Skip to main content

Selling Puts on Value Companies

Selling even a full year costs nothing except the opportunity to move on quickly to the next trade.
  • Author:
  • Publish date:
Comments

Options are not just for speculation. One excellent use of options involves selling (writing) puts on stocks you'd like to own, but at prices cheaper than are currently available.

Selling ("shorting") a put is a bullish position. Your results will be best if the underlying shares go up or remain flat from their trade inception price. Once you've sold a put there are only two outcomes that can occur at expiration.

  • If the shares remain above the option's strike price the puts will expire worthless.
  • If the stock is below the strike price you will be forced to buy 100 shares per contract.

When puts expire worthless the sellers of those options keep all premiums received and have no further obligations. You would make your maximum profit, which equals 100% of the money received upon settlement of the sale.

Exercises typically occur at or near expiration dates but they can occur sooner. Timing is at the discretion of the option owner, not the seller.

Selling puts is similar to placing below-market limit orders to buy. In either case you might, or might not, end up owning shares. If you do acquire shares your entry price will always be lower than if you had simply purchased right away.

Option Prices

Source: TradeStation

View Chart »View in New Window »

Puts are often less actively traded than stocks. Always try to get a middle price between the bid-ask spread. You can usually get filled at better prices than with market orders.

Be sure to use expiration dates that bring in enough premium to justify the trade. The raw material we're selling is 'time'. Selling even a full year costs nothing except the opportunity to move on quickly to the next trade.

Having a one-year time horizon brings in bigger initial premiums and lower break-even points than writing shorter expiration puts.

Here is the math on two short put positions that make sense to me right now.

If Mosaic (MOS) rises by 1.1% or better and closes above $60 on Jan. 17, 2014:

  • The put will expire worthless
  • You will keep $750 per contract as pure profit

If Mosaic closes below $60 on Jan. 17, 2018:

  • The put will be exercised
  • You will be forced to buy 100 shares/contract
  • You will need to lay out $6,000/contract in cash
  • Your net cost will be $52.50 per share or 11.5% below the trade inception price

If LabCorp (LH) rises by 0.3% or better and closes above $87.50 on May 17:

  • The put will expire worthless
  • You will keep $400 per contract as pure profit

If LabCorp closes below $87.50 on May 17:

  • The put will be exercised
  • You will be forced to buy 100 shares/contract
  • You will need to lay out $8,750/contract in cash
  • Your net cost will be $83.50 per share or 4.3% below the trade inception price

In a worst case you will end up owing 100 shares of each stock at what I'd deem a bargain price. In the best case scenario both options will expire and we'll keep the $1,150 (total) in premiums received without having to buy anything.

At the time of publication the author was long Laboratory Corp. and Mosaic.