Looking at the past year, the March 2020 spike in the ^VIX stands out. But there have been a number of smaller spikes in volatility since then.
Setting aside my current annoyance with Vanguard, I'm liking "put spreads" more these days. I'm trying to reduce the number of puts/put spreads so I can keep a better eye on them, and to make sure they're my best ideas - not just vague ideas.
I have a put spread on Dave & Buster's (PLAY). Their share dilution means a recovery should be to a price/share that's 75% of their prior price. So I bought a put option at $55/share, and sold a put option at $30/share. Selling the $30 strike lowers my cost, and also pushes my breakeven point higher.
I've also got a pure put option, because I have no idea how far AMC is going to fall. It's my favorite for taking a loss - it recently fell so fast, I had to race to buy put options. So I have put options on AMC, for a number of reasons.
(1) Wall Street Bets can't fight printing more shares. There are 4x as many AMC shares now compared to 2019. That means their $16/sh price is more like $4/sh now. (2) Streaming competition, their customers are staying at home, paying less for movies. (3) Disney, a major source of movie theater revenue, has started offering movies on it's platform the same day the movies start in theaters. (4) Massive debt load according to online websites - over 3x their market cap.
On the positive side, their might be a rebound visit to movie theaters over the summer - just to get out of the house. I think put options on movie theaters should extend well past summer - enough time for normal revenues to kick in.
In case anyone is tracking this, for later:
AMC put at $12/sh expiring 2021-Sept-17
PLAY put spread from $55/sh to $30/sh expiring 2022-Jan-21
Actually September is a bit aggressive for AMC. I'm going to look at longer-dated puts, since September is too close to the end of summer for my taste.