Options and stocks

Getting Acquainted With Options Trading.

Many traders think of a position in stock options as a stock substitute that has a higher leverage and less required capital. After all, options can be used to bet on the direction of a stock's price, just like the stock itself. However, options have different characteristics than stocks, and there is a lot of terminology beginning option traders must learn.

[There's a common misconception that options are confusing and overly complex, but that simply isn't the case. Build on what you learn from this article and see how you can leverage options to build a more robust through taking Investopedia Academy's Options for Beginners course. ]

Two types of options are calls and puts. When you buy a call option, you have the right but not the obligation to purchase a stock at the strike price any time before the option expires. When you buy a put option, you have the right but not the obligation to sell a stock at the strike price any time before the expiration date.

One important difference between stocks and options is that stocks give you a small piece of ownership in the company, while options are just contracts that give you the right to buy or sell the stock at a specific price by a specific date. It is important to remember that there are always two sides for every option transaction: a buyer and a seller. So, for every call or put option purchased, there is always someone else selling it.

When individuals sell options, they effectively create a security that didn't exist before. This is known as writing an option and explains one of the main sources of options, since neither the associated company nor the options exchange issues options. When you write a call, you may be obligated to sell shares at the strike price any time before the expiration date. When you write a put, you may be obligated to buy shares at the strike price any time before expiration.

Trading stocks can be compared to gambling in a casino, where you are betting against the house, so if all the customers have an incredible string of luck, they could all win.

Trading options is more like betting on horses at the racetrack. There they use parimutuel betting, whereby each person bets against all the other people there. The track simply takes a small cut for providing the facilities. So, trading options, like the horse track, is a zero-sum game. The option buyer's gain is the option seller's loss and vice versa: any payoff diagram for an option purchase must be the mirror image of the seller's payoff diagram.

The price of an option is called its premium. The buyer of an option cannot lose more than the initial premium paid for the contract, no matter what happens to the underlying security. So, the risk to the buyer is never more than the amount paid for the option. The profit potential, on the other hand, is theoretically unlimited.

In return for the premium received from the buyer, the seller of an option assumes the risk of having to deliver (if a call option) or taking delivery (if a put option) of the shares of the stock. Unless that option is covered by another option or a position in the underlying stock, the seller's loss can be open-ended, meaning the seller can lose much more than the original premium received.

You should be aware that there are two basic styles of options: American and European. An American, or American-style, option can be exercised at any time between the date of purchase and the expiration date. Most exchange-traded options are American style and all stock options are American style. A European, or European-style, option can only be exercised on the expiration date. Many index options are European style.

When the strike price of a call option is above the current price of the stock, the call is out of the money; when the strike price is below the stock's price it is in the money. Put options are the exact opposite, being out of the money when the strike price is below the stock price and in the money when the strike price is above the stock price.

Note that options are not available at just any price. Stock options are generally traded with strike prices in intervals of $2.50 up to $30 and in intervals of $5 above that. Also, only strike prices within a reasonable range around the current stock price are generally traded. Far in - or out-of-the-money options might not be available.

All stock options expire on a certain date, called the expiration date. For normal listed options, this can be up to nine months from the date the options are first listed for trading. Longer-term option contracts, called LEAPS, are also available on many stocks, and these can have expiration dates up to three years from the listing date.

Options officially expire on the Saturday following the third Friday of the expiration month. But, in practice, that means the option expires on the third Friday, since your broker is unlikely to be available on Saturday and all the exchanges are closed. The broker-to-broker settlements are actually done on Saturday.

Unlike shares of stock, which have a three-day settlement period, options settle the next day. In order to settle on the expiration date (Saturday), you have to exercise or trade the option by the end of the day on Friday.

Most option traders use options as part of a larger strategy based on a selection of stocks, but because trading options is very different from trading stocks, stock traders should take the time to understand the terminology and concepts of options before trading them.

Differences Between Stocks & Stock Options.

Differences Between Stocks & Stock Options - Introduction.

To trade Stocks or Options, that's the question.

Differences Between Stocks & Stock Options - Relationship between stocks and stock options.

Options are derivative instruments based on stocks, funds, currencies, commodities, futures or index. Derivative instruments are trading instruments that derive their value from another security. This means that the value of options move up and down in reponse to changes in the price of their underlying securities and other variables. Other common types of derivative instruments are futures, warrants and swaps.

Differences Between Stocks & Stock Options - Trading Characteristics.

