Delta-Neutral Volatility

Short volatility hedger for externally held OTM strangles, with delta hedging via the underlying perpetual swap.

Strategy overview

The strategy assumes an out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put on the same underlying and expiry (a short strangle) already exist in the account. The combined position starts near delta-neutral because the call and put deltas roughly offset. As the underlying moves, the net delta drifts away from zero. The strategy monitors this drift and rehedges by trading the underlying perpetual swap whenever the portfolio delta exceeds a configurable threshold.

Entry

On startup the strategy:

1. Queries the instrument cache for all options matching the configured option_family (e.g. BTC-USD).
2. Filters to the nearest expiry (or a specific expiry via expiry_filter).
3. Selects a call and put using a strike-percentile heuristic derived from target_call_delta and target_put_delta.
4. Hydrates any existing positions from the cache (reconciliation may have loaded them from a previous session).
5. Subscribes to venue-provided Greeks for both legs and quotes for the hedge instrument.
6. Waits for Greeks from both option legs before enabling rehedging.

When enter_strangle is true (the default) and no option positions exist, the strategy places SELL limit orders for both legs once the first Greeks updates arrive. Orders are priced in implied volatility (px_vol) at the mark IV minus entry_iv_offset. An offset of 0.0 sells at mark; a positive offset (e.g. 0.02) sells 2 vol points below mark for faster fills.

Set entry_premium_offset_ticks to use explicit option premium prices instead of IV params. In that mode the strategy subscribes to quotes for both option legs and sells at the current ask plus the configured tick offset. If the quote side is empty, it computes a premium from the venue IV fields.

When enter_strangle is false the strategy operates as a delta hedger for positions entered externally or carried forward from a previous session.

Rehedging

The strategy rehedges on two triggers:

• Greeks update: every time on_option_greeks fires, the strategy recomputes portfolio delta and submits a hedge if the threshold is breached. Rehedging starts only after both option legs have produced a Greeks update.
• Periodic timer: a safety net that checks portfolio delta on a fixed interval (rehedge_interval_secs), catching cases where greeks updates stop arriving.

A hedge_pending guard prevents duplicate hedge submissions while a prior hedge order is still in flight.

Position tracking

Positions are tracked via on_order_filled. Each fill on the hedge instrument, call leg, or put leg updates the corresponding position field. Portfolio delta is computed as:

portfolio_delta = call_delta * call_position
                + put_delta * put_position
                + hedge_position

Exit

On stop the strategy cancels open hedge orders and unsubscribes from all data feeds. It leaves live positions unchanged.

Configuration

Inherited from StrategyConfig

The base field carries the standard strategy configuration. The most relevant fields:

• strategy_id: defaults to DELTA_NEUTRAL_VOL-001.
• order_id_tag: defaults to 001. Set to a unique value when running multiple instances.
• use_uuid_client_order_ids: set to true to avoid ID collisions across restarts.

Risk considerations

• Gamma risk: a short strangle has negative gamma. Large underlying moves increase the delta exposure faster than the rehedge timer can respond. Tighten rehedge_delta_threshold and reduce rehedge_interval_secs for faster response, at the cost of higher transaction costs.
• Vega risk: a spike in implied volatility increases the mark-to-market loss on the short options. The strategy does not manage vega exposure directly.
• Lifecycle risk: stopping the strategy disables further hedge updates. It does not unwind either the options or the hedge. Any exit must be managed separately.
• Liquidity: OTM options on crypto venues can have wide spreads and empty bid/ask arrays. The adapter's QuoteCache handles partial BBO updates, and hedge quality can degrade when the market gaps or the hedge instrument trades in coarse size increments.
• Contract multipliers: the portfolio delta computation uses raw contract counts. For instruments with non-unit multipliers (OKX inverse options), the hedge quantity may need scaling by the contract value. A production deployment should account for this.

Rust usage

use nautilus_trading::examples::strategies::{DeltaNeutralVol, DeltaNeutralVolConfig};

let config = DeltaNeutralVolConfig::new(
    "BTC-USD".to_string(),
    InstrumentId::from("BTC-USD-SWAP.OKX"),
    ClientId::new("OKX"),
)
.with_target_call_delta(0.25)
.with_target_put_delta(-0.25)
.with_contracts(5)
.with_rehedge_delta_threshold(0.3)
.with_rehedge_interval_secs(15)
.with_expiry_filter("260627".to_string())
.with_entry_iv_offset(0.02);  // Sell 2 vol points below mark

let strategy = DeltaNeutralVol::new(config);
node.add_strategy(strategy)?;

Python usage (v2)

Pass the config to add_native_strategy on a LiveNode or BacktestEngine. Python provides the configuration; the strategy runs entirely in Rust.

from nautilus_trader.core.nautilus_pyo3.trading import DeltaNeutralVolConfig

config = DeltaNeutralVolConfig(
    option_family="BTC-USD",
    hedge_instrument_id=InstrumentId.from_str("BTC-USD-SWAP.OKX"),
    client_id=ClientId("OKX"),
    target_call_delta=0.25,
    target_put_delta=-0.25,
    contracts=5,
    rehedge_delta_threshold=0.3,
    rehedge_interval_secs=15,
    expiry_filter="260627",
    entry_iv_offset=0.02,  # Sell 2 vol points below mark
)

node.add_native_strategy("DeltaNeutralVol", config)