Following Kenneth's description, assuming the same example, AAPL Sep. expiry (3 weeks away) an OTM bull call spread at the $710-730 spread wtih a delta that's practically nonexistent, vs the same strike ($710-730) bull put spread with a delta of about 0.99: if AAPL goes up in price, as we assume if we are proposing bull strategies, the ITM bull put spread with a delta of .99 would move $0.99 for every $1 in AAPL's price increase (more or less, allowing for the other Greeks to play along, including theta with a short expiry). Still, the put spread would move considerably in favor of the seller; while the OTM bull call spread with a delta of 0, more or less, would need a huge move up in price of AAPL to register any change at all. With a tiny delta, every $1 move in the underlying stock moves its corresponding call options only a tiny bit, and with the theta getting involved, the underlying would need to move up a very large amount before the delta begins to cooperate.
I guess we're all going to be debating this until it's time to change the expiry. In my opinion, an deep OTM bull call spread with a short expiry is a lottery of the worst kind - it's cheap, but it's also very unlikely to deliver good results. And whether or not you consider the two strategies to be synthetic equivalents (which they are), they nevertheless do not produce the same results. For an anticipated bullish move, I would MUCH rather be in a deep ITM bull put spread that dances to the music, than be a wallflower waiting patiently to be asked to dance.
As of Sep. 2, 2012, AAPL options are listed as follows:
Sep. 710 call = $0.21 x 0.26, delta 0.0277Sep. 730 call = 0.08 x 0.11, delta 0.0112 Sep. 710 put = 43.90 x 45.60, delta -0.9864Sep. 730 put = 63.75 x 66.55, delta -.9634
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