The option chain (below) shows the value of TSLA Calls with 1 week until expiration. If I had bought a Call Calendar spread with short Calls expiring 1 week prior to the long Calls then I can estimate the value of that Calendar spread at the time the short Calls expire. Tesla’s closing price at the time the short Calls expired on Friday was $352.56. Let’s say I owned a $372.50 Calendar spread. The short Calls would expire worthless and the long Calls would be $20 OTM (out of the money). You can see from the option chain that those Calls would be worth around $4.30
If I had owned a Double Calendar with strikes at $372.50 and $402.50 then the position would’ve been worth around $5.45 ($4.30+$1.15). This is a good time to remind of the importance of keeping costs low on buying Calendar spreads! If my cost had been around $1.50 on each of the 2 Calendars then my profit would’ve been $2.45 which is a good return on a $3.00 investment. However, let’s say I paid $3.00 for each Calendar. Then I would have $.55 loss. Traders often buy double or even triple Calendars thinking that, because the profit zone looks very wide on a risk profile, they can profit over a huge range of prices. In this example you can see how that’s just not the case unless you keep your net costs low!
Here are my current fills. This trade was initiated because I saw a bullish setup on the daily chart. Using OTM Calendars to make a directional trade can offer a favorable reward/risk ratio.
As I mentioned before, adding more strikes widens the potential profit zone but doing so raises the cost so I can actually eliminate any potential profit if I let the cost get too high. How about this strategy? What if I roll the position up and reduce cost? It’s a simple strategy of taking profits on one position to reduce the net cost of the remaining position. If I sold the 385 Calendar at the current price of $2.02 that would reduce my net cost on the remaining position of the 400 Calendars to $.54 for a total downside risk of $1,170. That’s compared to the $11,170 of current downside risk!
Let’s say that I’m still very bullish TSLA. As price moves higher the Deltas of the OTM Call Calendar moves lower so the position becomes less bullish. That’s the nature of a Calendar spread. As you look at the risk profile, if TSLA’s price is to the left of the risk profile’s peak the position is positive Deltas (bullish) but if the price moves up and is to the right of the peak then the position’s Deltas turn negative (bearish). How do I maintain those bullish Deltas and/or widen that upside profit zone? For $1.33 per lot I could add the 425 Call Calendar to the position. That would result in a double Calendar with strikes at 400 and 425. My average net cost including all trades in this position would be then be $.94. If TSLA expired near 400 on Dec20 then the double Calendar would likely be worth around $13 or maybe even a little more. A nice return of more than 13x of net cost. Not to mention a very wide range where the trade would be profitable!
12/5 Update: Below is the updated fill list. Reduced the net cost of the Double Calendar position by selling 30 of the 50-lot 385 Calendars.
If I sell the remaining 20-lot of the 385 Calendars for the current price of $2.52 that will leave the position with a total net cost of $430 which is the maximum amount the position can lose. The current profit is $3,920.55 and there is no margin requirement. The bottom line is that I would own a 20-lot of the 400 Calendars for a net cost of $430. The likely maximum profit if TSLA is at 400 on Dec20 is around $20,000.
…and rolled it again! Below are all of the fills.
Now I’ve locked in a minimum profit of $1,070 and the maximum profit is likely around $20,000. If TSLA continued to trend up I could continue to roll these Calendars up (price) and out (time).
12/6 Update: Tesla was up over 5% today so the open profit is now $6,470 & the minimum profit is still $1,070. That means, at this point, I’m risking $5,400 to potentially make another $16,000. Low Delta/Gamma risk so no reason to make another adjustment now.
12/11 Update: TSLA has continued it’s rally and I’ve continued to roll the position up (but not out in time). I’m not interested in adding duration to the trade, I’m simply maximizing reward/risk of the current duration. The current roll has also reduced the size of the position. Below is the current fill list and the current risk profile. I’ve now locked-in a minimum $5,570 profit and still have a maximum potential profit of around $20,000.
12/11 (after the close) update: TSLA continued it’s rally being up almost 6% on the day. The conventional thinking would be that a Calendar spread would be a terrible way to trade such a strong up-trending stock. Clearly that’s not the case as my open profit on the position is now $9,145 with plenty of room to add additional profits!
12/13 Update: Time marches on so the positive Theta from the $TSLA Call Calendar continues to add profits to the position. The open profit is over $10,000 and I’m now risking $4,250 ($10,000 open profit-$5,570 minimum profit) to potentially make up to another $10,000. I’ll hold the position over the weekend and carry it into expiry week.
12/14 Weekend Update: Just a quick review of the original 2 trades that initiated the position as a 385 Call Calendar. Below is the risk profile of just that position. It’s showing as if I hadn’t made any of those rolling trades to keep re-positioning the peak of the Calendar higher in price. My current open profit is over $10,000 however, if I hadn’t rolled the position up, my open profit would be just $1,604 and my bullish trade would actually be bearish. Quite a difference!
12/16 Update: And 1 more roll-up while taking half the size of the position off. It was a 20 lot before the prior trade and that trade took it down to a 10-lot and now today’s trade took it down to a 5 lot and rolled the strike up again. Just trying to squeeze every last drop of profit out of this trade without exposing the position to excessive risk if TSLA makes a big move up or down over the next 4 days. Here are all my fills including today’s trade.
And here is what the current risk profile of the trade looks like. The position’s open profit is now $11,400. It’s the gift that just keeps on giving during this holiday season!
12/17 Update: Sold 3 of the 5 remaining Calendars and brought in another $1,950.
Total profit is now $11,645
12/20 Update: Closed out the final 2-lots of the position for a total credit of $1,274. That brings the total profit in the Rolling Calendar Spread to $12,919.
The number 1 reason, in my opinion, why traders lose money on a multiple Calendar strategy is that they don’t take any money off the table. They keep adding more Calendars and more cost to their basis and eventually the cost exceeds the maximum potential profit! Consider the concept of using a Calendar as a directional trade where profits are taken incrementally as time progresses and rolling the strikes further OTM if price continues to trend in the expected direction. Don’t wait until expiry trying to achieve that maximum profit. Consider initiating a single OTM Call Calendar and, if the price of the underlying moves higher, then consider exiting that Calendar at a profit and adding a new OTM Call Calendar if the chart still appears to be bullish. You’ll have reduced your net risk while continuing to carry forward a trade that will generate positive Theta if price continues to rise.
Leave any questions or comments down below!
Your first Calendar was about a 30 delta with 30 days to expiry. Is that a standard delta and time to take? Also, what about buying a long strike further out in time from the short strike and then rolling the short strikes each week for more premium?
30 Delta is a typical level that I trade but I generally try to target a time frame that lines up with my chart analysis. The strategy you mention of buying a longer duration option and selling multiple shorter term options against it over a period of time is a popular way to trade these but the reason I don’t favor that is the high cost at initial trade entry. If price moves against you at the beginning of the trade it’s likely you’ll need to stop out to avoid a large loss. If these positions are ‘cheap’ to buy initially it’s easier to stay with them even if price doesn’t cooperate right away. If price trends higher then the rolling reduces net cost even more or, in some cases, locks in a profit while continuing to benefit from a bullish position.