Double Calendar: How To Create A Profit Tent
While Double Calendar Spreads can be used in various market conditions, they perform best in low volatility environments. Rising volatility levels help these trades, while sinking volatility levels hurt them.
Mainly because calendar spreads create profits the fastest at neutral to rising volatility ranges, a lot of calendar spread traders will wait to place a trade until an underlyings volatility is either at the lowest level of their typical range or when they are within the lower end of their average volatility range.
By waiting for these levels, the calendar spread trader is increasing his or her odds that the volatility levels will either remain where they are and not go much lower which could wind up hurting the position, or begin to rise back up which could put their calendar position into profits quite quickly.
Typically volatility levels move down because the marketplace heads upward and volatility levels go up because the marketplace moves down. This is why calendar traders will usually put on calendar spreads when they have a bearish view on the stock market or on the underlying asset they are trading.
A popular method for option investors with a bearish outlook is to place a calendar spread slightly below where the market or stock is trading at, with the expectation that as the market or stock does head downward, not only with the underlying move directly into the sweet spot of their calendar position, but the volatility will also rise, super charging their calendar trade into a very good profit.
This method can also be used with double calendars, and in fact many option traders would argue that it would be preferred. Using a double calendar could increase the probability of taking profit from the trade as it could be placed with a skew that would not only create a wider sweet spot inside the profit tent for the underlying to get caught in, it could also supply an extended profit tent coverage over the area where the underlying is trading at when the trade is first initiated, providing a safety net if it turns out that the traders speculation on direction turns out to be incorrect.
