Strangles


Written By: Ehsan Jahandarpour

In finance, a strangle is an investment strategy involving the purchase or sale of particular option derivatives that allows the holder to profit based on how much the price of the underlying security moves, with relatively minimal exposure to the direction of price movement. A purchase of particular options is known as a long strangle, while a sale of the same options is known as a short strangle. As an options position strangle is a variation of a more generic straddle position. Strangle’s key difference from a straddle is in giving investor choice of balancing cost of opening a strangle versus a probability of profit. For example, given the same underlying security, strangle positions can be constructed with low cost and low probability of profit. Low cost is relative and comparable to a cost of straddle on the same underlying. Strangles can be used with equity options, index options or options on futures.