THREE WAYS TO BUY AN OPTION

When you buy equity options you really have made no commitment to buy the underlying equity. Your options are open. Here are three ways to buy options with examples that demonstrate when each method might be appropriate:

Hold until maturity....., then trade:-

This means that you hold onto your options contracts until the end of the contract period, prior to expiration, and then exercise the option at the strike price.

When would you want to do this? Suppose you were to buy a Call option at a strike price of $25, and the market price of the stock advances continuously, moving to $35 at the end of the option contract period. Since the underlying stock price has gone up to $35, you can now exercise your Call option at the strike price of $25 and benefit from a profit of $10 per share ($1,000) before subtracting the cost of the premium and commissions.

Trade before the expiration date :-

You exercise your option at some point before the expiration date.

For example: You buy the same Call option with a strike price of $25, and the price of the underlying stock is fluctuating above and below your strike price. After a few weeks the stock rises to $31 and you don’t think it will go much higher - in fact it just might drop again. You exercise your Call option immediately at the strike price of $25 and benefit from a profit of $6 a share ($600) before subtracting the cost of the premium and commissions.

Let the option expire :-

You don’t trade the option and the contract expires.

Another example: You buy the same Call option with a strike price of $25, and the underlying stock price just sits there or it keeps sinking. You do nothing. At expiration, you will have no profit and the option will expire worthless. Your loss is limited to the premium you paid for the option and commissions.

Again, in each of the above examples, you will have paid a premium for the option itself. The cost of the premium and any brokerage fees you paid will reduce your profit. The good news is that, as a buyer of options, the premium and commissions are your only risk. So in the third example, although you did not earn a profit, your loss was limited no matter how far the stock price fell.

SPOT OPTION ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Initially used in Europe as another way to trade currency options, single-payment options trading (SPOT) options have gained acceptance in other markets as well. Investors who are learning to invest might consider using them, as they offer another way to possibly generate profit and lower risk.
What are SPOT Options?
SPOT options allow an investor to set the conditions that must be met to receive a desired payout. Setting up this type of option involves three steps:

1. The investor defines a trading scenario that, according to his/her analysis, has the best prospects, including the risk-reward tradeoff.
2. The broker determines the probability the conditions will be met and proposes an appropriate premium. The price of the option or the premium quoted by the broker will depend on the likelihood of the scenario occurring.
3. The investor can agree to either pay the premium and then buy the option or turn it down. Normally, the price of the option or premium represents a percentage of thatpayout.

SPOT options are vanilla put and call options whose value is set by the conditional scenario, not just the price and the expiration date.

The Advantages and Disadvantages
Like most investing techniques, there are advantages when using SPOT options:

• While a bit different from normal options, SPOT options are easy to trade. With a normal option you might not be able to close out the position, since no one is willing to take the opposite side. With SPOT options, this is never a problem, since there is never a need to close out the position - it is a one-sided trade.
• SPOT options give you the opportunity to create different scenarios that allow choosing exactly what you believe will happen in the market. In fact, investors who use SPOT options define the specifics of the trade.
• With SPOT options, the downside risk is limited to the premium paid.
• The option scenario defines the reward, so it is known before entering the trade. Before committing to the trade, you know the risk-reward tradeoff....