Reference

All The Other Spreads

Married puts, diagonals, iron butterflies, Christmas trees, boxes, stupids and guts.

Expiration payoff profile for And all the Others…
Payoff at expiration

Married Put

A married put is a combination of long stock and a long protective put.

Diagonal Spread

A diagonal is a hybrid of a vertical spread and a calendar spread. The two options are of the same type (put or call), but one is bought and one is sold. The two options have different strike prices and expiration dates.

Iron Butterfly

A traditional butterfly uses only options of one type. An iron butterfly uses both puts and calls in an effort to reduce the hidden cost of trading in-the-money options. Similar to an iron condor, an iron butterfly is a combination of a call spread and a put spread, with the long or short legs of both spreads sharing a strike price.

Christmas Tree

A Christmas tree is executed by purchasing one option and selling two options with different strike prices further from at-the-money than the strike price of the purchased option. A Christmas tree is similar to a ratio spread, but the two options that are sold have different strike prices.

Box Spread

A box spread is a four-legged spread with a call and a put option sharing a strike price and comprising a synthetic position in the underlying, since the trader is long one of the options and short the other, and another call/put pair with the same expiration but comprising an opposing synthetic position in the underlying, since the trader is short one option and long another. Since the two synthetic positions offset each other, a box spread is an arbitrage position that is legged into, or is used by an option trader to borrow cash or lend excess cash.

Stupid

An option stupid is simply the purchase or sale of two options with the same expiration date and type but with different strike prices.

Guts

An option guts is similar to a strangle, but rather than buying or selling out-of-the-money options, both of the options are in-the-money. Since the bid/ask spread of the in-the-money options is likely to be a substantial penalty for executing a guts, there's little reason to use a guts instead of a strangle.

← All spreads and combinations