Covered call writing and selling cash-secured puts are stock option strategies with primary goals of income generation and capital preservation. Most of us are conservative investors who seek to beat the market on a consistent basis while minimizing portfolio risk. This is one of the mission statements of the BCI methodology. In the past few […]
Collar Calculations: Adding Protective Puts to our Covered Call Trades
Covered call exit strategies play a major role in mitigating losses in our BCI methodology. In most cases, we can keep losses to a minimum, turn losses into gains and enhance profits as well. Some covered call writers want the security of protecting against a catastrophic gap-down which can occur rarely. With the current market […]
Protective Puts and The Poor Man’s Covered Call
The Poor Man’s Covered Call (PMCC) is a covered call writing-like strategy where the underlying security is a LEAPS options (1 -2 years expirations) rather than the stock itself. The technical term is a long call diagonal debit spread. Since the cost of the option is lower than the price of the stock, the return […]
Making Money with Technology Stocks: Investing with QQQ
The exchange-traded fund (ETF) that has appeared most frequently in our premium member ETF reports is Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ). This fund consists of 100 of the largest non-financial companies (predominantly technology companies) that trade on the NASDAQ exchange. As of June 2019, the top 3 holdings in QQQ are Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) […]
Collar Trades When Call Strikes Move Deep In-The-Money: A Real-Life Example with TEAM
In August 2018, Duminda shared with me a successful collar trade he executed with Attlassian Corp (NASDAQ: TEAM). He was considering 2 exit strategies: Closing all legs of the trade and using the cash to enter a new position Allowing assignment and selling the put, if any value at expiration Initial structuring of Duminda’s […]
Should We Add a Short Put to Our Collar Trades?
A collar trade is a covered call trade with a protective put. Jim recently wrote to me asking about the efficacy of also selling an out-of-the-money put to help pay for the cost of the protective put. This article will analyze this series of trades to assess the pros and cons of adding that fourth […]
Protective Puts and the Collar Strategy: Selecting the Best Strike Prices/ Last Chance for Holiday Orders
Covered call writing, when combined with protective puts, is known as the collar strategy. The maximum gain is established by the short call strike while the maximum loss is defined by the long put strike. For example, if a stock is purchased for $48.00 per share and the $50.00 call is sold while the $45.00 […]
How To Generate Cash With Elite Stocks: Three Perspectives
Whether we are writing covered calls, selling cash-secured puts or simply buying and selling stocks, the first important requirement is to develop or have access to a quality watch list of elite-performing securities. Once we have purchased a stock or exchange-traded fund (ETF), our goal is to make a profit. In this article, three approaches […]
Using Delta to Determine the Amount of Risk in Our Option-Selling Positions
Covered call writing and selling cash-secured puts are low-risk option-selling strategies used to generate monthly cash flow. Low-risk does not mean no risk so how can we measure the degree of risk we are undertaking? Let’s first all agree that any strategy that aspires to generate higher than a risk-free return (Treasuries, for example) will incur […]
Generating Income on Stocks Already Owned
Covered call writing is a low-risk option-selling strategy that allows us to generate monthly cash flow in sheltered and non-sheltered accounts. One of the main reasons this has been the go-to strategy in the stock portion of my portfolio is related to the fact that the strategy can be crafted to specific investment scenarios and […]
