Latest Insights in Stock Market Investing
Earnings Reports and Rolling Options
When we sell a covered call and share price rises dramatically, there is a tendency to roll up in order to capture additional future share appreciation. The most common reason for a gap-up in price is a favorable earnings report. In mid-May 2017 Tim wrote me about a...
Selecting the Best Put Strike Based on Overall Market Assessment
Selling cash-secured puts requires us to master the three required skills: stock (or ETF) selection, option selection and position management. This article will highlight how to select a put strike based on our overall market assessment. Market assessment data...
Why Would a Call Buyer Exercise, Rather than Sell, an In-The-Money Call Option?
When we write a covered call, there is a trader or market-maker buying that call on the other side of the trade. We know that as expiration approaches, the time value of options tends to approach zero (Theta effect). With that in mind I received an email from Marcos...
ETF Index Tracker Proposed Strategy: A Risk-Free Investment?
Using covered call writing and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is a viable approach to generating monthly cash flow. I personally use this strategy in my mother's portfolio. Can this investment style be expanded to include inverse ETFs to move this expanded path to a...
Naked Options versus Covered Options: Where Should We Take a Stand?
Covered call writing and selling cash-secured puts are more conservative strategies than trading naked options (selling calls and puts without having the resources to execute the potential trade obligations, if exercised). A naked call occurs when a speculator writes...
Why Option Buyers Pay More for In-The-Money Strikes
When we sell an in-the-money covered call, we are taking a defensive posture and using the intrinsic value component of the premium to protect the time value initial profit. As an example, let's look at New Oriental Education (NYSE: EDU) on April 7, 2017: EDU priced...
Determining the Delta of our Strikes Using the Airport Formula
"What is the best Delta to use when selling covered call options?" I get this question frequently from the educated core of members from our BCI community. Delta is one of the five option Greeks which are mathematical means of quantifying the risk inherent in our...
When Strikes Move Deep In-The-Money: A Real-Life Trade
Covered call writing exit strategies include scenarios when share price moves up or down. Our main enemy is share depreciation where we need to mitigate losses but we must also have the ability to enhance returns when share price rises under certain specific...
Writing Covered Call Options to Compensate for Share Depreciation
Covered call writing generates monthly (or weekly) cash flow but it also reduces our cost basis. The latter result is the reason why covered call writing increases our chances of a successful trade more so than simply owning the stock. Historical data tells us that in...
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