Leverage (Part 2)

I left off discussing the concept of leverage with regard to my previous backtesting. Today I will go one step further.

I believe maximum drawdown (DD) is as important a performance component as net income (also “total return”) because use of max DD to calculate position size can minimize risk of Ruin. If you don’t care about blowing up (i.e. Ruin) then it’s simply a matter of what can keep you from a good night’s sleep. DD is the answer here as well.

Position size is one of two ways leverage may be managed. Investment advisers assess risk tolerance in an attempt to help clients maintain a good night’s sleep. Account size and risk tolerance together viewed in terms of variable DD levels determine position size. This is not an exact science because maximum DD is only known in retrospect, which is why it’s called “investing” rather than just “winning.”

In Naked Put Study 2, maximum DD is 3.7x larger for long shares than for naked puts (NP). If I position sized the long shares properly to maintain that good night’s sleep then the NP position sizing could have been up to 3.7x larger without incurring a worse DD. This equates to net income 127% larger for NPs than for long shares.

Besides changing position size, the second way to manage leverage is to employ put credit spreads instead of NPs. I brainstormed this idea here and here.

The long put offsets “unlimited risk” by narrowing the width of the spread. If I sell a 1000 put then the potential loss is 1,000 points * $100/point = $100,000. If I also buy a 500 put for dirt cheap then my potential loss is only (1000 – 500) points * $100/point = $50,000. I halve my risk for only a slight decrease in net profit. Employing leverage in this way creates a cheaper trade with a similar potential return.

The benefit of buying long puts may be seen by equating the total risk. Suppose I sell a 1000 put for $3.00 and buy a 500 put for $0.30. I have sacrificed 10% of my potential return to halve my risk. If I traded two of these spreads then I have similar risk to the single naked 1000 put and my potential profit is $2.70 * 2 = $5.40 instead of $3.00. That is an increase of 80%.

I prefer some decrease in total risk when I employ leverage. Instead of selling two 1000 puts for $6.00 and incurring $200,000 risk, perhaps I sell three 1000/500 spreads and incur $150,000 risk while having a potential profit of $2.70 * 3 = $8.10. This is a 35% increase in profit potential with a 25% decrease in risk. I like that.