One of the least talked topics in stock market is Winning Probability, Risk Management and Position Sizing.
Holy grail does exist but it's not a strategy. Its mindset. Ever wondered why top traders despite different trading styles average between 4-8% returns pm?
A Thread 🧵
Key to good trading is understanding your: 1. Winning Probability - How many trades you win out of 100? 2. Risk Management - How much you lose vs how much you win. Risk:Reward? 3. Position Sizing - How much quantity you execute which impacts your loss / profit?
What are the benchmarks of good returns for your trading style?
1. Investors look for 16-18% compounded returns. 2. Swing Traders are looking at 18-30% returns with passive trading and investing. 3. Traders across spectrum look at 4-8% per month in general.
But question is..
Considering Traders, all these traders have different: 1. Trading Styles 2. Time Frames 3. Technical Analysis 4. Execution
Yet profit varies from the range of 4-8% even for best of traders. From options perspective some are trading ITM/OTM/ATM, then why this generalization?
Every trader has developed into his/her trading style an understanding of Risk Management and proper position sizing. That's why a trader selling ITM options of Rs. 500 and another selling OTM at Rs. 40 are yielding overall same results on total capital.
Which busts another myth around trading that has been propagating. If you trade ITM/ATM then you are a real trader. If you are trading selling cheap options, you are not a trader. Which is wrong at so many levels. I know great traders making a living through either ATM/ITM/OTM.
Understand difference between OTM/ITM/ATM and select your niche.
OTM Traders
- Pure Theta Decay due to 100% extrinsic value & lesser delta
- Only Selling
- Safety in distance and hedging
- Bigger position size
- Total ROI / Trade ROI based Stop Loss
- Win probability is ~70%
ATM Traders
- Directional Play and Big Theta Decay as maximum theta at ATM Options
- More Trading less adjustments
- Stoploss based approach
- Moderate Trading quantity wrt total capital
- Winning probability around 50%+
- Buying/Selling can be done
ITM Traders
- Pure Direction Play
- Maximum Intrinsic Value
- Stoploss and Target gets Bigger
- Position Sizing can get further less compared to others
- Winning Probability is 50% plus
- Ideal for Option Buyers/Sellers as less theta decay
Different traders can achieve different trading results with these parameters. Yet there are great traders who have outlier results then what is written but please understand that it needs world class trading skill in Options and takes years of practice.
Based on this, understand in attached image, how with different probability, risk management and position sizing all traders achieve an overall same result.
OTM / ATM / ITM have different Quantities, Win Probabilities and R:R have different win/lose but same net results.
When you start developing a system, you look for an edge of indicator like MACD, RSI etc. but you should be often asking
- What is historical win rate of my signal
- In points, how much I lose wrt win
- How many signals I might get to tweak my quantity to take all trades...
...and if I hit my worst case scenario, will I be able to follow my trades over a bigger period of time, say 100 trades?
This is where holy grail of any trading strategy lies.
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Going forward, I am extremely cautious on BANKNIFTY.
I really was rooting for BANKNFITY to be bullish in coming days. Break of 39700 will take BANKNIFTY towards 37500 levels.
This is 1 Month Chart of BANKNIFTY. Break of 39700 (Support) will push prices further down.
On Daily Charts, we are standing at a support and gave a dead cat bounce. COI did not recede from this point but as you can see there has been continuous selling. At support, either this gives a bounce or indicative of incoming sell off.
MACD and ADX on Hourly Chart at support are getting sideways. Not bullish but just sideways.
Below 0 Line, MACD bullish is still a sideways market. ADX receding from 40-50 level below its EMA again a sideways sign.
At support, I will create positions will slight caution!
And yes, I am rightly worried. Its a neighbouring state.
This has been happening for past few months now. My immediate question was, what is the central government doing? I have no expectations from AAP. Or uprising of people of Punjab against such elements, as people themselves chose AAP. Many I talked with are regretting it now.
Today AAP might be the biggest threat to National Security. With Jammu and Kashmir stabilized, AAP might open a new frontier for Indian Government.
But no news media is showing this. Or Algorithms are not even picking it up. Why? Vested interest? But again back to question 1...
William's Alligator is probably the most underrated indicator in moving average category.
Alligator follows the premise that market is sideways for 70% of the time and trending only 30% of the time.
This is where William's Alligator can be a great tool for traders.
Why William's Alligator can be a great tool for traders?
It can identify Bullish, Bearish and Sideways market pretty easily. Problem is, traders don't know how to use it effectively. Alligator has three lines:
1. Lips - Fastest Line 2. Teeth 3. Jaws - Slowest Line
Book Interpretation is when Lips Crosses above Jaws, it's a buying opportunity and when below its a shorting opportunity. And when three lines are crisscrossing, instrument is sideways.
BUT this does not make it a tradeable indicator in practice. Here is what should be done.
I have no sympathies for #Scammers who were duping people with lakhs and crores of screenshots.
At first, I along with friends of mine were in awe of how they were generating this much return. For almost, 2 years I worked a lot and tried to break the code.
Do read and retweet.
A lot of ideas were worked upon on Amibroker may it be ITM Selling of Option, Option Doublers in 2 - 3 days, Intraday Option Buying, Future Holygrail and what not. In the process we were able to make Option Chain on Amibroker, calculate option greeks on Amibroker and what not.
But no definite system was built.
If we cracked up Option Buying or burst moves, it was difficult to ascertain position-sizing. For eg. position sizing average size, doesn't make the profit so lucrative. And if the position-size is big, loss could be 70% in 3 trades.
To understand options, three concepts are required: 1. Intrinsic / Extrinsic value 2. Time / Theta Decay 3. Implied Volatility
Option Value = Intrinsic + Extrinsic (Value)
Intrinsic Value - Value of Option if it were exercised today at CMP.
Extrinsic Value - Total Value of time in the option.
ATM and OTM options are 100% extrinsic value. ITM options have more intrinsic and less extrinsic value.
ITM Options: Intrinsic Value = Price of Underlying Asset -
Strike Price
For eg.
Nifty is at 11,416. 11400 CE of 29 Oct 2020 is at 224.40/-.
Intrinsic Value is = 11416-11400 = 16
Extrinsic Value is = 224.40-16 = 208.40.