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Wiki Selling TSLA Options - Be the House

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Problem with inverse strangles is that the only play is with the Theta, at least one side of the trade will be ITM at expiry, maybe both, I don't see the logic here. Better to have a single short position that has a chance of going OTM or a straddle where you half your risk, but an inverse strangle, no, I would only write those in-extremis

Thanks for responding. Let me explain my thinking. I'm short calls, and they are ITM. If Tesla rallies, then they go deeper in the money, making management harder. But by flipping one contract to a comparable put... in case of a rally that put will decrease in value. Delta in the money approaches 1.

The calls then increase in value... but that means calls closer to the put also increase in value. So I then STC the short put and STO a short call, at a higher strike.

I have now successfully converted one of my short calls into a much closer to the money short call. One that is likely higher than my cost basis.

I am trying to figure this out as I go. I haven't been in this position before. I could just BTC the calls and eat $12k in losses, but I have already gotten that down to half the contracts I started with, and every trade has been at a net credit.

I have 6 months of time left to manage the position, and I am hoping to get the strikes into prices I actually like, or maybe even turn it into a short strangle.

That's assuming TSLA bounces around between the strikes. If it takes off to the moon (my fear) then it will outrun the put and it will expire, or be cheap to close. If it crashes really low, then the calls may expire worthless.

This way, any move toward one of the strikes helps me. And if it doesn't move much at all, then I just get that theta trickle. But that would be bad because it doesn't give me much to work with for improving strikes.

Hope this makes sense. Please feel free to tell me if I'm missing something, but if you do, assume I'm a bit dumber than average here... a lot of the posts here seem to assume a lot of shared knowledge.
 
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I wonder just how much premium you would need to make a short strangle a smart move. I've done them before, but not intentionally-- open one leg and after sufficient movement OTM open the other leg. Sometimes it just isn't logical to close them

Normal strangles look nice because you set the strikes outside the expected move range, and then as the stock moves you can roll up the furthest side and collect premium.

My situation is different, as it's a reverse strangle (or "Short guts"). But I am thinking it has a similar feature for rolling, only instead of rolling the opposite leg of the direction of the price move, you adjust the leg that the price went towards. And instead of rolling it deeper in the money, you flip it to a call that is closer to the money, resulting in an improvement in your overall call positioning. Do this enough times with the stock going up and down and you should be able to fix both legs.

It's not about premium, it's about managing a position where the stock moved dramatically and my calls are deep in the money.
 
So my Q1 directional bet left me in the lurch, and I rolled out and deeper ITM to reduce contracts. After that I was -3 150C May 2025.
Recently, flipped that to -2 155C Jan 2025 and -1 240P Jan 2025. Was thinking this would let me work on reducing exposure either way the stock price moved.

Both of these are deep ITM. And the plan was, as the price moves towards one or the other I would adjust. But this is very different than being short a strangle with both legs well OTM.

I'm not sure if I'm managing my way out of the position after buying time, or just digging a deeper hole.

Any thoughts appreciated!
Is the put cash-secured? Do you have more cash or share lots to work with? Are you willing to sell the shares at 155 under any circumstance? Or looking to accumulate for the long-term?
 
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Is the put cash-secured? Do you have more cash or share lots to work with? Are you willing to sell the shares at 155 under any circumstance? Or looking to accumulate for the long-term?

Puts are cash secured. I have more share lots, and plan to deposit more cash in the near future, enough for another contract. I am willing to sell at $155 if I have to. But I would prefer to accumulate more shares long term.

I have been managing by rolling out and deeper in the money to reduce number of calls I'm short, and then back to earlier expiration by selling an ITM short put. So now I have half as many shares at risk, and I can manage for either direction that the stock moves.

One of the reasons I am comfortable selling these DITM puts is that I'm bullish long term and if they get executed I get shares-- and since I got intrinsic value plus premium at the time I sold them, it's roughly equivalent to having bought a bit under the current share price at the time the contract was sold.

