Writing Covered Call Options

Would you like to reduce the risk of trading stocks and increase the odds of a solid return on your holdings?  What if you could effectively buy stocks below their market cost?  What if you could reduce the size of the loss you have on a losing position and increase the gain you have on a winning position?  All these goals can be accomplished using the same conservative strategy that many have used for years: writing covered call options against a long stock position they hold.  The strategy is called covered call writing because you already own the stock that you might have to deliver if the buyer of the option decides to exercise the option.  If you didn’t already own the stock it would be referred to as naked call writing,  i.e. you would have to go into the market and buy the stock at the prevailing market price to deliver the shares if the option was exercised by the buyer of the option.  Naked call writing is considered very speculative and brokerage companies require significant margin positions to engage in naked call writing.  Let’s look at a couple examples of covered call writing and how they could contribute to your bottom line.  If you purchased 100 shares of IBM at $100 you cost is $10,000.  If at the same time you wrote a call option with a $115 strike price and an expiration date 60 days out, you would received the $265 premium credited to your account.   So effectively you purchased your shares at 97 3/8 instead of $100.  Now it would make no sense for the purchaser of the call option contract to exercise their right to buy the shares from you for $115 a share unless they cost more than $115 in the open market.  So, if the price of IBM stays below $115 during the life of the option, you simply get to keep the $265 premium.  If the option expires and you’re holding your shares long term, you may even want to write a new option against the shares you’re holding and collect the premium from the new contract.  Now if the share price of IBM rises above the strike price, say to $120 your shares may or may not be called away from you.  Let’s look at a couple scenarios.  The holder of the option may decide to exercise the option, in which case you have two methods to unwind your obligation.  You could deliver the shares and receive $115 for them for a $1,500 gain plus the $265 option premium.  Yes, you had your shares called away from you, but you knew in advance at what price that might occur and what percentage and dollar gain you would receive.  The other way to unwind your position if you wanted to keep your shares of IBM would be to go out into the market and buy a February call option effectively closing out the option you wrote and shifting the responsibility to deliver the shares to someone else.  This offsetting position might cost you more or less than the premium you received, but would allow you to keep your shares, which may make good tax sense for the buy and hold investor.  Now another outcome needs to be factored into the mix: even if the market price rises above $115 strike price, the holder of the option may only be speculating on the option contract and may never exercise the right to buy the shares from you.  (buying the shares still requires the buyer to put up $11,500 in a cash account, where the person speculating in the options contract only needs a couple of hundred dollars to buy the contract.)  You need to keep in mind that your option position only remains a covered position as long as you hold the shares, if you decide to sell your shares prior to the option expiration you would need to go into the market and close out your position by buying a call option matching the contract you wrote.  Writing and unwinding options contracts can get tricky.  This isn’t meant to be a definitive article on writing covered call options, but rather to give you an overview of one of the possibilities available to our clients.  We recommend you do further reading or consult your financial advisor.