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Put-call parity clarification

The put-call parity formula for American options is considerably more complicated than for European options. In this video we explore what the difference in how these options can be exercise complicates this concept. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • blobby green style avatar for user Marshall Stanton
    I don't see why this would only be possible for European trading. In the case of American trading, if the options are exercised before the expiration date, it's true you might have to dip into your funds to pay the buyer of the option, but wouldn't that money be made back when the bond comes due, so that the NET effect is still the same? Or if the stock fluctuates, maybe both parties exercise their options and so both of them make money, instead of one being worthless, since if the market isn't going your way, you'd hold until the last possible minute anyway. Right?
    (7 votes)
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    • old spice man blue style avatar for user Greg Chrzan
      Don't forget about dividends. If you hold this position til expiration to flatten out and there is a dividend and your holding short stock you will be paying out the dividend from your account. If your short a call and it gets excercised before expiration (only happens with American options) then you could also end up with short stock and a dividend liability. A few other things: You are putting on a four legged trade and you will definetely have price fluctuations while working this on the open market. Rarely does this add up. The price difference between each half of this equation usually is a few pennies and you need enormous equity to trade it if you want to have enough size to make it worthwile. If you do see a large anomaly in parity then look out and due some due dilligence. There might be a special dividend about to be announced. Good luck making money this way.
      (7 votes)
  • leafers seedling style avatar for user Andrei Sandu
    The names European and American options - is that just a name or are the respectively named options ONLY practiced/traded in America/Europe?
    (4 votes)
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  • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Pete.Ossi
    When these arbitrage scenarios are exploited, which then as I under stand should balance and eliminate them, what does that mean for the actual balance of the market?

    I understood this type of balance in the apples example but I don't see what is happening conceptually here
    (2 votes)
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    • mr pants teal style avatar for user Rejin John Varghese
      As the arbitrage starts getting exploited over a period of time - the stock we short would start going down and the put option we write would also start becoming cheaper (supply increases --> price decreases). Also as we start buying more bonds and call options they would start getting more and more expensive (demand increases --> price increases). I think there would be some oscillations before the parity would ultimately set in.
      (5 votes)
  • leafers sapling style avatar for user MasterDarvon
    If the only profit one is going to get is the bond interest made, then why not just do the bond instead of doing the short, writing the put, and buying the option?
    (2 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user Iain McMeechan
    I am doing put call parity for a deriviatives exam and it being taught with the equation +C -P =S -K (long call - put = Spot - Strike), can you relate this to what you are teaching?
    Also, I'm getting a bit confused around the difference between Spreads and Basis trading, and completely lost when talking about reversals and conversions. Is there any chance you could do something on this?
    (2 votes)
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  • leaf blue style avatar for user henningpablo
    Hello, regarding the Risk Free Bond, you mean a USTreas or has to be a Bond issued by the same company of the Stock? great videos, thks so much
    (1 vote)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Mickoes
    I think the concept of naked calls/puts should be explained a bit more in the previous chapters, maybe at the start just to differentiate earlier the role/responsibilities of the writer vs the holder. Other than that everything is quite clearly explained so far :)
    (1 vote)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user fernandosommacal
    Hi,

    In some way how can I profit from difference in interet rate using options? For exemple, in brazil interest rate are 10%p.a, there I can buy and sell option. In the Uk interet rate i 0.5%, here I can buy and shell forward and spot cfd of the same shares. What would have happen if you opened a syntethic long (option) in brazil and short the cfd forward?
    (1 vote)
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  • piceratops tree style avatar for user Srikanth Musti
    In the arbitrage situation, you're always buying the items on one side of the equation and selling the ones on the other side, right? So if the holder of the option you wrote decides to exercise it, then you can always choose to do so with the option you're holding and still break even once the bond matures, right?
    (1 vote)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user Alfin Ade Putra
      Let's assume this is American options (since could exercise before expiration like your example) that consist of Long stock, Put long and Call short, Zero bond loan. If the holder of our call exercise it, that means the underlying price is higher than the strike of call or price moving upward. Then, we as the one holding the put don't need to exercise it since the price is not favorable for us. The think we need to do is directly settle our stock position to close the exposure that later could arise from stock price correction (to avoid price moving downward after the holder exercise call), if this condition occurs then we make a loss from the different between the short call and our stock long.

      So to achieve break even like you said, it's not the matter the holder options and our long options, but rather the holder options and our stock, which both should be close at the same time.
      (1 vote)

Video transcript

Voiceover: We've seen that the payoff diagram at option expiration for owning the stock plus a put on that stock at some strike price that this payoff diagram will look exactly the same as the payoff diagram as owning a call option on that stock at the same strike price as the put option plus a bond that's going to be worth the strike price at the time of expiration. One point of clarification and actually let me just draw that payoff diagram just so you know what it looks like. So, if this is the underlying stock price, stock price. And let's just do the payoff diagram when we look at the value of the portfolio or your holdings. What it looks like is this is the strike price over here. If the stock is at the stock price or anything lower you make a fixed value and anything above that you get some type of upside. So, either if you have the stock or the put you have this type of a payoff or if you have the call plus the bond. The one point of clarification I want to make is that you can only say that this is definitely true for European. For European call options, for European options I should say in general. European call and put options. Because only in European options can you know for certain, for sure that the options are going to be exercised on the ex or they can only be exercised on the expiration date. If we're dealing with American options either party could either on the put side or the call side could exercise their options earlier so it becomes a lot more complicated. Normally when we kind of deal with the mathematics of options we're dealing with European options. So, even in the example where we did our put-call parity arbitrage where we're able to make that free $5, the implicit assumption I made is that we were dealing with European options. That the options could only be exercised at the expiration date.