Lest one think the options market is a huge gaming table for people to enjoy, note that options can be used in a conservative manner to hedge or mitigate risks.
For instance, let's suppose that I am a long-term investor who does not trade often, preferring to load up when the market is fairly valued or undervalued, as it was during the first couple of years following the GFC. When the market is richly priced, as it has been in recent years, I might very much hesitate to sell since the capital gains tax rate is 23.8%.
So I can purchase a little "insurance" in the form of long-dated, deep out-of-the-money put options. Typically, I might annually spend about 0.2 percent of my unrealized capital gain, with the expectation that the overwhelming majority of the options will expire worthless. But the ones that are in-the-money prior to the expiration date pay off big-time.
(Note: The put options need not involve the stocks you own. The idea is to hedge against panicky selloffs and steep cliff-dives, so puts on any stock that would get killed in a bear market are top candidates.)
Think of it like this:
Let's say you own a building and want to lay off the risk of substantial or total loss due to fire or tornado. Thus you may pay something like 0.2 percent of the replacement cost of the building annually in order to insure a risk that you cannot afford to take, or at least would prefer not to take.
One sleeps better at night that way!
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Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight
I've never tried to insure my portfolio. Instead I just sell when I think a position is overvalued. But the puts are not a bad idea.
I've sold futures contracts from time to time to hedge commodities prices, when I want to lock in a price. I bought put options on futures once. I prefer the outright futures because I figure I'm giving some juice to the funds and the market makers and the like when I buy an out-of-the-money put. Or at least the bid/ask spreads often look extreme.
But for what you're doing the puts would make more sense. If your stock portfolio doubles and you're hedged with index futures contracts, you've given away the gain, unless your portfolio outperformed the index.