Initiating a Position, Generating Income or Lowering Cost Basis - Covered Puts

Leveraging options to supplement portfolio returns can make a meaningful impact on overall returns, especially over the long-term. Here, I’ll focus on covered puts, covered in the sense that one is backing his option contract with cash on hand. This strategy generates income in the form of a premium that’s received by the option seller. A topic that’s rarely covered is the different objectives or strategies and what to do about shares that are assigned from a covered put contract. Here, I’ll focus on covered puts and discuss the strategy involved before selling a put contract, objectives when engaging in these put options and if/when shares from the contract are assigned. Continue reading "Initiating a Position, Generating Income or Lowering Cost Basis - Covered Puts"

Realizing Gains Without Owning Shares Via Leveraging Cash

Introduction

I’ve written many articles highlighting the advantages options trading and how this technique, when deployed in opportunistic or conservative scenarios may augment overall portfolio returns while mitigating risk in a meaningful manner. Here I’d like to focus on leveraging cash-on-hand to engage in options trading, more specifically selling covered puts. In laymen’s terms, I’ll cover option variables, an example, strategy and empirical results with commentary.

The Questions

1. Why buy a stock now when you can purchase the stock in the future at a lower price while being paid to do so?

2. Why buy stocks at all when you can make money on the underlying volatility without ever owning the shares?

Overview

Timing the market has proven to be very difficult if not altogether impossible. However creating opportunities to lock-in downward movement in a given stock one is looking to own is possible. If a stock of interest has substantially fallen to at or near a 52-week low, then one has an option to “buy” the stock at an even lower price at a later date while collecting premium income in the process. Alternatively, it's also possible to make money on the option itself without owning any shares of the company via realizing options premium gains as the underlying stock appreciates in value off its lows. This is called a covered put option, covered in the sense that one has cash to back the option contract. Leveraging covered put options in opportunistic scenarios may augment overall portfolio returns while mitigating risk when looking to initiate a future position in an individual stock. In the event of a covered put, this is accomplished by leveraging the cash one currently has by selling a put contract against those funds for a premium. It's also possible to make money on the option itself without owning any shares of the company via realizing options premium gains as the underlying stock appreciates in value. Continue reading "Realizing Gains Without Owning Shares Via Leveraging Cash"

5 Stocks You Need To Know About

Well it's Friday and it's been quite a week, but I found five stocks that I believe will do well in the coming weeks.

Three of these stocks are going to be weekend trades as they just made 52-week highs today. The other two stocks gave Trade Triangle signals and are moving out of great chart formations. Both look ready to go higher and I will show you why I think they're headed higher and why I think you should be looking at them seriously.

Here are the three stocks I like for weekend trades: Continue reading "5 Stocks You Need To Know About"

You Want To Borrow More Money, But You Can't Pay Me Back

Let's face it, Greece is going to be a tragedy one way or another. It is only a matter of time. Can you imagine someone wanting to borrow more money so they can help pay back the loan that they already can't pay back? Does that make any sense to anybody, anywhere on this planet?

Well, that's exactly what's happening in Greece right now and in my humble opinion, it is only a matter of time before it implodes and Greece exits out of the euro zone. Fiscal responsibility is not a word known in the Greek language. There is no way that Greek citizens are going to ante up and volunteer to pay more taxes, they are too used to getting free things from a government which they do not trust. That, my friends, is why socialism does not work and in the immortal words of the late British Prime Minister, Margret Thatcher on socialism, "sooner or later you run out of other people's money". And that's exactly what has happened to Greece. Continue reading "You Want To Borrow More Money, But You Can't Pay Me Back"

Sector Analysis Can Help Your Trading

Today, I'm going to be looking at nine individual sectors and analyzing each one. I am going show you a quick and easy way to tell which sectors are trending and which ones are stuck in a trading range.

I will also be looking at the top three stocks in each of those sectors that are trending to the upside.

The sectors I will be analyzing are as follows: Continue reading "Sector Analysis Can Help Your Trading"