backtest_options
For “what would this have done”, and only then.
price_options answers what protection costs now and
whether that is dear or cheap; this answers what the same shape did over years of
rolls. They are different questions and they used to be one answer.
They were split because everything that read them confused the two. The study’s
opening price is 2021 by default, at a volatility index of 117.8 against a recent
51.8, and it was quoted as the current price, including once to somebody told a
343 a year when it was nearer $118.
What it answers
The total is not a loss anybody would take
Read the sentence under it. The model spends the whole budget on premiums each roll and reinvests only what the options paid: the first roll’s cost is the entire capital, the second roll’s cost is the first roll’s payoff. So any structure that only buys premium returns -100% from every start date. 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 all give the same answer. That is the fate of a premium budget, not the return of a hedged portfolio, and not a forecast about the asset. The cost of hedging a position you hold is theCOST NOW line in
price_options.
Read won next to the total
A result is a series of rolls: open, hold to expiry, settle, reopen. won
counts how many paid more than they cost. A respectable total can come from one
lucky roll in ten, and the two readings are very different bets.