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Options Trading Strategies: Understanding Position Delta

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Learn more about the Delta Hedge Ratio and how it is used in commodity strategies for how many derivatives contracts are needed to hedge against a possible move of the underlying asset.
 
In this article, we'll take a look at various day trading commodities. These include delta, gamma, theta, and vega. Figure 1 below shows these indexes in graphical form. First, we'll examine delta, an index that's very important when discussing combined and actual positions related to selling options.
 
Understanding Simple Delta
 
Delta is a mathematical term that measures the degree of change (to price) in an option relative to the underlying asset. For example, if we measure a delta value of 0.5 (or 50%), the option price will increase by about 50 cents when the underlying stock price rises. Learn more about the Delta Hedging Ratio and what it allows you to very exactly measure. The Delta ratio is a very important concept in options trading and can tell you exactly how much protection an option contract will give you over its cost price.
 
Long vs. Short Options and Delta
 
As you begin to think about the trading cost of opening a position with options, keep in mind that the true cost will differ from those mentioned above. As shown in figure 1a below, there is some risk inherent when purchasing either a call or put option (or both), which may impact your trading strategy. One thing to remember for sure is that whether you are long or short a call or put premium, it does make a difference in terms of how much you should be willing to spend on any given position.
 
Position Delta
 
By looking at the idea of a hedge ratio, you can better understand an option's position value. As an example, if you had to decide on how many strikes calls you would need to hedge an underlying asset that has a short position, we're able to look on the other side and find all our options by multiplying their respective positions (i.e., 1 call x 2 calls = 2 strike calls). In this scenario, if you had to deal with two calls to cover a single short or long spot the assets have, then what we end up seeing is that this decision makes sense because we can come away knowing exactly how much one contract would cost us without having to guess as much anymore.
 
Changing the number of calls to a ratio of calls over the underlying can change our overall strategy's integrity. For example, if we are bullish, we might add another long call so that our position delta is positive because our project has risen. We used to have three different option contracts with an overall delta of 0.5 each, so we decided to purchase one more option contract from a different supplier, which caused the overall volatility of our portfolio to be 0%. We were able to figure out that this added option contract caused the total value of our portfolio to remain constant at a high rate and made it much easier for us to predict prices.
 
The Bottom Line
 
When measuring changes in option and future positions, experts often refer to the delta value, which can be interpreted as the position within your portfolio. To elaborate, the simplest risk factor is a 1:1 relationship of long/short and 100% or -100%. But let's set aside what constitutes a long vs. short for a moment and review the basics regarding simple delta. Suffice it to say that a simple delta represents one's position. With this fundamental in mind, now you will be able to use position delta as a metric to measure how net-long or net-short you are with your entire portfolio of investments!
 
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