Please excuse this noob question, but could you guys explain with a couple of examples rolling BPSs? And how a wider spread makes that easier? I totally understand the short position and trying to anticipate the lowest the SP could go before it gets into the money. And I understand the cash collateral requirements.
Real world example: I am sitting on a 1/21 +1050/-900 BPS. When would I want to consider rolling this? One example would be if the SP gets down to say $1050 by 1/19. What would the experts here do? Would you roll just the expiration dates in anticipation of SP rising? And how does having wider spreads help with ability to roll for net credit?
Trying to wrap my head around BPS strategy/tactics. And I'd prefer to not have to look back at the thousands of posts on this thread.
TIA!
And a good thing they are to get your head around. A good starting point with the put credit spreads is your own experience with naked puts. I started with naked puts and use that knowledge to organize my put spread approaches.
There are good reasons for wide and good reasons for narrow spreads. I do my figuring in terms of US retirement accounts as it simplifies thing (no margin).
I prefer wide spreads. The example you have - if you set up some different / pretend rolls you will discover that when the spread is 1/2 of the way ITM that the roll will be for $0 credit and no change in strike. (the bid/ask slippage will make the roll slightly negative). This is one of the observations that leads me to wide spreads - if my spread is $200 wide then I can go $100 ITM and still have a neutral roll.
You'll also discover that the spread reacts much the same as a naked put for some period once ITM - as best I can tell that's about 1/4th of the way ITM (or $50 on a $200 wide spread).
With those $150 wide spreads you mention you can get $75 ITM and still have a neutral roll and ~$37 ITM and still have a roll similar to a naked put.
The key to this - set up some experimental positions and see how they would work. Share price is $1088 tonight - pull up the option chain and see what a 930/1080 put spread can be rolled to from the 1/7 expiration to the 1/14 expiration. That should be a pretty decent roll for a $150 wide spread. Look and see what a 1000/1150 roll would look like. That's about $60 ITM and is pretty close to the midpoint. You might also setup a 1020 / 1170 roll where you're slightly past the midpoint. For these middle of the range rolls especially, also look at what happens with later expirations -- 1/21, Feb monthly. You'll find that the time value is pretty close to equal on each side and therefore, rolling for more time won't change the range of available rolls. You'll just get more time with the longer rolls - not access to better strike improvements (which you WILL still have available when you're not as deeply ITM).
While you're at it setup a disaster spread of 1100/1250 for this week and see what the roll to next week looks like. These different made up spreads are designed to get you a feel for what the rolls from these made up spreads to new positions would look like.
When to roll .... lwhen to roll ....
It's the big question that will regularly arise as positions will inevitably need to be managed and this is the first and primary method.
NOT-ADVICE
I do have some thoughts on this and I'm also still tinkering myself. I haven't found much in the way of hard and fast rules.
One of my early observations (about a year ago) is that everything else being equal rolling when the time to expiration is as short as possible (and more specifically when the time value is as close to $0 as possible) makes for the very best rolls. Until of course it doesn't
But everything else being equal waiting to roll at low time value / near expiration is better than much earlier; say Thursday instead of Monday of expiration week. The reason is that when you roll you will be buying out the time value in the current position and the more of that there is, the more that the new position needs to be paying for.
Thus the idea of Roll Thursday - don't wait until the last moment to roll (avoid early assignment on the day of expiration) and more broadly, roll those deeply ITM positions before the time value nears 0. But also avoid rolling on Monday of expiration week - there is probably still a lot of time value at that point, even when the position gets touched.
But the conflicting circumstance is that the position doesn't just go slightly ITM where a good to great roll is still available. Instead it just keeps getting deeper and deeper ITM until there aren't any good rolls remaining. But hey - at least the time value is mostly gone now!@! This is what happened to me at the beginning of the year when I didn't roll some puts down aggressively enough. I got stuck in the high 700s when the shares were down in the 500s and low 600s for about 5 months waiting for the shares to recover.
Because I was waiting for low time value to do my rolls, and one of those weeks we went from $800 to $700 or so and there wasn't a good roll for a 760 strike put at that point. But there had been earlier in that week when I decided to wait and let a bit more of the time value decay.
Put spreads don't have that same freedom of the perma-roll as naked and cash secured puts.
With my income orientation I like the wide spreads to give myself room to manage them in. I also use wide spreads to keep my contract count down. Given $100k worth of cash I'll sell 5 of those $200 wide spreads to stop myself from selling 20 of the $50 wide spreads. They both have the same max loss - its just that the $50 wide spread can achieve that max loss way, way quicker than the $200 wide spread can.