Like, buy TSLA at $5 under the today's price? Why not!

If I had in fact just bought TSLA today instead of selling the put, I would have held it though the period of the contracts expiration anyway, even if TSLA crashed down to $100. (In fact I would be buying as much as I can at that point.). I will be accumulating more shares over the next 2 years regardless of the price.

I managed my way into this by trying to fix a bad trade and am really trying to learn how to manage contracts when things go against you... this is practice for me.

I'm not saying anyone should ever open by selling short guts!
 
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Puts are cash secured. I have more share lots, and plan to deposit more cash in the near future, enough for another contract. I am willing to sell at $155 if I have to. But I would prefer to accumulate more shares long term.

I have been managing by rolling out and deeper in the money to reduce number of calls I'm short, and then back to earlier expiration by selling an ITM short put. So now I have half as many shares at risk, and I can manage for either direction that the stock moves.

One of the reasons I am comfortable selling these DITM puts is that I'm bullish long term and if they get executed I get shares-- and since I got intrinsic value plus premium at the time I sold them, it's roughly equivalent to having bought a bit under the current share price at the time the contract was sold.

Like, buy TSLA at $5 under the today's price? Why not!

If I had in fact just bought TSLA today instead of selling the put, I would have held it though the period of the contracts expiration anyway, even if TSLA crashed down to $100. (In fact I would be buying as much as I can at that point.). I will be accumulating more shares over the next 2 years regardless of the price.

I managed my way into this by trying to fix a bad trade and am really trying to learn how to manage contracts when things go against you... this is practice for me.

I'm not saying anyone should ever open by selling short guts!
If you have extra cash and aren’t scared of a little downside, there’s a few things you could do to dig yourself out.

Right now, your 240p is too far OTM to get anywhere unless the SP moves up a lot. Since you want to accumulate anyway, you could bring the strike down by doubling or even tripling the contracts: 1x 1/25 -p240 -> 2x 1/25 -p195 (or maybe 3x 12/24 -p180).

You could also buy shares or LEAPS to cover your 155s as you roll them indefinitely waiting for a pull back, and if they do exercise you can just let them go. Or buy shares/LEAPS and then double your 1/25 -c155 to 2x 12/24 190c. Pair that with -p180 from the paragraph above and your strangle is uninverted.

Or just flip the calls to puts if you want to accumulate and not lose shares.
 
The calls then increase in value... but that means calls closer to the put also increase in value. So I then STC the short put and STO a short call, at a higher strike.

I have now successfully converted one of my short calls into a much closer to the money short call. One that is likely higher than my cost basis.
I think you need to carefully draw a payout diagram of this; in almost all cases I can come up with you just increase risk/exposure. It might also help to insert theoretical prices and strikes for what you are thinking.
 
Well I have the feeling that someone with the handle “open interest” should be familiar with this, but

Cutting the price by 10x, means/allows for the number of options contracts to be written to go UP just straight maths 10x.. all things being equal and price being exactly the same 1/10 of prior, the notional value of all options contracts doesn’t change - but that’s not really how it works.

For the most part, for at least some trailing period the post split price goes UP - makes no sense, no better earnings, maths, etc., but it happens more often than 50/50.

It also ups the open interest in overall contracts written, more than just the 10x would imply. Especially of course for very high $$ stocks.

For someone / ones / institutions with say 125 shares, $125,000 in value (at $1000 a share) today if they want to write -cc, or sell puts, or buy puts, it’s 1 contract, 100 shares, 100,000 notional value overall. For say a -p.

At MOST they are writing a -cc against 100 shares, 1 contract, etc.. roughly against 80% of their position.

NOW, with 1250 shares, they can easily write 12 contracts against 1200 shares which can cover 97% of their position. this is for both -cc and possibly +p. Overall, the number of contracts written does tend to go UP, and the total value of all those contracts AND the notional value of stock covered in some way by options goes UP.

