Since all markets have the potential to fluctuate beyond their normal trend, it is essential to learn how to use strategies that limit your losses to a manageable amount. There are a variety of options strategies that can be employed to hedge risk and leverage capital. Each strategy has an optimal set of circumstances that trigger its application in a particular market. Vertical spreads are the most basic limited risk strategies and that's why they are often introduced relatively early. These simple hedging strategies enable traders to take advantage of the way options premiums change in relation to movement in the underlying asset.
Vertical spreads combine long and short options with different strike prices and the same expiration date to profit on a directional move in the price of the underlying asset. They offer limited potential profits as well as limited risks. One of the keys to understanding these managed risk spreads comes from grasping the concepts of intrinsic value and time value-variables that provide major contributions to the fluctuating price of an option. In order to understand these important concepts, let's take a closer look at the components that affect option pricing.
