Option Delta

This is when you buy a Put and sell another Put with a lower strike price. You would only use this spread if you are expecting the underlying stock to move up moderately because it will help you to benefit from the time decay. For example, let’s say you are anticipating a moderate rise in…

When an option seller or writer receives an exercise notice, assignment has occurred. When assigned, writers must deliver the goods (shares or cash). For example, let’s say you sold 1 AAPL 145.00 CALL and the buyer decides to exercise the contract at expiration because AAPL is now trading at 146, you would need to deliver…

There are three ways that you can go about setting stops on your Options trades and all three methods work well whether you are day trading or swing trading.  Method 1: Setting A Percentage (%) Stop Loss This is basically when you take an option trade and set a stop loss on the contract price…

This is a spread strategy that involves selling options and buying a greater number of out-of-the-money options. Backspreads are often in a ratio of 1 to-2 or 2-to-3 and most traders use them because they work well when there is an increase in market volatility especially when they think the market is about to move…

Are Call Sweeps Bullish? The short answer is not always. I have been tracking and trading Unusual Options Activity for many years and I have seen both Bullish & Bearish sweeps on the Call side. What this means is that you can have a sweep order to sell Calls which is essentially taking a bearish…

If you sell a certain type of option and you already have or get the thing you’re supposed to sell through that option, you’re called a covered call writer. EXAMPLE: An individual owns 100 shares of XYZ common stock. If she writes one physical delivery XYZ call option—giving the call holder the right to purchase…