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sorry for dbl post, went to the wrong forum initially ....******Hi, I was wondering about the "right", best justifiable approach for a vol trading strategy(has to be vol strat, delta neutra, no outright punts).Underlying trades at 50, my view is bearish with, expecting higher impl vol.What shall be the best strategy ? Intuitevely I would buy very cheap OTM puts and hedge delta.Alternatively I wd have speculated on buying very cheap ITM CALLs, profit wd come from shorting the underlying.I prefer the PUT strat, because of-my bearish view (higher imp vol/downside in px)-vega (still to be collected to the downside on the put and much higher than on the OTM call)Any thoughts ? Thanks for your input !

First How can you find cheap ITM calls ?Then, even if you use puts, you need to think about what Gamma / Theta position you wanna be holding, even if you are right about volatility going up while spot goes down you might bleed all the profit away in the form of time decay if the stock doesn't go down "fast" enough (in the case of long OTM Put delta hedged). I would suggest something like long OTM PUT, short OTM Call (in ratio or not depending on the strength of your conviction). This way, the lower the spot goes, the higher your vega and the short call can maintain a decent carry. Also, you can think about OTM Put Calendar spread (for example short 3M 90% Put vs long 1Y 90% Put and again adjust position to manage your gamma/theta position)

A downside put and a downside call hedged delta neutral are the same thing disregarding dividend issues. I would suggest looking for downside skew trades that look cheap. For example if you can sell atm optionsand buy downside puts in a ratio without giving up much IV points then that will probably be profitablegiven your outlook.With listed options it's all path dependent. If you buy a downside put delta neutral and the underlyingjust drifts downward to strike then you will lose money on the long stock...even if implied vol increasesand the stock goes down.