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Rehedging a straddle 30 minutes before expiry

Question

You own a straddle struck at 2525 with the stock at 2727; the call leg has delta 0.720.72 and the put leg −0.28-0.28. You have used shares to make the total delta zero, and the options expire in exactly one hour. Half an hour later the stock is still at 2727. How many shares must you trade to stay delta-neutral? Answer −x-x to sell xx (fractions allowed).

Short answer

−0.28-0.28. At expiry the in-the-money call's delta goes to 11 and the out-of-the-money put's to 00. Assuming roughly linear decay over this short window, each leg's delta rises by 0.140.14 in thirty minutes, so the straddle gains 0.280.28 of delta, which you sell off.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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