Options are very popular among traders in the stock market. In options, selling plays a pivotal role. Here we will take a close look at the highest options selling margin and best options selling strategy. But before coming to that let’s take a look back at the history of trading.
Unlike the earlier days options along with futures have become the most popular trading vehicle. In the earlier days, traders used to buy and sell stocks from the floor. There were physical papers only. People bought and sold company shares through brokers. The system was not transparent. many new traders fell victim to cheaters due to a lack of transparency in the system.
But later the digital age took over. Computers became the rulers of the trading arena across the globe. Physical stocks became digital in Demat form. With these advancements came the future and options contracts. Now we buy and sell these contracts in the stock market. In options trading, writing options is very important. The options selling positions give us a somewhat prior indication of the price movement.
But selling options requires good knowledge of these instruments. Also, you need a lot of margin money to sell options. But the selling of options also allows you to earn steadily from the stock market. So for trader’s sake, we are here to discuss the best options selling strategy and the highest options selling margin. There are only very few stockbrokers who provide extra margin in intraday F&O trades. Therefore selling in the options segment in the intraday will be more manageable if you have an account with those brokers. Also, options selling strategies require more skills and knowledge. Readers will come to know about the best options selling strategy. The strategy will help all the traders, new or veterans.
FAQs
In the equity section of the stock market, we trade equity shares of companies. Nowadays we also trade MFs, Bonds, ETFs etc. there. But in the F&O section, we trade short-term contracts in the name of futures and options.
In futures and options, there are short-term contracts. The price of future and options depend on the underlying. Options pricing does not entirely depend on the underlying alone but also on some other factors or components known as Greeks.
Yes, these two are very different. As there are a lot of risks involved in selling or writing options, there are a lot of compliances for writing options. But in cases of buying options, the risk is limited to the price of options only.
As we have said, a high margin is required to tackle the risk involved. Otherwise, your broker has to take the risk for you, which is not justified.
For options buying, there is no margin. You only pay the price of options. But for selling options, you may need to pay the price of the futures contract of the same stock. This amount is kept as a margin by your broker.
At present, you need to pay a total of 25% of the trade value for a particular contract. This is the margin amount for intraday trade. But if you want to hold your position you need to keep 100% as a margin amount.
The highest options selling margin and the best options selling strategy
This article is targeted at retail traders. There are many traders who have little money but want to start trading in F&O. They have the necessary knowledge and other things necessary for trading. Many of them are old traders. But the new SEBI policy has left them stranded, that too in this COVID situation. But they feel that the stock market is the best option for earning money for them. They know it from their experience and from their expertise. This blog will help them a lot. And also those who want to enter into this high knowledge-oriented space, are also welcome.
The new SEBI rule
The new SEBI policy has brought some new rules which were not there. This new rule went into action in December 2020. Now there is peak margin regulation already in place for better risk management. Until February 28, 2021, traders need to pay 25% of the total trade value in the intraday position. From March 1 up to May 31, 2021, a trader needs to pay a 50% fo upfront margin for intraday positions. From June to September quarter 75% and from September 2021 onwards 100% of the upfront margin will be necessary for every trade in the intraday position. Therefore every small trader in the intraday section will face margin issues unless the trader is well-equipped. So let us see which brokers provide the highest options selling margins.
Highest Options Selling Margin
At present, we find there are two brokers who are giving better intraday margin facilities for their subscribers. They are Alice Blue and Astha Trade. Let us go to those brokers’ websites and see what they have in store regarding margin facilities.
Alice Blue
As we can see from the picture, AliceBlue claims to provide the highest margin facility in intraday. In the next picture, we will see how it differs in options selling margin from regular SEBI specified margin.
So, in this picture, we can clearly see Alice is giving more margin. As of today, the options selling margin of Nifty 15300 CE was almost Rs 50000, when the options price was 98 or thereabouts. We can see Alice is giving much less margin for options selling as of 15.02.2021. So with less than 1 lac capital, you can sell two lots of Nifty. At most other brokers, that was not possible.
Astha Trade
As a trader, it is important to know which broker houses are not worth account opening. Astha trade is one of them.
From 1st September 2020 to 31st August 2021, according to the SEBI rule, all brokerage houses’ required margin was 25% in the 1st phase. Then in the 2nd phase, 50% was the requirement and in the 3rd phase, they turned it 75%. Now, It has become 100%. Astha Trade failed to keep up with this rule of SEBI. As they have reduced their service, support, and trading margin day by day. Now their service is cracked and their support is cracked as well. I do not think it will be a nice idea to rely on such a bad record-holding company.
As I am updating this post on 9th September 2021. I thought you should know what place Astha Trade holds in the current market situation. Because if you are thinking of opening an account in this broker house, this will be a terrible mistake.
How to get Highest Options Selling Margin by Hedging?