The only similarity between Stocks and Stock Options is the fact that they can be bought and sold just like a stock. But that is where the similarity ends. Stock options behaves very differently from stocks and can be utilized in far more ways.

Explosive Profits.

The ability to make leveraged profit is the reason why so many lucky options traders get rich quickly in options trading. In fact, when a stock moves 1%, its stock options could move by as much as 10%! Very aggressive options traders using money that they can afford to lose could as much as double their money with the underlying stock moving only about 10%! This kind of leveraged profits used to exist only in micro-cap stocks but now, with stock options, anyone can make that kind of profits on any stocks.

Profit to Downside Without Shorting or Margin.

To profit when a stock drops, stock traders can only short the stocks, incurring unlimited losses and margin if the stock rises instead. In fact, shorting a stock is possible only with a margin enabled account. With options trading, anyone can profit from a drop in the underlying stock just by buying a put option. Put options are stock options that appreciates as the underlying stock goes down. Buying put options incurs no margin with losses limited only to the price paid for the put options.

Profit in All Directions.

Stocks only profit when they go up while profit is possible in every possible direction in options trading by combining various stock options of various strikes or expiration. In fact, it is possible to make a profit in more than one direction at once using options strategies such as Covered Calls. Such versatility greatly increases the chances of making money.

Expiring Worthless.

The reason why so many options traders lose all their money in a very short period of time because stock options expires worthless if the underlying stock did not move in accordance to expectation. When you purchase stocks, you can hold on to it for as long as you want to if the stock did not go up. Eventually, you could still make a profit if the stock go back up, even if it takes a few years. With stock options, if the stock did not move as predicted by expiration, all the money put towards buying those options would be lost. This characteristic makes options trading a high profit and high risk activity when speculating unhedged.

Hedging Tool.

Apart from being a leveraged speculative tool, stock options can also be used as a hedging tool to limit the risk of both stocks and options trading. In fact, stock options can be used to completely hedge the downside risk in stocks through strategies such as the Protective Put.

Differences Between Stocks & Stock Options - Conclusion.

The purpose of this tutorial is to outline the main differences between stocks and stock options in terms of what they actually are and how different stock trading and options trading are. It is recommended for you to now move on to our Stock Options tutorial for an indepth study.

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Tip 1 - All About Stock Options.

My goal is to give you a basic understanding of what stock options are all about without hopelessly confusing you with unnecessary details. I have read dozens of books on stock options, and even my eyes start glazing over shortly into most of them. Let's see how simple we can make it.

Basic Call Option Definition.

Buying a call option gives you the right (but not the obligation) to purchase 100 shares of a company's stock at a certain price (called the strike price) from the date of purchase until the third Friday of a specific month (called the expiration date).

People buy calls because they hope the stock will go up, and they will make a profit, either by selling the calls at a higher price, or by exercising their option (i. e., buy the shares at the strike price at a point when the market price is higher).

Basic Put Option Definition.

Buying a put option gives you the right (but not the obligation) to sell 100 shares of a company's stock at a certain price (called the strike price) from the date of purchase until the third Friday of a specific month (called the expiration date).

People buy puts , because they hope the stock will go down, and they will make a profit, either by selling the puts at a higher price, or by exercising their option (i. e., forcing the seller of the put to buy the stock at the strike price at a time when the market price is lower).

Some Useful Details.

Both put and call options are quoted in dollar terms (e. g. $3.50), but they actually cost 100 times the quoted amount (e. g., $350.00), plus an average of $1.50 commission (charged by my discount broker - commissions charged by other brokers are considerably higher).

Call options are a way of leveraging your money. You are able to participate in any upward moves of a stock without having to put up all the money to buy the stock. However, if the stock does not go up in price, the option buyer may lose 100% of his/her investment. For this reason, options are considered to be risky investments.

On the other hand, options can be used to considerably reduce risk. Most of the time, this involves selling rather than buying the options. Terry's Tips describes several ways to reduce financial risk by selling options.

Since most stock markets go up over time, and most people invest in stock because they hope prices will rise, there is more interest and activity in call options than there is in put options. From this point on, if I use the term "option" without qualifying whether it is a put or a call option, I am referring to a call option.

Real World Example.

Here are some call option prices for a hypothetical XYZ company on February 1, 2010:

Price of stock: $45.00.

(strike price is less than stock price)

(strike price is equal to stock price)

(strike price is greater than stock price)

The premium is the price a call option buyer pays for the right to be able to buy 100 shares of a stock without actually having to shell out the money the stock would cost. The greater the time period of the option, the greater the premium.

