The charts of the key stock indices look ominous after the selling on Tuesday in which the DOW and S&P 500 lost over two percent. Small-cap stocks fared the worst, with the Russell 200 down 3.26%. The selling was on above-average trading volume above the 50-day moving average (MA).
The near-term technical picture is bearish, as the stock indices drove below their respective 50-day and 200-day MAs. The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 have also turned negative for this year. The stock market is dangerous at this time, without any base or support.
At this juncture, stock markets are bearish and showing uncertainty. And, while I do not pretend to have a crystal ball, I do firmly believe in adopting strong risk management to protect your investments and hard-earned capital. This is my best stock market advice.
The last thing you want is to watch your gains disappear.
One of my favorite strategies to protect investment gains is the use of put options as a defensive hedge against market weakness. It’s time for a refresher.
Investors may be somewhat bearish or uncertain and want to protect the current gains against a downside move in the stock or the market with the use of index put options.
For those of you not familiar with options, a buyer of a put option contract buys the right, but not the obligation, to sell a specific number of the underlying instrument at the strike or exercise price for a specified length of time until the expiry date of the contract. After the expiry date, the particular option expires worthless and any responsibility is eliminated.
The buyer of the put option pays a premium to the writer of the option who gets compensated for assuming the risk of exercise. The writer of the put option is obligated to buy the stock from the holder of the put should it be exercised by the expiry date.
For the writer of the put option, the amount of premium received for assuming the risk is generally directly correlated to the volatility of the stock and market. The more volatile the stock, the higher the premium paid for the option. And low volatility translates into lower premiums.
You can buy puts for stocks and sectors. If your portfolio is heavy in technology, you can buy puts on the NASDAQ. Or let’s say you have benefited from the run-up in gold and silver to record historical highs; a strategy for you may be to buy put options on The Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index, which tracks 10 major gold and silver stocks.
If you are heavily weighted in technology, you can buy put options in PowerShares…
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