Hedging is another way to get more margins. After the new SEBI rule, the margins have decreased a lot. Previously Astha Trade was allowing traders to sell 1 lot of Nifty options at as low as Rs. 5000. Alice Blue was also no different. But after the new margin rules, this low margin is not possible. So you can hedge to get more margin.
For hedging sell 1 lot of at the money or out of the money call or put option and simultaneously buy 1 lot deep out of the money call or put option. If you have sold the call option you need to buy only the call option. Similarly, if you have sold the put option you need to buy the put option only. Here as you are selling ATM options you will get more premiums and as you are buying the deep OTM option it will cost you very little premium. But you will get a big margin benefit.
Hedging Example
You can see the example below. Suppose Nifty is trading close to 15900 Here, if we sell the Nifty 15900 call option naked, it will cost us a margin of Rs. 1,54,772.
But if we hedge it b buying a deep out-of-the-money option, say 500 points away Nifty 16400 call option it will give us a margin benefit of almost Rs. 1 lac. The final margin of the hedged position is only Rs. 57,472.
Why sell options?
Options are unique instruments of the financial market. These are short-living financial contracts like futures. But unlike the futures contract, options have premiums that die during the expiry. Options buyers can only profit if the underlying moves in their favoured direction. But unlike all other financial instruments, the premium decays. Therefore when a trader sells options, he enjoys the premium decay. With time the premium goes down. So a trader can sell high and buy low easily and reap the benefits of decay. Big trading houses and institutional traders take a position as options sellers and define trading ranges. We can find support and resistance where the open interest is very high. Retail sellers follow open interest positions and devise their own trading strategies.
Best Options Selling Strategy
We have already seen that options selling requires skill and knowledge. This complete article is also focused on that. We have seen how traders can get the highest options selling margin. Now we will discuss the best options selling strategy. In the options, there are many technical constituents. They are responsible for the options pricing variances. Among them, the Open Interest and Volume can give a prior indication of the movement of the options. Therefore if a trader can read these indications well, he can make good money making trades in options.
Open Interest (OI) significance
In the picture above we can see the open interest of Bank Nifty expiring 04.02.2021. The two big columns show open interest positions. The upper picture shows total outstanding open interest and the lower picture shows the change in OI. The red column shows resistance and the green column shows support. The smaller columns show intermediate support and resistance. The present scenario indicates that this expiry of Bank Nifty will remain within that range if there’s no big movement on one side. This picture also tells us that any options writer having positions outside this range is sure to gain. The trader outside that range will earn the premium received from selling options because at expiry those options will go worthless. Thus a trader can earn from such trades by watching the open interest positions.
The picture above shows us the visual representation of max pain. Here, unlike the OI picture above, the smaller columns are more significant. In this picture above, the upper portion shows the max pain of Nifty expiring on the 4th of February, 2021. The bottom portion shows us the max pain position of Bank Nifty if the same expiry date. The smallest max pain column shows us the most probable strike of Nifty and Bank Nifty where they can expire at this expiry. Though the options are very dynamic in nature, one can understand the probable expiry positions at any point in time.
The best options selling strategy
From the pictures above in open interest positions, we find that the options writers place them at predefined positions. The aim is to eat the premium decay at expiries. And they gain most at the max pain positions or thereabouts. But the positions change very quickly and the options writers create new positions to adapt to the market dynamics. The writers also leave their earlier positions to adjust their funds.
Therefore it is apt to follow in the footsteps of the big traders. The big traders, when they are confirmed that the existing support resistance levels will not be maintained, they leave their existing positions. when they leave existing positions, they close their open positions. Therefore open interest comes down drastically in some particular strikes with big volumes. We only need to identify those strikes. We will show you how to identify those positions. They create new positions and sell options at new strikes. You need to sell options then.
Trade options
Look at the two plates above. These are Excel sheets. Anybody can easily import NSE live data to an Excel sheet to easily understand the trend build-up from the OI and volume data. Here in Nifty, you can see the short build-up at specific strikes. In the next plate, the new short position development in Bank Nifty can also be seen. Therefore you can build new shorts at those strike prices and earn a handsome profit. When you short options you get the theta decay in premium. You can exit early after getting a good profit and take new positions. Thus you can sell options by looking at the data from Excel sheets. You don’t need to go into the details of technical analysis to trade options, especially selling options.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the highest options selling margin is the most sought-after thing for options traders. Also, the best options selling strategy depends on the individual investor’s financial circumstances. The investor must take into consideration their risk tolerance level, time horizon, trading frequency, capital available to commit to trades, and other related factors when deciding which option selling strategy works best for them. Ultimately it is up to each individual investor to determine what strategies work best with their overall objectives.
Our CA says that by selling options problems may arise in filing IT Returns. They will not if options are bought. What is correct view?
Go ahead and sell options. It’s simple futures and options business. No special rule other than the normal derivatives trading rule and no harm.