Chapter 30: Stock Index Hedging Strategies 543 
With the futures having been eliminated as a possibility, the investor must now 
choose which strike to use. Since he will be selling calls and buying puts, and since 
either strike allows him to synthetically sell the UVX "future" at 178, he should 
choose the 180 strike. This should be his choice because the 180 calls are out-of-the­
money and thus less likely to be the object of an early assignment. 
HEDGING WITH INDEX PUTS 
Let us now move on to discuss ways of hedging in which a complete hedge is not 
established, but rather some risk is taken. The main difference between options and 
futures is that futures lock in a price, while options lock in a worst-case price (at 
greater cost) but leave room for further profit potential. To see this, consider a long 
stock portfolio hedged by short futures. In this case, one eliminates his upside profit 
potential except for positive tracking error. However, if he buys put options instead, 
he expends money - thereby incurring a greater cost to himself than if he had used 
futures - but he still has profit potential if the market rallies. 
One could hedge a long stock portfolio with options by either buying index puts 
or selling index calls. Buying the puts is generally the more attractive strategy, espe­
cially if the puts are cheap. In order to properly establish the hedge, it is not only nec­
essary to adjust the dollars of stock in accordance with the Beta, but the deltas of the 
options must be taken into account as well. The following example will demonstrate 
the use of puts to hedge a portfolio of diverse stocks. 
Example: Assume that an investor has the same portfolio of three stocks that was 
used in a previous example: 3,000 GOGO, 5,000 UTIL, and 2,000 OIL. He has 
become somewhat bearish on the market in general and would like to hedge some of 
his downside risk. However, he decides to use puts for the hedge just in case there is 
a further rally in the market. 
The table from the earlier example is reprinted below, showing the adjusted 
volatilities and capitalizations for each stock in the portfolio. The total adjusted cap­
italization of the portfolio is $720,000, as before. 
Adjusted Adjusted 
Volatility Quantity Capitalization 
Stock Volatility (Step l) Price Owned (Step 2) 
GOGO .60 4.00 25 3,000 $300,000 
UTIL .12 0.80 60 5,000 240,000 
OIL .30 2.00 45 2,000 180,000 
Total adjusted capitalization: $720,000 (step 3)