Overall, with a strong company and high buyer interest and momentum usually this will simply drive prices up. Value of contracts vs. prior % valuation and value of the underlying.

MM love it, as do large shareholders and insiders.
Thank you for the detailed response! As for my handle, it was intended as a pun but has backfired. When I first joined TMC I was just learning about TSLA and EVs; I was interested in everything. I also dabbled in options, so I thought it was cute. Today, I still only occasionally buy calls, but know very little about options trading.
 
Over $185 to lower chance of breakdown.
Otherwise $159 is calling


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For TSLA just some more news on lawsuit of Elon stock selling and the recalls. More downward as I can see.
I think both of those are just noise. The downside will come when the press starts projecting Q2 P&D. Inventory seems way down, but production hasn't really picked back up the way I had expected (in Austin). I think Tesla overcorrected. I see us up on Monday with a drop mid-week... but it is not much better than a coin toss.
 
Very interesting. One question: Does any MM really have enough $$ to push the market around like that?

I believe we have a former MM member in our forum here (@EVNow?) who said it’s impossible.

(Though that consolidation range and break out slap down sure looks like our good ole’ TSLA chart.)
I’d not say I was a former member of “MM” - I did work in the IT department of a mega bank and the notion that they would interfere in the working of the market making application boggles my mind.

This is a conspiracy theory that has zero validity. As has been shown in this thread, starting price on Friday has better correlation to ending price than max pain !
 
What took so long?


Elon Musk accused of $7.5 billion insider trading in lawsuit from Tesla shareholder​

A Tesla shareholder claims Musk used inside information to offload Tesla stock before prices dropped

June 1, 2024 7:19am EDT

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was accused of insider trading in a lawsuit filed Thursday by a Tesla shareholder in Delaware Chancery Court.

Shareholder Michael Perry claims in the filing that Musk sold over $7.5 billion of shares of his electric car company in late 2022 before potentially disappointing production and delivery numbers were made public.

Perry said Tesla's stock took a nose dive after the company's fourth-quarter numbers went public on Jan. 2, 2023, and claimed that Musk "improperly benefited" by about $3 billion in insider profits.

"Musk exploited his position at Tesla, and he breached his fiduciary duties to Tesla," the lawsuit said, per Reuters. Perry asks the court to instruct Musk to return the profits he made from the trades.

The lawsuit says Musk sold the shares on various dates in November 2022 and December 2022.

Perry also accused Tesla's directors of breaching their fiduciary duty by allowing Musk to sell the shares.

Musk and Tesla did not immediately respond to Fox Business' request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that Musk, who in 2022 said demand for Tesla vehicles was "excellent," learned about the underwhelming production and delivery numbers in mid-November via his access to real-time data, and sold his shares before the information went public.

When Tesla announced it would discount vehicle prices and released the data in January, analysts raised concerns that the company's cars weren't in demand, and Tesla's stock price dropped.

"Had (Musk) waited to make these sales until after the release of material adverse news ... his sales would have netted him less than 55% of the amounts realized from his November and December 2022 sales," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit comes as Musk has urged Tesla shareholders to vote to reinstate his $56 billion pay package after a Delaware judge struck it down in January.

The judge ruled that Tesla's board of directors didn't adequately disclose their personal ties to Musk and that the company was on pace to meet most of the plan's benchmarks. Due to the lack of those disclosures to shareholders, the compensation plan's excessive size resulted in it being voided by the judge.

Musk responded to the ruling by pushing for Tesla to change its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas, which is another item that is being presented to shareholders for them to vote on at the annual meeting.

Musk also faces a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe into his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, the social media platform he rebranded as X. Musk has said the SEC is trying to "harass" him with undeserved investigations.

A separate shareholder lawsuit has accused Musk of defrauding X investors by delaying disclosure of his stake in the social media company to amass shares at lower prices.

Reuters contributed to this report.