Nvidia plunged more than 9% overnight, using an Options Strategy to Add a "Protective Collar"
Yesterday, $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ experienced a sudden pullback, with its share price falling nearly 10% to $108 during the trading session, and continued to decline in the post market.
Many investors who already hold shares might find themselves in a dilemma![]()
: they don't want to sell their stocks immediately, hoping to profit when the stock price rebounds, but they are also worried about further losses if they continue to hold the shares.
In this case, the power of options can be demonstrated![]()
: if options strategies are used properly, you can seek profit opportunities more securely while controlling risks.
From the Options Chain > Analysis, we can see that many investors had previously set up Put options at resistance levels to hedge against the risk of a stock price decline. This preemptive strategy allows them to manage potential losses and navigate through volatile market movements more effectively.
Taking this week's expiring NVDA $110 Put as an example, if you had previously purchased this option as "insurance" against a stock price decline, then yesterday, as the stock price fell, this option rose from an opening price of $0.74 to a closing price of $4.05, yielding a return of 1057%!
Although the stock price fell sharply, buying a Put can help reduce some of your losses.
At this point, you might ask: Now the stock price has already fallen, the cost of buying a Put is too high, what should I do![]()
?
In such cases, some investors choose to sell a higher strike price Call while buying a Put to reduce the cost of the Put.
And this is the strategy I will introduce today: the Long Collar strategy.
What is a Long Collar?
The strategy mainly consists of three parts: "holding the underlying stock" + "buying a put option" + "selling a call option".
It looks complicated, but it's actually quite easy to understand:
This is equivalent to spending some money to buy "insurance". When the stock price drops significantly, you can exercise the put option to sell the underlying stock at the strike price, thereby limiting the risk of a price decline.
Although your potential profit is capped if the stock price rises significantly because the call option buyer will exercise the option, you still gain the premium from selling the call option.
In other words, under the premise of holding the stock, you use the proceeds from selling a call option to buy a put option as insurance.
While you give up some upside potential of the stock, you limit the downside risk. This is akin to placing a collar around the stock, locking in its returns, thus the name "Collar Strategy."
Some investors construct a combination where the premium received from selling the call option equals the cost of buying the put option, making the cost of limiting losses completely offset by the income from selling the call option. This is called a Zero-Cost Collar Strategy.
Application of a Long Collar
On moomoo, constructing a Long Collar involves two scenarios:
When not holding the underlying stock, you can click Strategy > choose Collar to buy the underlying stock, buy a Put and sell a Call in one go.
When holding the underlying stock, you can Strategy > choose Single Option to separately sell a Call and buy a Put.
The specific choice depends on your own decision.
Let's explore the potential outcomes of implementing the Long Collar strategy.
Suppose you hold 100 shares of NVIDIA (NVDA), currently priced at $108 after yesterday's close. You don't want to sell your shares now, but you also want to protect against further downside risk. In this scenario, the Long Collar strategy can be useful.
First, you sell an NVDA Call option with a strike price of $119 and an expiration date of September 13 at a price of $0.98 per share.
Second, you buy an NVDA Put option with a strike price of $97 and the same expiration date of September 13 at the same price of $0.98 per share.
In this process, the income and expenditure of the two options offset each other, allowing you to construct a Long Collar without paying a premium.
So, how effective is the protection provided by the Long Collar?
You can exercise the put option to sell your stock at the strike price of $97.
Even if the stock continues to drop, you can exit at the stop-loss price of $118.50, capping your maximum loss at ($97- $108) * 100 = -$1100.
The prices of the two options offset each other and both expire out-of-the-money, which is equivalent to holding the stock alone. Besides limiting the maximum loss, the Collar strategy also retains the ability to achieve gains.
When Nvidia's stock price rises to the strike price of the sold call option at $119, the combination attains the maximum profit. At this point, the profit from the stock would be ($119- $108) * 100 = $1100.
You need to sell the stock due to the call buyer exercising the option, so any further gains are not yours.
Although you cannot capture all the gains in this scenario, if your target profit price when constructing the position was $119, then exiting at this point is acceptable to you.
3.Tips
When using this strategy, you should bear in mind that it may not be applicable to all underlying assets and any investment involves risks.
A. Expiration Date
Involving a long put and a short call, the long collar strategy is used to guard against downside risks for a long-term bullish stock. Hence, your selection of the expiration date is highly relevant to your expectation of how long uncertainties will last.
If you expect the stock to fall in the short term, you may choose a closer expiration date.
If you expect long-lasting fluctuations, longer-term options might be more suitable.
B. Strike Price
When setting up this strategy, you may adjust the price spread between the call and the put to the current stock price to meet your needs and risk tolerance.
Short Call: You may set the strike price close to an acceptable take-profit price.
Long Put: You may set the strike price based on your expected stop-loss price.
C. What happens when the Put or Call option is in-the-money at expiration?
Automatic exercise conditions:
U.S. stock options: On the expiration date, the options are in-the-money by as little as $0.01 at expiration at market close.
The exercise will be completed through physical delivery. Since you hold the underlying stock when constructing the Collar strategy, the system will automatically sell the stock at the Put's strike price.
If you do not wish to sell the stock using the Put, you can choose "Lapse Exercise". In this case, even if the option is in-the-money, the system will not automatically exercise it, and you will not receive any exercise profit.
If you hold American-style options, you can also choose "Early Exercise" before expiration, but this may result in the loss of the option's time value. Therefore, it is generally not recommended to choose early exercise under normal circumstances.
The exercise will be completed through physical delivery. Since you hold the underlying stock when constructing the Collar option combination, the system will automatically sell the stock at the Call's strike price during the settlement.
If you do not hold the underlying stock at the time of assignment, the system will automatically use the cash/margin in your account to buy the stock for delivery. If the cash/margin is insufficient, the system will automatically liquidate other assets in your account to fulfill the exercise settlement, which may cause unnecessary losses. Therefore, it is recommended that you constantly monitor your account status and ensure sufficient cash/margin is available.
Alright, that wraps up today's sharing![]()
.
The strategy shared above is mainly applicable for hedging the risk of a decline in Nvidia's stock price.
If your expectations for future stock price movements become clearer, you can close the position of Long Collar and engage in directional trading, such as Call or Put options, based on subsequent market conditions.
If you have other ideas about Collar Strategy, feel free to share and discuss them in the comments section.
Disclaimer: Community is offered by Moomoo Technologies Inc. and is for educational purposes only.
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Trwils1230 : where's less than 100...
Lucky Dog An : Fall to between 80 and 90.
junclj1223 : Around 80 to 90 I will top up more nvidia shares. This is my pension stock besides from aapl.
Phuk Yu : aint right
Zspurr : All good
Joey Bagadonuts : ok
70190156 :
Daily Investors : Buy into NVD and get your money back. a bearish inverse that went up 19% yesterday, and up 4 now
edmaxx76 :
CornpopBadDude : 12
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