Call and Put Option: Option Trading Basic Fundamental Theory

It is very common that stock is transacted in blocks divisible by 100, which is called a round lot. A round lot has become a standard trading unit on the public exchanges for quite sometime ago. In stock market, we have the right to buy and sell an unlimited number of shares as long as there are people are willing to sell and we are willing to buy at the price that the seller has fixed. Usually, for a brokerage firm, they set their commission for a transaction for minimum 100 units of share at a certain price. If we buy less than 100 units of share, they still impose us this commission. For an example, if we buy 100 units share and pay the brokerage firm USD 30 for the buy and sell transactions, they also charge us that amount: USD 30 also, if we only buy and sell 1 units of share. The amount of commission that the brokerage firm charges for the stock transaction is varied from one and other. Some brokerage firm may charge less but they require you to trade a lot in one transaction. So, each unit of option is representing 100 units of share.

In fact, there are two types of options that are call and put option. Call option gives its owner the right to buy 100 units of share of a company at a specified price that has been agreed between the call option owner and the seller within certain period of time. So, within this period of time, if the stock price goes up, the call option price will also go up and vice versa. The second type of option is put option. This option gives its owner the right to sell 100 units of share of a company at a specified price that has been agreed between the put option owner and the seller within certain period of time. Put option seems like the opposite of call option. If the stock price goes up within this period of time, the put option price will go down. Either call or put option can be bought or sold. As long as there are people willing to sell, there will be people willing to buy. There are four permutations that are possible exist during the transaction of an option. The first one is buying a call option meaning that buy the right for yourself to buy 100 units of share. Second is selling call option meaning that sell the right to buy 100 units share from you to someone else. The third one is buying a put option meaning that buy the right for yourself to sell 100 units of shares. The last one is selling a put option meaning that sell the right to sell 100 units of share to you to someone else.

The other way to make these differences clearer is always remember that the call option buyer hopes the stock price will go up and the put option buyer looking for the price per share to fall. For the opposite side, a call option seller is hoping the stock price will maintain or fall. Whereas, put option seller is hoping that the stock price will go up. If the option buyer no matter dealing with the calls or puts option is correctly predicting the price movement of the stock, then they will gain profit from their action. For option, there is another obstacle we have to face besides estimating the direction of the stock price movement. This obstacle is that the change of the stock price has to be taken place before the deadline of the option. As a stockholder, we may be able to predict a stock’s long-term prospects by waiting for a long-term change of the stock. However, for option holder, we may not have that kind of opportunity. This is because options are finite; they will lose all their value within a short period of time, usually within a few months. However, it has long-term options that can last up to one to three years. Due to this limitation, time will be an important factor to determine whether an option buyer can earn a profit or not.
Foremost, option is granting the buyer an intangible right to buy or sell 100 units of share at an agreed price between the buyer and seller of the option. Therefore, option is just an agreement regarding to 100 units of share of a specific stock and to a specific price per share. Therefore, if the buyer buys an option at the wrong timing, then, the buyer will not able to make any profit. Wrong timing means that the stock price does not move or does not move substantially when the deadline has arrived. When we buy a call option, it seems like we are agreeing that we are willing to pay the price that being asked to acquire a contractual right. The right provided that we may buy 100 units of share of stock at a specified fixed price per share, and this right exists at the time we purchased the option until the deadline of the option. Within the time we purchased the option until the deadline of the option, if the stock price goes up more than the fixed price indicated in the option agreement, this call option will become more valuable. Just think that we buy a call option that granting us the right to buy 100 units of shares at the price of USD 70 per share. Let said before the option deadline, the stock price has gone up to USD 90 per share. As an owner of this call option, we have the right to buy 100 units of share at USD 70, which is USD 20 less than the current market price. This is the situation when stock market price is more than the fixed contractual price indicated in the call option contract. In this example, we as buyer would have the right to buy 100 units share, which is USD 20 less than current market price. Although we own the right to do so, we may unnecessarily to execute our right. For an example, how about if the stock price has gone down to USD 50. We would not have to buy shares at the fixed price of USD 70 and we could select not to take any action.


