2008-01-15

Options Seller Risk/Reward

The seller of a time spread buys the nearer month option and sells the outer-month option in a one to one ratio.

In order to profit from the sale of the time spread, the seller is looking basically for two things.

First is a decrease in implied volatility.

As volatility decreases, the out-month option (which the seller is short) loses money faster than the near month option (which the seller is long) because of the higher vega in the out month option.

This will cause the spread to contract or lose value.

That will be profitable for the time spread seller.

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