Talk:Covered option

This page definitely did need cleanup. If anybody can make better graphs, please do. The references, examples etc. at the bottom are probably all part of the old sales job. Can anybody figure out which are legit? Thanks

Smallbones 14:09, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Much of this article consists of unsourced POV on "why covered call is a bad strategy". Looks unencyclopedic to me. 69.63.62.226 00:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

See the Fisher Black article cited.

See also James W. Yates, Jr. and Robert W. Kopprasch, Jr. "Writing Covered Call Options: Profits and Risks," Journal of Portfolio Management 7 (Fall 1980)

and

Frank K. Reilly and Keith C. Brown, Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, 7th edition, Thompson Southwestern, 2003, pp. 994-5. (This is the main investment text for the CFA exam)

e.g. "To be profitable, the covered call strategy requires that the investor guess correctly that share values will remain in a reasonably narrow band around their present levels." p. 995

I do not think that "covered call is a bad strategy" but it is often oversold by disreputable brokers looking for a quick commission. Smallbones

Removed references to those studies, since by their very virtue, covered calls do not hedge loss and cut off upside. This is shown in the illustration. However, if anyone feels thos mentions add materially to the article, they can certainly add them back in. Just trying to clean things up.

Netsumdisc 23:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

bias to sell covered calls

There certainly has been a bias that has repeatedly returned to this article about how covered calls are a safe investment. The most recent version of this I have reverted. On it's face it is a simple (unattributed) mathematical calculation, showing what happens if the stock price increases, or if the stock price stays unchanged. But what about if the stock price decreases???

Leaving this out is certainly biased. So I will removed the biased edit. A bigger question is why (or who says) this calculation is relvant? I'll remove similar material unless it is referenced, e.g. textbook A says ".." or The Wall Street Journal says "..." Offending text follows.

Smallbones 15:33, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Return Calculations A convenient methodology for comparing covered call positions is via the parameters %if unchanged and %if assigned. The parameter %if unchanged represents the amount of profit for a covered call position assuming the price of the underlying stock is unchanged at the expiration of the call option. The parameter %if assigned represents the return of the covered call position assuming the price of the stock is at or above the strike price of the call option at the expiration of the call option. The parameters %if unchanged and %if assigned are identical if the initial covered call position selected was in-the-money (ITM).

%if unchanged The calculation for %if unchanged is:

%if unchanged = option premium/(stock price – option premium)

For XYZ above, the calculation is:

%if unchanged(XYZ) = $1/($33 - $1)

%if unchanged(XYZ) = 3.1%

%if assigned The calculation for %if assigned is:

%if assigned = (option premium + profit/loss on stock)/(stock price - option premium)

Assuming the price of XYZ is $35 or greater at the expiration of the call option, the calculation for %if assigned is:

%if assigned(XYZ) = ($1 + $2)/($33 - $1)

%if assigned(XYZ) = 9.4%

Agree. It's unclear how this material benefits the article. Ronnotel 03:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Section on examples

(NB: moved following text here as per WP:TALK):

Adding a reference to "Samples of Investment Products Designed to Invest in Covered Calls" certainly is relevant to an encyclopedia article about covered calls; this reference allows investors the chance to more fully evaluate the strategy and the pros and cons of investment options (just as it would be appropriate to consider stock funds or bond funds when evaluating equities or fixed income). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Optionportfolio (talk • contribs) 22:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The examples you added are inappropriate for this page as per WP:SPAM and WP:EL. Ronnotel (talk) 02:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Overall style

While doing research for covered calls, I found this article. The writing style makes for unclear and seemingly contradictory information. (For example, "Even though there is limited upside and the premium is subtracted, covered calls do not suffer loss as there is complete risk of loss" references the concept of "risk of loss" but does not explain how it applies to covered calls, thus leading to potential confusion among readers who are not familiar with the subject.) I'd like to add the copyedit tag to the article. I'd clean it up myself, but I do not know enough about the subject so I could not be sure my rewrites would be accurate. Ometecuhtli2001 (talk) 16:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)