Alexander Chong
Author of “Workable Option Trading Strategies”
http://www.makemoneystocks.com/

Stock, Bond and Option

We may not familiar with option but we are sure that most of us know what is stock and bond. Stock is an equity that representing a company value. By purchasing stock, you are actually buying the ownership of a public listed company, which means that you are one of the owners of the company. There are many purposes to purchase stocks. It can for long term investment, short term investment, really intending to own a company or speculation for very short term investment. No matter what is their purpose, usually, they will buy large amount of stock. Especially, for them who want to control the administration of a public listed company. This kind of investor will buy as many stocks as possible in order that they have a majority stock in their hand. In this kind of situation, he or she has the control power to the company administration and can do some modification to the processing and also the management of the company. By owning an amount of stock, you will be paid dividend if the company has declared it. Some company may not pay you any dividend depending to the company highest management decision. Some company may let you vote in their company election such electing a suitable CEO or MD. When you own a stock, you have the total control of this stock. You can sell it anytime if you think that you no longer intended to own it or you think that it is not worth to own it. You can also keep it for your whole life and use it as collateral to borrow money from bank or financial institution.

Bond is a debt that the bond issuer own you if you have bought the bond. When there is a project to carry out regardless it is a big or small project, if the people who intend to start the project do not have money, one of the sources for them to generate fund is by printing bond and selling it to public. By doing this, they can generate fund to carried out the project. This seem like the owner of the project borrows money from you and they give you the bond as evidence that they have borrowed money from you. By owning this bond, you will be paid interest and repaid all the money that you have lent to them at a specific date. Not anybody can print bond and sell it to public. People who want to do so have to apply to the government as a bond issuer. Usually, these people are from corporate agency, states, cities and federal government agency. As a bond holder, you have priority to have your money back compared to shareholder if the bond issuer goes broke. They will pay back the money for you as a bond holder before they pay to their shareholder.

Stock and bond have a tangible value that you can grasp and visualize. The ownership of a stock that you have purchased can last for a long time as long as you continue hold this stock and don’t sell it. The ownership of a stock can not be canceled unless the company goes broke (means that the company have declared bankruptcy). Bond usually has contract type repayment schedule and once they have paid back all the money that you have lent to them, the bond will end. The third type of investment does not give a whole life ownership and does not provide any tangible value. The validity of this investment has expiration date. Once the expiration date has over, the whole investment will become worthless. Apart from that, the value of this investment will decline when the time passes by. These are part of the features that options have. Due the lack of tangible value, worthlessness after expiration date and value declines due to the time has passed by; all these make options seem too risky to be invested for most of the people. However, there are still a lot of investors interested in option investment. Do you know why?

This is because not all methods that had been used in trading option are risky. What had been mentioned just now such as lack of tangible value, worthless after expiration date and option value declines after the time had passed by can work to our advantage. For an example, we can sell option that has a very short period of time to expiration date, which has a low possibility to become in the money option. Like this, when the time has passed by, option value that has declined will be our gain. There are limited strategies to trade stock but for option, there are a lot of strategies can be utilized. For stock, we either buy or sell stock. That’s all what we can do. But for option, we can combine a few positions together to form a synthetic position to earn money from the stock that move either up, down or side way. You will realize that options are very flexible after you have study more about it. You can use options in numerous situations and create numerous opportunities.

An option is a contract of agreement that allows you have a privilege in executing transaction involving 100 units of stock. This agreement only involves the option buyer and seller. This privilege includes a specific stock with a specific fixed price per share and also a specific date in the future for its validity. When we have bought a contract of option, we do not have any equity in the stock and any debt position. What we have is a contractual right to buy and sell 100 units of share at a fixed price within a fixed period of time. You will feel wondering why we need to purchase an option to gain the right since we can always buy or sell 100 units of share at the current market price. The answer is that option has fixed the stock price that you can buy or sell and this is the key to an option’s value. Stock price is unpredictable and this feature makes stock market investment interesting and also very risky. When we own an option, the stock price that we can sell and buy 100 units share is already frozen for as long as the option remains valid. Finally, the option’s value is determined by the comparison of the fixed price and the stock market current price.



Alexander Chong
Author of “Workable Option Trading Strategies”
http://www.makemoneystocks.com/