Covered Calls is a name for an option strategy that is flexible enough so that it can be adapted to different market conditions. It is important that you first decide what type of covered call strategy best fits your personal risk profile. Is your focus simply earning extra income on stocks you already own, or protecting the value of your shares? What you are about to read will show you how.


A Stock Owner Who Wants More Than Just Dividend Income

If this is you, then you're a long term stock holder. You've probably purchased a stock some time ago and hopefully, it's worth more today than when you bought it. Perhaps you have an IRA or superannuation fund and would like to see a greater return on investment? Or maybe you just believe this stock is a good long term investment and want more?

In that case, you need to be aware of a few things. When you sell call options, in return for the premium you receive, you're exposing yourself to the risk of the stock being called away from you - i.e. you may have to sell it at the agreed 'strike price' for the options you have sold. If you've held the stock for a while, there may be capital gains tax implications to consider. You would want to ensure your strike price is greater than the price you originally bought the stock for, otherwise you could make a capital loss. So your decision to implement this covered call strategy will depend on where your stock is today, in relation to when you purchased it.

If today's price is above your purchase price, then this covered call strategy could be a nice way to bring extra income over dividends. The best strategy here, would be to sell call options for the next month out. The reason for this, is that during the last 30 days of an option contract's life, the "time value" in out-of-the-money options declines at an exponential rate. So if you sell call options at a strike price of say, $2.50 above the current market price and within the next month, the underlying stock either goes nowhere, or declines, you get to keep the option premium, or buy it back (to protect yourself from an unexpected price rise) within a few days of expiry, for next to nothing. You have a made a profit from selling high and buying back low, or letting it expire worthless, as the case may be.

You may not be able to do this every month if you want to keep your stock. It will depend on where the current market price is in relation to your original purchase price. You may be prepared to let the stock go, if called away, providing it is above your purchase price. That's your decision. Either way, your one simple fundamental rule if you're an investor and not a trader, is to wait until you can sell call options at a strike price above your original purchase price. That way, you can't lose.

Another use of covered calls for the stock owner, is to provide a form of insurance over your shares. Let's say you own 500 XYZ shares which you purchased for $15 a year ago and the current market price is now $20. You want to hedge your investment in the event of XYZ falling back to $15 or less. So you sell 5 "deep-in-the-money" near month call option contracts on XYZ at a strike price of $15 and receive $5.50 x 500 in premium = $2,750 credited to your account. At the same time, you purchase 5 near month "out-of-the-money" $15 put option contracts on the share and pay $0.25 x 500 = $125. Your net income is now $2,625 less brokerage.

Should the share price fall below $15 before expiry, your put options allow you to sell them for that price, thus protecting you from a catastrophic collapse due to some bad news. You have covered the cost of these put options with the extra $0.50 above the intrinsic value in the $5 ITM call options. If the share price is close to $15 near expiry date and you are nervous about further falls, you may wish to consider selling the next month out deep-in-the-money call options and purchasing OTM put options at the same strike price of say $12.50. Again, you should receive enough premium from the 'deep ITM' call options to cover the cost of the put options plus any potential further capital loss on falling share prices.

The downside of this covered call strategy, is that since you have written deep ITM call contracts, if the stock price is above $15 at expiry date, you are likely going to be called to sell your shares at $15. But you have already received the extra $5 in premium earlier so there is no loss. But if the current market value of the shares has risen to say $24 by now, you have foregone the potential gain on the shares you would have otherwise made. But it's a great choice in a bear market or at what you believe to be the top of an uptrend.

If you're looking to cut the risk and mistery largely out of your investing, you might consider using an analytical penny stock program to find which penny stocks to buy, the same method used by millions of professional traders the world over. If you're interested in learning what penny stocks to buy, consider this article on this technology and why it's grown so popular suddenly amongst traders of all experiences and backgrounds.


Obviously the most important aspect to understand about stock pick programs is how do they determine what penny stocks to buy or rather which to advise you into investing in? These programs are modeled after the same ones used by professional traders as I mentioned and use the same process to find upswings in stocks.

Specifically this is a process known as stock behavioral comparison and analysis. The program takes the full scope and range of the market into account, looking for similarities in current stocks to those of the past. Stock behavior is very unique but at the same time is cyclical like the greater stock market itself. This means that they travel in patterns which repeat themselves like the greater stock market, which is evidenced in the fact that we go in and out of recessions like clockwork almost every several years.

When the program finds these overlaps, it more than likely knows exactly what to expect from that current stock just by looking at the well performing stock of the past. This is the most reliable tell which we have for anticipating market behavior today. These programs are ideal at determining what penny stocks to buy because they are capable of quickly looking at the full range of the market, something which is difficult to replicate manually.

