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 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 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)

Stock Option Trading News

Introduction to PowerOptions Long Call and Long Put Focus

This presentation focuses on using the PowerOptions Search tool to identify Long Calls and Long Puts, comments on analyzing a Long Call or Long Put with the Research and Analysis links, using the ‘Optimized Long Option Finder’ (only found on PowerOptions) to evaluate which Long Call or Long Put might give you the best ‘bang’ for your buck, as well as tracking the positions and the PowerOptions Portfolio tools and evaluating potential Roll Out Opportunities or Adjustments using the Position Analysis Screen and Simulate Trade feature.

Stock Option Trading News

Waiting to Roll Investments

As we approach December expiration, the last standard options expiration date of 2010 (excluding Weekly series expiration and the December Q4 Quarterly expiration), PowerOptions’ staff has received several phone calls and emails from customers regarding rolling or adjusting their positions. This is fairly common heading into any expiration, but a few things in particular stood out for me this cycle when talking with customers: There are circumstances where it might be best to wait to fully roll a position to a new month or to a new strike price. This concept is not new, but it is something that may at times be overlooked as an investor hastily seeks to generate new income or ‘hedge’ the existing position.

Stock Option Trading News

Follow up: New Weekly Options – On 4 Common Stocks

About a month ago we posted a blog discussing the new Weekly options that were available on stocks for the first time. On June 25th, 2010, Weekly options were released on four common stocks: AAPL – Apple Computer, Inc. BAC – Bank of America Corp. BP – British Petroleum Co. C – Citigroup, Inc. Late last week, on July 16th, Weekly options were made available on four more common stocks: AMZN – Amazon.com Inc. F – Ford Motor Co. GOOG – Google Inc. MSFT – Microsoft Corp. Weekly options carry the same rights and obligations as standard calls and puts. The only difference is that the expiration time frame is shorter. Weekly options are typically released on Thursday or Friday and will expire the following Friday. If you would like to know more about Weekly options, join PowerOptions’ Director of Options Education, Mike Chupka, for a free presentation on Monday,…

Stock Option Trading News

How to Make Income on British Petroleum — Even Without a Dividend

Due to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, British Petroleum (BP) announced it is going to create a $20 bill fund to compensate victims and also cancel shareholder dividends for three quarters. British Petroleum’s current annual %dividend is in the neighborhood of 10%. For those investors invested in BP depending on the dividend, this could be traumatic, especially if they don’t want to sell their BP stock because of tax reasons. What should an investor stuck in this situation do?

Stock Option Trading News

RIG – Fish or Cut Bait

Fish or Cut Bait… A key to successful investing is knowing when to get out of a position. For example, the PowerOptionsApplied Titanium TradeFolio(tm) was invested in a covered calls position for Transocean Offshore (RIG). On April 20, 2010 RIG’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caught fire and subsequently sank leaving in its wake a huge and growing oil slick in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The Deepwater Horizon was being operated by British Petroleum (BP).