Market Measures - November 24, 2025 - Hedging Analysis: The Hidden Costs of Married Put Protection Strategies
Update: 2025-11-24
Description
Hosts Liz and Tony (joined briefly by Liz's cat Sandra Day O'Connor) examined why buying put protection consistently fails to enhance portfolio returns despite intuitive appeal. The analysis demonstrated that while long puts can work during corrections (April example showing potential $4,000 profit with perfect timing), the difficulty of consistent timing makes the strategy unprofitable long-term. Even with active management closing at 500% profit targets or 21 DTE, the married put portfolio trailed simple buy-and-hold SPY performance from 2013-2025, with median P&L negative and only 17% success rate. The hosts emphasized that selling calls provides limited downside protection (covering maybe 50% of expected move), while buying puts requires perfect entry timing that retail investors struggle to achieve. Their recommendation: reduce position size rather than paying for ongoing protection, noting that if consistently hedging with same strategy, simply cutting stock allocation achieves similar risk reduction without premium drain. The session featured Liz's humorous $800 Costco Prosecco recall refund story (nine months of case purchases) blamed for the stock's $7 decline.
Comments
In Channel
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States00:00
00:00
1.0x
