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To: edamo who wrote (6116)	4/6/2000 2:28:00 PM
From: SecularBull	Respond to of 8096

"Fully cash secured" is a key term, and I'm afraid that the bulk of put sellers do not have the cash reserves to cover in a market crash. I am not making that assumption about you, but the majority of the lesser informed. LoF

To: edamo who wrote (6116)	4/6/2000 2:29:00 PM
From: SecularBull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8096

Buying MRVC Oct $60 calls. LoF

To: edamo who wrote (6116)	4/6/2000 4:37:00 PM
From: Bridge Player	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8096

<< many believe and will state that all short puts are "naked"....not really, if the position of assignment is fully cash secured then they are not "naked" but covered"....>> I tend to agree with you that short puts could be considered "covered" if cash is in the account for the full amount of exercise. In fact, some brokerages (not all) will allow the selling of fully cash-covered puts in an IRA account. This is not forbidden by IRS regulations although many brokers believe that to be the case. I would also submit that short puts are also FULLY covered by a short position in the underlying of 100 shares for each put short. Jill and I had this discussion some time ago on this board. For someone who is mildly bearish, the short stock/short put combination is quite closely analogous to the long stock/short covered call combination for a mildly bullish trader. In both cases the trader is willing to limit his gain in exchange for pocketing the premium and the prospective gain from premium time erosion. Before the skeet shooters unlimber their blunderbusses I hasten to point out that there is a significant difference in the maximum potential loss of such a position, that being limited to the price of the stock in the case of a covered write of a call. I do not recall anyone else mentioning this strategy here although IMO it is a useful one when shorting an overbought stock, in that it gives the amount of the realized premium as upside protection to the short position. BP