Hello All, Question regarding the Greeks when buying calls/puts: Say I'm buying a call with a strike price of $50. The DELTA is 0.4156, the GAMMA is .026 and the THETA is -0.26. Call expires 3/5. With the THETA being so high in comparison to the DELTA, would this call be worthless after two days (basically)? Am I reading into this correctly? Appreciate any help, I'm relatively new to this.
Delta is just telling you that everybody feels the stock has a 41% chance of expiring ITM. Theta is telling you the time decay. Personally I dont spend too much time worried about the greeks unless its the volatility. The single biggest issue you need to worry about it getting the time and price correct! Volatility is a close second in importance because if a stock has been extremely volatile, the options will be expensive to buy and could lose value if the stock simply goes sideways.
I think that it's important to understand what delta, theta and implied volatility mean and how change in them affects the price of an option. As a retail trader, beyond that, I don't have much use for them beyond delta which is important to me when I'm trying to remain somewhat delta neutral. When buying a put or a call, the most important thing is getting the timing and direction right. Given that theta speeds up when you are closer to expiration, you might give some thought to either buying longer term options (several weeks to several months) rather than short term weeklies. Give yourself more time to be right and exit or roll before the last few weeks when premium really decays.
