The strategy consists of two investment buckets: an equity options portfolio and a fixed income portfolio.

The options portfolio is the main value driver of the strategy and comprises put options which we sell both on single name equities as well as equity indices. In doing so, we effectively collect an “insurance” premium for protecting the counterparty against losses in the underlying securities. By selling put options we implicitly build a long exposure to the underlying equities. Given that we typically hold the options until maturity, the long-term returns of our put portfolio will be determined by the same risk factors as the returns of the underlying equities. As a result, our put portfolio will generate long-term equity-like returns (over a full economic cycle of 7-10 years). However, the use of options instead of an outright investment in equities changes the time distribution of returns: lower returns than an outright investment in equities in phases of strongly rising equity markets; higher returns than an outright investment in equities in phases of sideways trading or falling equity markets.

The bond portfolio: unlike an outright investment in equities, the sale of put options does not consume liquidity. This allows us to invest the available liquidity in bonds (which then serve as collateral to our short put equity options portfolio). In contrast to most option-based strategies, we do not invest the available liquidity in negative yielding sovereign or top investment grade debt. Instead, we use our fixed income expertise to mainly invest in positive yielding investment grade bonds and to a lesser extent in crossover (BBB- / BB+ rating) and high yield bonds. This allows our bond portfolio to generate positive returns even in a negative interest rate environment. Further, it means we are not forced to lever up the options portfolio and take on any significant tail-risks to generate the targeted overall returns. On the contrary, we can lower the strike prices of the put options we sell and thus build-in an extra layer of protection against an equity market correction without compromising the strategy’s targeted returns.