The premium (same as the price) of an in-the-money call is composed of the intrinsic value and the time premium . (I understand that this is confusing. For in-the-money options, the option price, or premium , has a component part that is called the time premium). The intrinsic value is the difference between the stock price and the strike price. Any additional value in the option price is called the time premium . In the above example, the Mar '10 40 call is selling at $7. The intrinsic value is $5, and the time premium is $2.

For at-the-money and out-of-the-money calls, the entire option price is time premium. The greatest time premiums are found in at-the-money strike prices.

Options that have more than 6 months until the expiration date are called LEAPS. In the above example, the Jan '12 calls are LEAPS.

If the price of the stock remains the same, the value of both puts and calls decreases over time (as expiration is approached). The amount that the option falls in value is called the decay. At expiration, all at-the-money and out-of-the-money calls have a zero value.

The rate of decay is greater as the option approaches expiration. In the above example, the average decay for the Jan '12 45 LEAP would be $.70 per month ($16.00/23 months). On the other hand, the Feb '10 45 call option will decay by $2.00 (assuming the stock stays the same) in only three weeks. The difference in decay rates of various option series is the crux of many of the option strategies presented at Terry's Tips .

A spread occurs when an investor buys one option series for a stock, and sells another option series for that same stock. If you own a call option, you can sell another option in the same stock as long as the strike price is equal to or greater than the option you own, and the expiration date is equal to or less than the option you own.

A typical spread in the above example would be to buy the Mar '10 40 call for $7 and sell the Mar '10 45 call for $4. This spread would cost $3 plus commissions. If the stock is at $45 or any higher when the options expire on the 3rd Friday in March, the spread would be worth exactly $5 (giving the spread owner a 60% gain for the period even if the stock stays the same – less commissions, of course).

Spreads are a way of reducing, but not eliminating the risks involved in buying options. While spreads may limit risk somewhat, they also limit the possible gains that an investor might make if the spread had not been put on.

This is an extremely brief overview of call options. I hope you are not totally confused. If you re-read this section, you should understand enough to grasp the essence of the 4 strategies discussed in Terry's Tips .

Further Reading.

Two more steps will help your understanding. First, read the Frequently Asked Questions section. Second, Subscribe To My Free Options Strategy Report, and receive the valuable report "How to Create an Options Portfolio That Will Outperform a Stock or Mutual Fund Investment". This report includes a month-by-month description of the option trades I made during the year, and will give you a better understanding how at least one of my option strategies work.

Stock Option Symbols.

In 2010, option symbols were changed so that they now clearly show the important fearure of the option - the underlying stock that is involved, the strike price, whether it is a put or call, and the actual date when the option expires. For example, the symbol SPY120121C135 means the underlying stock is SPY (the tracking stock for the S&P 500), 12 is the year (2012), 0121 is the third Friday in January when this option expires, C stands for Call, and 135 is the strike price.

Stock LEAPS are one of the greatest secrets in the investment world. Hardly anyone knows much about them. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times do not even report stock LEAP prices or trading activity, although sales are made every business day. Once a week, Barron's almost begrudgingly includes a single column where they report trading activity for a few strike prices for about 50 companies. Yet stock LEAPS are available for over 400 companies and at a great variety of strike prices.

LEAPS, Simply Defined.

Stock LEAPS are long-term stock options. The term is an acronym for Long-term Equity AnticiPation Securities. They can be either a put or a call. LEAPS typically become available for trading in July, and at first, they have a 2.5-year lifespan.

As time passes, and there are only six months or so remaining on the LEAP term, the option is no longer called a LEAP, but merely an option. To make the distinction clear, the symbol of the LEAP is changed so that the first three letters are the same as the company's other short-term options.

LEAPS Are Tax-Friendly.

All LEAPS expire on the third Friday of January. This is a neat feature because if you sell a LEAP when it expires, and you have a profit, your tax is not due for another 15 months. You can avoid the tax altogether by exercising your option. For example, for a call option, you purchase the stock at the strike price of the option you own.

Owning Call LEAPS Is Much Like Owning Stock.

Call LEAPS give you all the rights of stock ownership except voting on company issues and collecting dividends. Most importantly, they are a means to leverage your stock position without the hassles and interest expense of buying on margin. You will never get a margin call on your LEAP if the stock should fall precipitously. You can never lose more than the cost of the LEAP - even if the stock falls by a greater amount.

