Call Options Basics
Research for Online Investors

by John Dalt

What does it mean to “buy a call”? Call options are the right to control a stock at a certain price for a predetermined amount of time. Call options are quoted in price per share, but one option contract is for 100 shares of the underlying stock. The price of one contract is 100 times the quoted price.

A call option is a contract to buy a stock at an exact price within a specific time period.  If a trader believes stock XYZ is going to increase in price, he can buy a call option for much less than the cost of the stock.  He enjoys any increase in stock price as the option will increase in price as the stock goes up.  If the stock price declines, the option can only decrease in price to $0.00 thus limiting the losses of the holder of the option to the purchase price of the option.

Let’s look at an example:
Present stock prices and amount committed:

XYZ stock priced at:    $50.00  x 100 shares = $5,000.00

XYZ March $50 call:     $ 3.00  x  100               = $ 300.00

Third Friday in March price:

XYZ stock priced at:   $55.00 x  100               =$5,500.00

XYZ March $50 call:    $  5.00  x  100              =$   500.00

In this instance, our trade made 10% on invested capital if we bought the stock, but made a 67% return on invested capital on the option contract.  Now let’s look at the results if the stock did not perform as expected.

Present stock prices and amount committed:
XYZ stock priced at:    $50.00  x 100 shares = $5,000.00

XYZ March $50 call:     $ 3.00  x  100               = $ 300.00

Third Friday in March price:

XYZ stock priced at:    $45.00 x  100               =$4,500.00

XYZ March $50 call:    $  5.00  x  100               =$        0.00

In this example the XYZ stock lost $5 in price during the holding period.  Our trade returned $4500 for a loss of $500, a 10% loss of capital.  Our option expired worthless, but we only lost $300 on the trade rather than $500

This trade demonstrates three advantages of options:

1. If you are right in predicting the movement of the underlying stock, you will capitalize on most of the movement higher. 
2. If you are wrong and the underlying stock moves against you, losses may be smaller than if you owned the stock itself. 
3. Returns on invested capital can be much higher on option contracts with small moves in the underlying stock. 

What is the largest disadvantage to options; time.  You own a contract to purchase that is limited by time, and time decay can eat into your profits quickly.  In the example above, our trader paid $3 ‘rent’ or time premium to control the underlying stock.  If XYZ ended the time period at $52 dollars you would make back $2.00 for a loss of one dollar per share.  It doesn’t matter if the stock goes to $55 per share a week after the option expires.  You can be right in your prediction, but wrong in time frame and lose money.  If you owned the stock outright, you could sell for the $52 per share and make a smaller profit or chose to wait longer for the higher target price.

Puts and calls may not be bought, or sold, in IRA or 401K accounts.  The exception being covered calls, such as in our Buy, Sell, Hold Service.  You must sign an option addendum with your online brokerage company to sell and buy options.

Each trading platform is different.  The following instructions are somewhat generic, but should help you get started.

To buy a call option we enter the stock symbol then select options on our trading platform.  Select calls or puts, the month and strike price.  Enter the quantity of contracts you want to purchase, remember each contract is for 100 shares. Option contracts trade with a Bid and Ask price, we highly recommend using limit orders on option contracts as the ‘spread’ is usually wider on options than on stocks.

If buying an option, we use the ‘Buy to Open’ to place the order. This refers to ‘Opening’ the contract. When we sell it back before it expires we would ‘Sell to Close’ to close the contract.

We have talked about buying call option contracts; you can also sell call options.  Using the XYZ company trading at $50, if we did not believe it would increase to $55 before the option expiration date, we could sell to open the $55 call for $3.00 per share.  If it stays under $55 through option expiration day we get to keep the $3.00 premium.  If XYZ goes over $55 per share we would have to buy the stock at the higher market price and sell it for $55 to the option owner, incurring a loss.  This is not a trade you want to enter lightly, it can be dangerous.  Thus it is called selling a “naked” call.  The graphic description depicts you do not own the underlying security and can lose your shorts!

If we are selling an option we use 'Sell to Open' to initiate the order.  Then we 'Buy to Close' to close out the trade.

Generally we close out our options before expiration date.  This is to take the profits or limit the losses.  If you bought a call option and held to expiration, you would then buy the stock at the strike price.  This would require more money.  We may let options expire that have become worthless rather than incur trading costs to close them.  They will expire and disappear from your account.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you have experience in options, it may seem elementary, but remember the first option you bought. We all have to start somewhere. I encourage you to start by buying one contract, and monitoring your trade for experience. Experience is the very best teacher, and will help you understand the concepts better. There are wonderful resources available on options; we may write a more advanced article in the future.

The information presented in this article is based on generally available news releases, corporate filings, current events, interviews and the editor’s opinions. It may contain errors and you should not make investment decisions based solely on what you believe you have read here. Do your own research, it is your money. If you lose it, it is your responsibility, not ours or your grandmothers! The editor may or may not have a position in any securities discussed. The editor may have held a position in a security earlier, or in the future.

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