A fellow options trader from Texas came up with this very interesting volatility based earnings play for Goldman Sachs (GS) - who report earnings on Tuesday, March 18th.
The nice thing about this play is that price direction after the earnings announcement is irrelevant and the options won't get crushed on a volatility drop the way a straddle or a strangle will.
The Play: Reverse Calendar Spread
STO July 150 Puts (will suck some margin - depending on how your broker calculates position or portfolio risk)
BTO April 150 Puts
Rationale
This is very short term ( less than one week) volatility drop play. If you look at the current implied volatility of GS options (see ivolatility chart below) you can see they are screaming at all time highs - 64.55% vs. 42.94% for the 30 day historical volatility. Quite often after earnings are announced, implied volatility will fall back to more normal levels (revert to the mean). We would like to see about a 10% to 12% drop in Implied Volatility.
Pictured below is the P&L model using Friday's closing prices. The top blue line in the model is very delta (price) neutral and benefits from big price moves up or down. The risk is - through time, the middle part of the spread starts to sink into negative territory. A big drop in implied volatility help will fix this - but it has to happen fairly quickly.
In diagram two below, we have peered into the future and setup a, "what if" scenario. We have moved the date to next Thursday, March 20th, and GS has moved to the 172 level on a favourable earnings report. At the same time overall implied volatility has dropped around 10%.
As you can see in the model above, this has pulled the entire P&L spectrum into positive territory.. meaning no matter which way price went, the strategy would be profitable. The only caveat is - unless we think prices are going to continue higher with this particular scenario, it would be wise for us to ring the cash register on the play and book the profits, because the negative time value may suck up a lot of profits if prices start to fall and time goes by.
The Greeks & Risk
Delta: -1.16 (essentially - flat)
Gamma: 5.48 (Long gamma.. big price moves will help)
Theta: -81.23 (Greatest risk measure - don't want to hold this play more than a few days)
Vega: -167.12 (Negative volatility - big overall drop will help)
A note on Vega (volatility): The vega on the July puts (our short puts - volatility drop helps) is just about double that of the April Puts (the long puts - volatility drop hurts). After the earnings are released, the volatility drop between the front month options and the back month options may be different. Meaning - the back month options probably won't fall as much as the front month ( this makes sense because, the back month options are affected less by a March earnings release). Because the back month Vega is double.. it won't have to fall as hard as the front month to profit - Ultimately though - we'd like to see the back month options get crushed!
This is a special situation play that would require fairly close monitoring. It can however, produce some very nice profits quickly with defined risk.
Thanks and continued success with your trading!
The strategy highlighted above is for educational purposes only. It is not a recommendation to engage in any option strategy featured in this site. Please discuss any investment strategies you are considering with a qualified financial advisor.
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