Diversification is one of the key common-sense requirements when selling covered calls or cash-secured puts. When using individual stocks, the BCI guidelines are a minimum requirement of 5 different stocks in 5 different industries where any one position cannot represent more than 20% of our entire portfolio. We can use fewer securities when using exchange-traded […]

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 near risk-free system? In April 2017, Rushbabh, a member from Australia, was kind enough […]

Leveraged ETFs and Margin Accounts for High-Risk Traders Only
Covered call writing results can be enhanced through the use of leveraged ETFs and margin accounts. However, so too is the risk elevated. In this article, the pros and cons of these strategies are examined. Definitions Leveraged ETF: An exchange-traded fund (ETF) that uses financial derivatives and debt to magnify the returns of an underlying index. Margin account: […]

Implied Volatility of ETFs and our Covered Call Writing and Put-Selling Decisions
Covered call writers or cash-secured put sellers who use ETFs (as opposed to individual stocks) tend to be novice put writers, more conservative investors, or have limited funds or time. If you fall into any of these categories, knowing your risk level is critical to your investment decisions and specifically, to which underlying securities you […]

Exchange-Traded Funds: Funding Option-Selling Portfolios With ETFs
For the strategies of covered call writing and selling cash-secured puts, we are selling the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell 100 shares of the underlying security. That security can be a stock or and exchange-traded fund (ETF). In this article, I will highlight ETFs and demonstrate a few approaches to funding […]

Why Covered Call ETFs Under-Perform
With the popularity of covered call writing and selling cash-secured puts growing in popularity, we have witnessed the creation of new exchange-traded funds based on these strategies. Over the last few years I have not been a proponent of these securities mainly because they under-perform the overall market and motivated retail investors can do so […]
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