Volatility can strike a stock market with no advance warning, and the average investor might not know how to react. Fortunately, all it takes is some basic knowledge of options to understand how this valuable investment tool can be used to ride through a volatile period. Potential Sources of Volatility Factors that could...
Companies decide to split their stock when the price has run up and the stock has become too expensive for retail investors. Once a stock splits, nothing fundamental has changed, and the shares should not be worth any more or less than before. The same logic holds true for the underlying option contracts. What Is a Stock Split?...
Volatility crush is among the more common but poorly understood terms used by new options investors. They mostly place irrational bets on options ahead of earnings because they do not fully understand what they are doing. These investors will take a look at a high-priced stock that is set to report earnings in the near-term and...
This article is sponsored by TD Direct Investing. If you were shopping for a new vehicle, would you pay the sticker price of a car that caught your eye without researching or looking into its features first? How would you know you were getting a fair deal, or if the car would even meet your needs? The same logic applies to...
Buying an option gives you the right (but not the obligation) to buy and or sell the underlying security. There are a few reasons why an investor would choose to take advantage of exercising his or her options, although it is rarely in the investor’s best interests to do so. Why Not to Sell Your Option There are valid...
One of the biggest misconceptions about the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) is that they can only include cash, stocks, bonds, and other simple assets. But in reality, these savings accounts can hold a wide variety of asset classes, including options. Options Strategy in an RRSP for...
Back in August, the investing world was stunned when legendary investor Warren Buffett revealed that he had purchased shares in Barrick Gold (symbol ABX). Up until then, Warren had been considered a “gold skeptic”. In his 2011 letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote the following: The second major category of investments...
Canadian investors love bank stocks. And why not? They have been terrific investments throughout the years. Take a company like Toronto Dominion Bank (symbol TD). It pays a dividend of $0.79 per quarter and had an indicated yield of 4.53% at the time of writing this article. In our current environment of rock-bottom interest...
Before implementing a covered call writing strategy, investors need to consider several factors in order to make an informed decision. This final article in a series of four articles on covered call writing will discuss the choice of a strike price for a call option as a compromise between the desired level of protection and...
In this article, we’ll talk about exercising call options and why investors would want to do so. Read the article to find out the pros and cons of exercising a call option. You discover a pharmaceutical company that trades at $100 a share and has a COVID-19 vaccine in phase 3 clinical testing. It’s extremely promising, but...