Dazed and Confused

People often freak out when they have on a complex options position and the "sky is falling". Let's say that you have on a few hundred options in strangles. The market has moved substantially and you want to take profits. Or, you are losing because you are on the short side. --But, you can't get a decent quote out of the market.

How can you take some quick profits or cover the trade? One way to do this might be to work the "box". Your strangle puts plus strangle calls have coordinate deltas. That is, if your call delta is now 40, your coordinate put delta will correspondingly be -60.
And the net delta of a box is: -60 + 60 + 40 + -40.
This is the equivalent of a synthetic long future and a synthetic short future. Or, it is a reversal plus a conversion.

By putting on the box, you effectively 'lock' the position until expiration. Your risk is only that your short in the money option gets exercised. But the exerise is automatic and you receive a short or long future into your account.

Note that this does NOT work for non-futures options. Put call parity is not exact and corresponding deltas do not offset in non futures options contracts.