 of them). That is around $65 of time value ($610 share price and 300 strike leaves about $65 for the time value). I'll be paying for that over the next 2 years as I regularly write CC against them. And I can probably roll them at around $30 in time value and a year to expiration for an even lower net time value cost. I also sold this week 655 strike calls (chosen to be just the other side of the call wall showing a lot of activity at the 650 strike call) for about a $3 premium.
 
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Also Fidelity - I have L2 with 'margin' (use proceeds same day).

I opened the position so far - I may be attempting the role tomorrow (already up 50%)
Additional update on this. I now have 400 shares and 3 purchased calls (300 and 400 strike) with 7 covered calls against them.

As a test I also just tried to sell an additional covered call in this account. I double checked the account and that the trade type was margin and received this error:
(354014) Your order will leave your account with an option position that exceeds your option level. Please review your order.


I also rolled the previous (like yesterday) -685c to -655c, both expiring this week, in the account with no issues, so I believe that I have the tools that I need/want to manage these positions.
 
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I am tempted about selling some June 22 600p on margin for $150. I know there is better uses for margin but it sounds tempting at over 1k a month for what I consider a relatively safe and stress free play.
I've done something like this though I was selling reasonably deep ITM puts at that time ($400s share price and the $600 Sept '21 put).

The difference is that I did that without using margin. While the long run price may make that inevitable, but what if the shares drop to $400 along the way? Will that trigger a margin call?


While unlikely I consider a drop to $400(ish) to be on the table, at least for the rest of this year, and maybe for the next couple of years. That is about where we were at before the S&P announcement and that created a big and sharp move up, even in a stock that was already up bigly over the year. The difficulty with TSLA is knowing when we've departed a trading range/level for a new range/level and are never going back.

I saw that in the move from $5 to $38 back in 2013, and we never went back to $5 (though we did briefly revisit $26, on the way up to $45). But we've also seen the shares bounce around between $60 and $80 for years, always thinking the shares were grossly underpriced at $80. Until they FINALLY broke through in fall a year and a half ago. I don't see us revisiting $80 ($400 pre-split) - I think we're permanently out of that trading range.

But the way I see it, we need a lot more time trading between say $500 and $900 before we can be confident that this is the new range and we're not going back to $400. This is, by the way, why I don't really see a big move up later this year. We've come a long way in a short time and the next significant source of buyers that I see will come from the financial metrics investors as they see big quarterly results. I don't see big enough quarterly results happening this year to be enticing for enough of those buyers.

(EDIT to add: not advice, and just because I think it doesn't make me right :D)
 
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In comparing those strikes, are you factoring in how the Delta will eventually increase as SP rises? Isn't that what makes the 400 strikes a better value, cheaper to buy now, but eventually they'll have that same .91 delta?

First, love that folks are analyzing The Greeks for strike selection. While the leverage of an option is great (and/or dangerous 😉) , making The Greeks work for you is the real game changer when trading options.

Second, FWIW, I never buy ITM contracts or hold DITM contracts after a big price move, for a few reasons, in no particular order:
--From an initial purchase price perspective, typically the farther OTM the strike the more ∆-for-dollar you can get
--There's a gamma bubble that peaks ATM, (gamma is the rate of change of ∆); to maximize gains from underlying movement, you'd prefer to always be at the top of that bubble
--Similarly, there's a Vega*IV bubble that peaks ATM, and so in a rising volatility environment you also want to stay as high on that bubble as possible
--Somewhat conflicting with above, the Vega*IV/$ ratio increases the farther OTM the strike
--And same for gamma, where the gamma/$ becomes more favorable the farther OTM the strike
--Much less important since time decay isn't much of an issue with properly bought calls but worth considering all the same, the farther ITM the strike the lower the theta/$ ratio
--And also much less important since interest rates are a minor player, the farther ITM the strike the lower the rho/$ ratio
--Often the B/A spread gets less favorable for the trader as a strike goes farther away from the money (in either direction) and so while typically small, you end up paying a bit more of The Stupid Tax when far away from the money

Again, some of those are conflicting with one another, and personal preference may weight them differently than I, but my go-to strategy rolls up to: buy slightly OTM (usually less tan 10% on the underlying but sometimes more) and sell/roll once they start rolling down the ITM side of the gamma and Vega bubbles. Put another way, I usually maintain owned contract strikes within ~10% or so of underlying.
 
I've done something like this though I was selling reasonably deep ITM puts at that time ($400s share price and the $600 Sept '21 put).

The difference is that I did that without using margin. While the long run price may make that inevitable, but what if the shares drop to $400 along the way? Will that trigger a margin call?


While unlikely I consider a drop to $400(ish) to be on the table, at least for the rest of this year, and maybe for the next couple of years. That is about where we were at before the S&P announcement and that created a big and sharp move up, even in a stock that was already up bigly over the year. The difficulty with TSLA is knowing when we've departed a trading range/level for a new range/level and are never going back.

I saw that in the move from $5 to $38 back in 2013, and we never went back to $5 (though we did briefly revisit $26, on the way up to $45). But we've also seen the shares bounce around between $60 and $80 for years, always thinking the shares were grossly underpriced at $80. Until they FINALLY broke through in fall a year and a half ago. I don't see us revisiting $80 ($400 pre-split) - I think we're permanently out of that trading range.

But the way I see it, we need a lot more time trading between say $500 and $900 before we can be confident that this is the new range and we're not going back to $400. This is, by the way, why I don't really see a big move up later this year. We've come a long way in a short time and the next significant source of buyers that I see will come from the financial metrics investors as they see big quarterly results. I don't see big enough quarterly results happening this year to be enticing for enough of those buyers.

(EDIT to add: not advice, and just because I think it doesn't make me right :D)
What option level do you need to sell calls on your leaps? If it goes below strike, is the cc going to be blown up? As someone who has faced execution issues yesterday, I need to look before I LEAP? :cool: