Behind every transaction, there is intention, a belief. Investors typically select options strategies with a clear objective in mind based on a predetermined outlook. One of the most popular strategies is the covered call strategy. We have discussed the covered call in depth in previous posts, but here is a quick summary. The...
TD is an extremely well-run bank with diversification across many business lines and geographies. The share price has pulled back from its 52-week high of $71.31 set back in late February by around 8.5%. With shares hovering around the $65 mark, I want to pick up some yield or look to get long the stock at even lower prices. At...
A butterfly spread is appropriate when you expect that the price of the underlying asset will remain relatively unchanged and reach a specific target price upon expiration of the options used in the strategy. The following graph illustrates such a situation with shares in BCE Inc., when their price fluctuated within a range of...
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you heard that the Bank of Canada (BoC) raised interest rates for the first time in 7 years last week. The overnight rate target was adjusted to 0.75 percent, an increase of 0.25 percent (from 0.5 percent). Citing the statement release from the BoC, «recent data have bolstered the...
The airline industry had its share of bad press last week mainly due to the Sunwing incident, but Air Canada still managed to outperform. On Friday, July 7th, its shares price surged to 19.06$, its highest price in the last ten years following a very optimistic Q2 outlook. In the world of options, it represented a great...
There are three situations in which options can be used to take advantage of changes in the price of an underlying stock: when prices rise, when they fall, and when they enter a relatively stable period. In this article, I will examine how to benefit from a relatively stable stock price. More specifically, we will look at an...
The Black-Scholes formula is an option valuation model developed by two academics, Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, who first described it in a 1973 article. The article appeared in the same year that the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) was founded, and the model effectively democratized the use of options. Previously,...
Holding shares in a company gives the shareholder the following rights:*The right to transfer ownership, *The right to dividends, *Voting rights, and *The right to residual income and assets. What this means is that shareholders are free to sell their shares, take dividends when they are paid, vote at shareholder meetings and...
I have been told frequently – and surely so have you – that selling cash-secured puts is a very risky strategy. Haven’t you? The main reason put forward for not using this strategy is that you could be forced to buy the security, even if the company had just gone bankrupt. In this light, the strategy rightly raises fears....
Cenovus stirred up the Canadian oil industry back on March 29th with an announcement on the $17.7 billion-dollar purchase of ConocoPhillips’ Canadian oil sand assets. To say the deal was not well received is an understatement as the stock dropped over 10% on the announcement and continued to actively distribute lower. From...