Purchasing a Call vs.?Bull Call Spread
With the market moving higher at?unprecedented levels recently, it probably made sense to have at least a moderately bullish bias towards many stocks.?The market is due for some type of pullback but whose to say it won?t continue on its bullish pace. Is there a way that you can take advantage of this bullish investing scenario while limiting risk? Certainly, there are a couple. One that may be a better?option?compared to the rest is the bull call spread. To?learn to trade this strategy and more in detail please visit our website for details.
Definition
When implementing a bull call, a trader purchases call options at one strike and sells the same number of calls on the same company at a higher strike with the same expiration date. Let?s use Apple Inc. (AAPL) which is currently trading around $435 as an example. In this case you would purchase May calls at the 435 at-the-money strike at the ask price of $18. You would then sell the same number of May calls with a higher strike price, in this case 455 at the bid, $10.
The Math
The trader?s maximum profit in the bull call spread is limited; he can make as much as the difference between the strike prices less the net debit paid. For simplicity, let?s assume that he purchased one May 435 call and sold one May 455 call resulting in a net debit of $8 (that?s $18 ? $10). The difference in the strike prices is $20 (455 ? 435). He would subtract 8 from 20 to end up with a maximum profit of $12 per contract. So if he traded 10 contracts, you could make $12,000.
Although he limited his upside, the trader also limited the downside to the net debit of $8 per contract. To simply breakeven, the stock would have to trade at $443 (the strike price of the purchased call (435) plus net debit ($8)) at expiration.
Advantage versus Purchasing a Call
When trading the long call, a trader?s downside is limited to the net premium paid. If he simply purchased the at-the-money May 435 call he would have paid $18. The potential loss is, therefore, greater when implementing a call-buying strategy. If he had moved to a call with a longer time frame to expiration, he would have even paid more for the option. This would also increase his potential loss per option.
Conclusion
By implementing a bull call spread, traders can hedge their bets ? limiting the potential loss. This is the advantage when comparing to purchasing a call outright. Remember that there are no sure-fire ways to make money by using options. However, knowing and understanding the strategy is a good way to limit losses.