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Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Stock Option Trading

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
"Your service is just awesome, and I can't wait to scrape up more $$ to put in other portfolios."
- Ty.
read what others are saying.. 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.

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