The best part about these programs is that they do all of the analytical work to find what penny stocks to buy so that all that's left for you to do on your end is invest accordingly. Because the analytics process is the most time consuming and difficult aspect of investing, many inexperienced traders are using this technology to trade effectively in the market in their spare time without needing a great deal of time or experience to put towards it.

One thing to mention, however, is that you should go with a program which is exclusively penny stock focused, because it's a different process anticipating cheap market behavior versus great priced, less volatile stocks.

There is a lot of money someone can make by investing in volatile cheap stocks. Obviously the hurdle to overcome is differentiating between the good and bad, so one method of doing just that has been steadily trending in popularity as of late, so let's take a look at that method of finding the best penny stocks to watch for making huge profits.


This is how you can easily triple your investments in the short term on the best penny stocks to watch.

The first thing to know about this technology is how it even finds and determines which are the best penny stocks to watch. By comparing market data of the past to the present, you can learn a great deal about what to expect from a current stock simply by identifying overlaps in trend behavior. Stock market behavior in individual stocks just like the greater stock market itself is cyclical and travels in repetitive patterns. This is evidenced in the fact that the greater stock market goes in and out of recessions and recoveries fairly regularly.

Because it takes a great deal less outside trading influence to directly affect the price of a cheap stock as opposed to a greater valued stock, it's much more common to see a cheap stock quickly and exponentially appreciate in value in the short term. For example, the first pick which I received from Penny Stock Prophet, one cheap stock specific program for finding the best penny stocks to watch was initially valued at 15 cents. I bought 1000 shares early Monday morning and was more than surprised when checking in on that stock at the end of the day to find that it had appreciated to 31 cents over the course of one market period/day.

The next day I started checking on that stock regularly every several minutes as it continued to climb. It didn't top off until near the end of that second trading day at 48 cents a share before beginning to give from its position a bit. Ultimately I more than tripled my initial investment when I got out. There is a great deal of propulsion from other traders who receive similar picks, as well, not to mention influence from traders who take notice of its sudden appreciation in value and jump on board, as well.

The best penny stocks to buy will net you a huge profit in the short term so many traders spend every minute of their work lives tracking them down. Without the time to devote to analytics, however, you might consider falling back and relying on a new method which thousands of new traders are embracing to do just that every day and find the best penny stocks to buy.


The method I'm referring to is using an analytical program to find high probability penny stocks to buy on your behalf. These programs look for tiny overlaps between stock behavior in current stocks and behavior of well performing ones of the past before they hit their trends/upswings. Behavior tells you everything about what to expect in a current stock, hence the reliance by professional traders on this technology every day.

One thing to understand about these programs is that they work in part as email lists essentially. Once the program finds high probability penny stocks to buy, it sends out that information to every trader who has paid to sign up for the list/received these stock tips. Therefore the only challenge and important aspect of capitalizing on this information is investing accordingly once you receive the pick as once the rest of the list begins to invest accordingly, the price gets driven up substantially.

Another thing to consider about why these stocks perform so well is that after that initial surge which is again attributed to the strength of the investors of the list, outside traders not on the list will take notice of that large upswing and will invest accordingly in turn, as well. Because these penny stocks to buy start off at such cheap prices, it is much easier to directly and quickly affect their prices shortly.

One thing which I recommend doing is getting a specifically penny stock focused program all around, or in other words a program which only targets cheap stocks. The greatest difference between cheap stocks and greater priced ones is generally the volatility and speed at which they move. As such, I've had much greater success with programs which only target cheap stocks, understandably so.

Don't put off realizing your financial independence anymore because you were wary of the risk associated with investing. That's a non factor now that the analytical process is taken care of.

The first factor to analyze is the direction of the general market. Is the general market in an uptrend or downtrend? It is vitally important to only make new stock purchases with the general market in an uptrend. This is because 75-80% of all stocks follow the general market direction. This includes leading stocks.


Once you establish the general market is in an uptrend, now it is time to dig a little deeper and find out what industries are leading the market. The best way I know to determine this, is by checking the Industry Sub-Group Rankings with Investors Business Daily. IBD ranks 197 industry groups.

It is best to only buy stocks in the top 40-50 industry groups. Better yet, check to see if the industry group you are interested in, has been getting stronger the past few weeks and months. This is also a plus.

Next, based on fundamentals and technicals, you want to find the very best stocks from one of the top industry groups. The top few stocks in a strong industry group can produce fantastic profits. These leading stocks will have strong earnings and sales.

The reason it is important to buy leading stocks from top ranked industries, is because about 50% of a stock's ultimate price advance is directly related to its industry group and sector.

At the beginning of a new general market uptrend, the first stocks that bounce back to new price highs are usually the new leaders of this emerging market cycle. The very best leading stocks tend to come out in the first few weeks or so.

There are other important factors to consider when buying stocks, but industry group analysis is certainly a major one. I recommend reading, "How to Make Money in Stocks", by William J. O'Neil. This book is certainly one of the best stock market books ever published and much can be learned from it.