Bankrupt From Trading Credit Spreads With Options
The pluses and minuses of credit spreads are not always discussed but should be.
Welcome to learning about credit spreads. With this class you will learn the importance of making adjustments and what may happen if you do not understand how to correctly handle your option positions. People tend to like the option spread that is called a “credit spread”. We are going to take a good look at this type of spread today. There are teachers that think this is the best type of trade to do, but in reality, you do not know nor understand the high risk it can be. If it is traded all alone as an option spread, it can be very risky. This would mean that it is not being protected by another option trade.
In most cases the “credit spread” is the first spread you will learn. It is very simple to learn, but in the beginning you will not realize how dangerous this type of trade can be. You will find many teachers will teach this way of trading, since it is easy to learn and easy to sell, but they do not tell you the risk it can expose your account to. Teaching beginners how to trade “credit spreads” is a very good business, but if you trade “credit spreads” and nothing with it to protect your trade, you can lose a lot of money. Not only can you lose a lot of money, but it is a very stressful way to live. Let’s see why.
You can go into a “credit spread” with a 90% probability that you will make money. Just about everyone that starts trading options believes this, but if you see how the trade really works, then you will see you have a good chance you may lose. You need to understand what happens during this type of trade while it is in play. You are never told about the worry and high stress that is involved with trading an option “credit spread.”
What you do not see is how you can be behind in the trade the whole time. The teachers do not tell you that. They don’t tell how they really feel, how worried and difficult it is to sleep, all the way to the last day they are praying for their stock to come back and go up before the end of the trade. 90% of your money is being put at risk to make a small 10% profit. You can lose 90% with your first trade. The teachers do not tell you that with the “credit spread” a 90% probability does not mean you will make money nine times in a row and then lose one time. You may lose it all the first time. This does happen all the time with beginning option traders.
The reason why this happens is that it is a very directional trade, which makes the “credit spread” a problem. Theta is on the good side, but it has Delta and Gamma working against it. Since the Theta only gives you such a small amount that it is working for you, it does not help that much because you are getting very high Gamma by trading this option spread which makes it a very high risk. When the price of the underlying changes, the profit and loss on the trade will also change very quickly; this is why it is so dangerous. You need to know how to protect your trade and beginners are not aware of this.
Now that you have learned about the high risk in “credit spreads”, I would like you to know that there are many other types of trades that are a lot safer than the this one. If you do trade “credit spreads”, please learn how to combine them with other trades so they are not so risky.
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