Stock Option Trading News

Memorial Day and Remembering

It’s good to take time to remember those who were in the military and have performed the ultimate sacrifice. I was never in the military, and at my age the military wouldn’t even take me, but I really respect those who serve, have served and those who have sacrificed in the military. Sign up now for PowerOptions 14-day free trial Memorial Day is a reminder every year of how bad my memory is. Outside of car keys, wallet and cell phone, I can scarcely remember where anything else is. For example, I have no idea where my staple gun and funnels are located. When it comes to investing, my memory is just as bad as it is with my staple gun and funnels, can’t remember the trades I’ve made or the reason(s) for the trades, which is why I use PowerOptions tools to do my remembering for me.

Stock Option Investment Advice

The Best Investment for Mom on Mother’s Day

Stumped trying to decide what the perfect gift to get for Mom on Mother’s Day? How about an investment in on of her favorite companies? Better yet, how about the “best” protected covered call or collar investment in one of her favorite companies? A protected covered call can be entered by selling a call option against the stock and using some of the proceeds from selling the call option to purchase a protective put option. Sign up now for PowerOptions 14-day free trial

Stock Option Investment Advice

Those Who Do Not Learn From History are Doomed to Repeat It

Historical search capability is an important companion to selecting your own search criteria for investments. Many investors use paper trading (simulated trading without money) as a means to test their investment rules or screening criteria. But paper trading is very time consuming. And it is difficult to test over a variety of market swings. It may take months for a set of criteria to be tested. Many Brokers encourage paper trading, but few of them have the historical testing capability when options are used in the trade. Sign up now for PowerOptions 14-day free trial

Stock Option Investment Advice

Searching for Protected Covered Call with Dividends

Before getting to the meat of this tutorial, if you are a subscriber to PowerOptions you should consider recommending PowerOptions to your friends and acquaintances, as you can receive a subscription for a free month to PowerOptions for every friend that you recommend and that becomes a subscriber. You can send your friends and acquaintances a link which they can click on which will automatically give you a free month once someone you recommend PowerOptions to subscribes. You can find out more about the Refer-A-Friend program after logging into PowerOptions by selecting the “Home” tab and then selecting the “My Account” sub tab, followed by selecting “Tell a Friend”. Once you select “Tell a Friend”, you will be presented with your personal link which you can email to your friends or post on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Sign up now for PowerOptions 14-day free trial

Stock Option Investment Advice

How to Trade Index Spreads with Tax Advantage

Preparations for paying income related taxes come with the start of a New Year. In this article, we’ll show how investors can potentially reduce their income taxes for broad based index spread trades and introduce methodologies and tools for trading broad based index spreads. Section 1256 Contracts Marked to Market Trading broad-based index options for taxable accounts can have some favorable consequences when paying federal income taxes. The IRS has a provision known as a Section 1256 Contracts Marked to Market. A section 1256 contract is any: Regulated futures contract, Foreign currency contract, Non-equity option, Dealer equity option, Dealer securities futures contract.

Stock Option Trading News

4 Ways to Insure Your Investment Portfolios

Conventional Approach The conventional approach for protecting a portfolio against a large loss, research, buy-and-hold and diversification works well for singular events like an Enron or a Worldcom. However, for systematic market problems this approach can be very painful, as the stock market can drop significantly with very few stocks maintaining their value. The stock market can behave crazily at times as in the case of Technology Bubble, Lehman Brothers, Housing Bubble, Credit Crisis, Debt Ceiling, etc. Investors can be taken for very painful rides during market events such as these. Sign up now for PowerOptions 14-day free trial  (to view archived version of this presentation click the video below)

Stock Option Investment Advice

Stock Option Spreads — Two Things to Consider Before the Greeks

We get a lot phone calls related to option spread trading, many of which start of with something like “what do you think about the Delta for this option?”, or something similar related to one of the other Greeks: Gamma, Theta, Vega or Rho. But before considering the Greeks, it’s a good idea to consider the support and resistance for a stock, index or ETF.

Stock Option Trading News

Beating the Market with Blue Chips on the Dips and Stock Options

By blue chips and dips, we’re not talking about those fancy blue corn tortilla chips with salsa, no we’re talking about Covered Call positions for stocks of blue chip companies or very large companies. Most Well Known Stock Option Strategy The Covered Call strategy is the most well known stock option investing strategy. The Covered Call strategy is easy to implement and is less risky than many other stock option strategies. Entering a Covered Call position entails purchasing a stock and selling a call option against the purchased stock. The Covered Call position can return a higher return than experienced by the plain-old long stock position, and the converse is also true, the long stock position can return a higher return than the Covered Call position. A typical potential return for a Covered Call position is around 2-3% over a timeframe of one month.

Stock Option Trading News

PowerOptions Open Discussion 3/25/2011

During this open discussion presentation, Mike Chupka, PowerOptions Director of Education handles questions from customers such as: 1. “What is the expected monthly return for covered calls, vertical spreads, diagonal spreads and the RadioActive Trading Techniques?” a. This leads to a conversation at the 30 minute mark: “One of your competitors claims they make monthly returns of 3-6% for covered calls; 6-10% for diagonal spreads and higher for vertical spreads…” (To view the video, select below)