Of course, LEAPS are priced to reflect the inputted interest that you avoid, and the lower risk due to a limited downside possibility. Just like in everything else, there's no free lunch.

All Options Decay, But All Decay is Not Equal.

All LEAPS, like any option, go down in value over time (assuming the stock price remains unchanged). Since there are fewer months remaining until the expiration date, the option is worth less. The amount that it declines each month is called the decay.

An interesting feature of the monthly decay is that it is much smaller for a LEAP than it is for a short-term option. In fact, in the last month of an option's existence, the decay is usually three times (or more) the monthly decay of a LEAP (at the same strike price). An at-the-money or out-of-the-money option will plunge to zero value in the expiration month, while the LEAP will hardly budge.

This phenomenon is the basis for many of the trading strategies offered at Terry’s Tips . Quite often, we own the slower-decaying LEAP, and sell the faster-decaying short-term option to someone else. While we lose money on our LEAP (assuming no change in the stock price), the guy who bought the short-term option loses much more. So we come out ahead. It may seem a little confusing at first, but it really is quite simple.

Buy LEAPS To Hold, Not To Trade.

One unfortunate aspect of LEAPS is due to the fact that not many people know about them, or trade them. Consequently, trading volume is much lower than for short-term options. This means that most of the time, there is a big gap between the bid and asked price. (This is not true for QQQQ LEAPS, and is one of the reasons I particularly like to trade in the Nasdaq 100 tracing equity.)

The person on the other end of your trade is usually a professional market maker rather than an ordinary investor buying or selling the LEAP. These professionals are entitled to make a profit for their service of providing a liquid market for inactively traded financial instruments such as LEAPS. And they do. They manage to sell at the asked price most of the time, and to buy at the bid price. Of course, you are not getting the great prices the market maker enjoys.

So when you buy a LEAP, plan on holding it for a long time, probably until expiration. While you can always sell your LEAP at any time, it is expensive because of the big gap between the bid and asked price.

Terry's Tips Stock Options Trading Blog.

Consider Paypal (PYPL) Following the Price Correction.

This week we are looking at another of the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) Top 50 List companies. We use this list in one of our portfolios to spot outperforming stocks and place spreads that profit if the momentum continues. Actually, the stock can even decline a little bit to realize the full profit. We use these ideas in one of the ten portfolios that we carry out for paying Terry's Tips subscribers. These ten actual portfolios have enjoyed an average gain of 118% (after paying commissions) so far in 2017. It has been a very good year.

Consider Paypal (PYPL) Following the Price Correction.

Paypal stock prices have risen steadily throughout the year and there have been several price target upgrades recently. BMO Capital Markets has raised their price target to $85.00 and Nomura has increased their target to $82.00. Paypal closed last week at $75.65, suggesting a potential upside of at least 8%.

Floor & Decor Holdings (FND) Is Set To Grow.

This week we are featuring another of the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) Top 50 List companies. We use this list in one of our portfolios to spot outperforming stocks and place spreads that take advantage of the momentum. The 10 actual option portfolios carried out by Terry's Tips for its paying subscribers have gained an average of 108% for 2017. This is down a little from a few weeks ago because many of the tech stocks that we trade options on have fallen over the past few weeks. We are still pleased with the composite results, however. (One of our newest portfolios adds the Trading Idea of the Week that we send out to you each week to its holdings).

Floor & Decor Holdings (FND) Is Set To Grow.

Investors are optimistic about the outlook for FND after a recent Moody’s upgrade and an upgrade from Zacks Investment Research to a buy rating with a $46.00 price target.

Will Essent Group (ESNT) Continue the Momentum?

This week we are looking at another of the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) Top 50 List companies. We use this list in one of our portfolios to spot outperforming stocks and place spreads that take advantage of the momentum.

Will Essent Group (ESNT) Continue the Momentum?

Essent Group has received a lot of attention as of late and several analysts are expecting more upside in the stock price. Here are two of them – Essent Group Earns Outperform Rating from Analysts at Wells Fargo & Company and Zacks: Analysts Anticipate Essent Group Ltd. Will Announce Earnings of $0.77 Per Share.

ESNT has recently seen a pickup of upside momentum after a . . .

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tastyworks, Inc. and Terry’s Tips are separate, unaffiliated companies and are not responsible for each other’s services and products. Options are not suitable for all investors as the special risks inherent to options trading my expose investors to potentially rapid and substantial losses. Options trading in a tastyworks account is subject to tastyworks’ review and approval. Please read Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before investing in options.

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