The Patient Bid

What if the most important option trade is the one you refuse to make?

Writing put options is often promoted as a way to “get paid while waiting” to buy shares. But that appealing phrase conceals a serious obligation. The premium is small and certain. What follows may be neither.

The Patient Bid is a practical Australian guide to writing exchange-traded puts with the mindset of an owner—not a premium hunter.

At its heart is a deceptively simple sequence:

Company or fund → Owner Price → Available Option Market → Trade or Wait

The order matters.

In Australia, the strike you want may offer almost no premium, a wide spread or no usable market. A more active strike may pay better—but require you to buy at a price you cannot defend. What should you do when valuation and the option market refuse to cooperate?

You wait.

This book reveals how to:

• identify shares or funds you would genuinely be prepared to own
• establish an owner price before opening the option chain
• recognise when an attractive premium is disguising an unattractive obligation
• distinguish broker margin from the cash required for assignment
• assess liquidity, breakeven, position size and portfolio stress
• understand what an option ladder will really do to your average purchase price
• choose between expiry, closing, rolling and assignment
• remain disciplined when markets fall and the trade becomes uncomfortable

The Patient Bid is not a promise of easy income or constant trading. It is a framework for knowing when a put makes sense, when it does not—and why the ability to wait may be your greatest advantage.

Because the real question is not how much premium you can collect.

It is what you may be required to own when the market tests your conviction.