The Covered Call is a common strategy utilized by many investors and traders alike. Ideally, the underlying appreciates towards the short calls, generating a profit. However, what can we do when things go wrong?
The first step is determining whether the covered call is a standalone trade, or part of a longer-term core position. For standalone trades, no management is needed when the stock appreciates.
When the covered call is part of a core position and the market moves downwards, we continue with the strategy until our assumptions change. Our goal is to keep the core position and reduce our cost basis by mechanically selling calls. If we need to make an adjustment, we can roll the short calls down to a lower strike to reduce our delta exposure. When doing so, we must avoid creating a position with no profit potential.
When a covered call is a core position, we need to examine our assumption when the underlying moves above our short strike, as this will determine what the possible adjustments are.
Watch this segment of “Best Practices” with Tom Sosnoff and Tony Battista for the valuable takeaways and other information on making adjustments when using a covered call strategy.
For a full list of the top 15 ETFs with the most liquid options, see the table below:
Ticker Fund Open Interest
SPY SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust 17,771,528
EEM iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF 6,635,087
QQQ PowerShares QQQ Trust 6,488,055
IWM iShares Russell 2000 ETF 4,529,522
XLF Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund 3,886,407
VXX iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN 3,484,288
USO United States Oil Fund LP 3,502,854
GLD SPDR Gold Trust 2,942,741
EFA iShares MSCI EAFE ETF 2,541,963
XOP SPDR S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production ETF 2,385,889
EWZ iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF 2,198,495
GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF 2,162,377
HYG iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF 1,660,590
FXI iShares China Large-Cap ETF 2,071,668
SLV iShares Silver Trust 1,680,438
Let’s say a stock’s trading around $146 and the 150 call option with 24 days left to expiration is worth about $0.45. See the table below. This is the “summertime” implied volatility, and it’s 10%.
Stock = $146
Days until expiration
24
52
Implied volatility
0.10
0.14
150 call price
$0.45
$1.20
Comparison of 24- and 52-day options. The longer-dated option, with higher implied volatility, has a much higher theoretical value. Sample data. For illustrative purposes only.
You could sell this call and collect $0.45, and if the stock price and implied volatility are the same in 24 days, you could possibly sell another call for $0.45. That would give you $0.90 of premium collected over 48 days. Of course you would have transaction costs on both trades, which would eat into that $0.90 compared to one trade.
However, if you instead sell the 150 strike that has 52 days until expiration and has an implied volatility of 14%, then you’d collect $1.20 in just one trade. That gives you 33% more premium than the $0.90 you collected from two trades, for about the same period of time.
Yes, summer can mean lower IV, and thus lower premium for covered call sellers, so it might help to look at the term structure to help determine the most appropriate trade for your objectives.
look at a covered strangle. I do these for some slow money. It takes away from the delta hedge but you get theta in return. If you are doing covered calls you are bullish to neutral anyhow. If you go put stock you'd be doing so at a 30 or lower delta, ie. you really like it down here. LOL.
Covered calls are typically done in IRA accounts. There are some traders who do them, but they are cost reduction strategies. Most options traders would simply have short delta and long theta against their portfolio. So you'd have delta neutral strategies, delta long/short, correlated/non-correlated and etc. It is about balancing the portfolio rather than a trade per se. For instance, you may be short 1000 spy delta and have sold puts against that position, and have several other long theta short vega positions that are varying correlations to the spy. The short delta hedges your short vega. You make money on the long theta.
I used to read that to make money in options you had to know the greeks. Options traders trade the greeks not the 'strategy' per se.
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