In late 2008, after the market tanked, losing at one point over 500 points in a day, this was for many, a wake up call to them. They realized that perhaps owning stocks for the long run was not entirely safe, and required some more financial education.
While it’s true that in the long run stocks may have returned 10%, at any given moment they could come down. Do you really want to risk that we go through a depression or hyperinflation causing you to lose value just before your retirement? Puts and calls are a way to either do less with more, or protect against the things you want less of to happen more. Of course, unfortunately many people use them to speculate trying to do more with the same amount of money at risk, which can potentially lead to much greater losses. An option contact is the right to execute a certain trade at a given price. A call option is the right to buy, where as a put option is the right to sell. Now if you could buy a stock at $100, you could either pay for 100 shares for $10000. Or you might be able to buy an option contract for the right to buy 100 shares, at a set price. You don’t pay for the shares themselves unless you decide to.
An analogy I like to use is a reservation to buy an item that isn’t even out yet. Say people wanted to buy the PlayStation 4 immediately after the release date was out. Now let’s say people expect it will cost $1000. You on the other hand have looked at everything that they say the PlayStation 4 will contain, and you believe it will actually be worth $2000 when it debuts. You believe the supply will be short, demand large in the future. A store learns that it in fact would retail at $1000 if sold today. So you might put down $100 now to reserve that PlayStation 4 at $1000. You only have 30 days after its release date to execute this “option” otherwise it expires worthless and you lose your 100 shares. Now lets say it’s a huge debut, and everyone wants it, you could pick up your copy and own the PlayStation and decide when you want to sell it. Or, you could let someone else do that work, and say online it’s going for $2,000. So you could sell the rights to your contract for maybe $900, and now your $100 contract is worth $900. The thing about options is if you are right, the rewards are much greater in percentage points. You could buy the PlayStation at $1000 when everyone else is paying $2000 this contract is worth $1000. Although you would have gained $1000 if you bought the PS4 at $1000 rather than get a contract to reserve it at that price, by only paying $100 you risk a lot less. If you were to buy 10 contracts the maximum potential risk is still 100%, but the reward would be 10 times as great. Unfortunately while the potential risk is the same, in reality, the risk is greater because the liklihood of a large loss occurs more often.
Options work the same way as the example, only rather than the right to buy a single item; it is the right to purchase shares, usually 100 shares per 1 contract. So instead of paying $100 for the right to buy a $1000 item, you instead might pay $100 to purchase $1000 worth of stock or 100 shares at $10.
There are of course some major downfalls. If the stock goes below $1000, who in their right mind would want to buy the contract? Well actually, anyone who believed the price would go up significantly. So if the contract never expired, someone would pay a lot more. If the contract expired the next day, the contract would be worth a lot less as it would be a much greater gamble.
Another fallback is it is not quite the same as putting $100 as people do at retailers traditionally, because in that case, the $100 is generally refundable or discounted towards your purchase, where in the case of options they are not. So it’s possible that the value of the underlying stock goes up, but your contract still isn’t worth anything. If in the example, you were only able to sell it for $1099 or less, you would still lose out. Say that instead of paying $100, reserving a $1000 item at $1000 price, you decided you would rather pay $65 to reserve that stock at $1200 price. Although the stock is not currently worth that much, if it does go to 2000, it’s worth $800 over a 1200% increase. However if it only goes to $1200, you’re out the $56, rather than gaining $200. In addition, even if you did reserve it at $1000, if the price of the item is not worth at least $1100 you have lost, and in addition, you could have used that $100 elsewhere during that time.
The options market is derived from the stock market, and may require a different trading system. While every option you have is based on the underlying price of the stock, index, or commodity, that doesn’t mean the risk is the same. There is a greater risk of the stock doing nothing as the option still maintains some of it’s value. The more time it has, the more potential it has to achieve a gain, and thus the more it’s worth. In general buying options is a way of having leveraged control over the stock’s price movements without needing to own them directly. Buying a put option is betting the stock will go down, where as buying a call option is betting the stock will go up.
On the other hand, selling a put or call option is collecting cash with the promise to pay the call owner 100 shares of the stock, and the put owner you will be forced to buy 10 shares at the designated price. For example, if you sold a call for $100 with the designated price of 100 shares at $10 or $1000, and the stock went up to $15 or $1500 worth, it would cosst you $500. If you owned the shares of stock you could instead just sell the shares and miss out on the gain that you would have otherwise had. If you sell puts for $1000 for 100 shares at the designated price of $10 per share and the stock was at $10 and went to $5, you would have to buy 100 shares at $10 even though it’s only worth $5 each, or just take a $500 loss. Buying stocks and options both can be risky, and it is important to consult with experts and to understand the rules and regulations as well before investing, or before trading stocks or options.
Maclin Vestor teaches about stock market investment advice. You can even learn about finance, money management, and figuring out finance at his blog.
