Although there are other traders in the market, chances are that when you place an options trade, the person on the other side of that trade will be a market maker.

Market makers do as their name implies. Options exchanges employ them to “make a market.” They provide liquidity so that traders can readily enter and exit their positions.

Without liquidity, options traders will simply stay away.

Market makers provide liquidity by quoting prices and volume on both the buy and sell sides of call and put options with different strike prices and expiry dates.

And if you “hit” them, they’ve got to take the trade, irrespective of their underlying view of the market.

So they use options strategies to hedge against potential losses. Let’s take a look…

Taking on Obligations

For example, if you believe that a stock is going to rise, and you decide to buy a call option, it’s a market maker selling you that call.

And in doing so, they’re taking on the obligation of handing over those shares if you exercise your option.

If the underlying share price trades sideways or falls and your call option expires worthless, the market maker simply banks the premium.

Doing this many times with different stocks is how they make their money.

But what happens if, after writing that call, the stock price rallies strongly like Nvidia (NVDA) did in recent months, for example?

A market maker who wrote NVDA call options at $600, $700, or even $800 this year would be set for unimaginable losses if they didn’t somehow hedge their positions.

However, one of the great things about options is their flexibility.

They offer numerous strategies. And you can use those different strategies to offset an underlying position.

This is how market makers protect themselves against massive potential losses.

How Market Makers Hedge

To best understand how market makers hedge themselves, you need to think about how they might take the opposite position to the one they just opened.

So let’s run with our NVDA example.

Let’s say that NVDA is trading at $500, like it did in January this year. I buy an at-the-money call option. That gives me the right to buy NVDA stock at $500 up until the option expires.

If the NVDA stock price tanks, the most I lose is my premium. And the market maker banks the money.

But what if the stock price takes off and is trading at over $800, like it is now?

The market maker still has to hand over the shares to me at $500 if I exercise my call option.

Market makers can protect themselves by buying the equivalent number of NVDA shares at the same time they’re selling me the $500 call options.

That way, they’re covered no matter how high the NVDA price goes and can fulfill their obligations.

But something is missing…

Understanding Risk

If NVDA tanks, the market maker is going to lose money on those shares. Theoretically, those shares have the potential to go all the way to zero.

On the other hand, I (the call option buyer) have limited risk. The most I can lose is the call option premium.

So there’s not an equivalent risk between both positions, which is vital to any hedging strategy.

That’s why the market maker needs to add another leg to their long shares position: a bought put option.

The market maker has now written the call option at $500 and bought the equivalent number of NVDA shares at $500. They also need to buy a $500 put option to complete their hedging strategy.

That way, their position has the same risk/reward profile as my bought call position. That acts as a hedge against their written call option position.

The beauty of options is that you can use this and other combinations to create (and hedge) many strategies.

Regards,

Larry Benedict
Editor, Trading With Larry Benedict

Mailbag

Meant to send this last week. Thank you, Larry, for an awesome week. Maybe the best this year. We as customers are always quick to yell and scream when trades go sideways, but seldom say thank you when they do well. THANK YOU!

– Bill W.

Hey Larry, I am a member of S&P Trader. I couldn’t believe my eyes last week. Your trades went with surgical high-end precision to their targets. Often in the last minute, when all hope is already gone… I couldn’t believe my eyes. On Friday in the last 10 seconds of the 59th minute, it went down from 5101 to 5099.

I ask myself, how can you know that it will not end at 5103 or so? I am also day trading for 15 years. I also anticipated that it would be rejected as the first contact at the daily SMA20.

But I have no clue at which point the close will be… It is absolutely fascinating, but I also feel a little bit frustrated. I feel like a little baby that is fed but has no chance to learn it by myself. I think you analyze data behind the scenes? I congratulate your big success, and I am thankful that you really engage yourself every day to make this success possible.

– Gebhard F.