What is a Call Option? Robinhood

Keep in mind that Mary paid Sam $1.20 per share premium price, for a total premium of $120. A call option is an agreement that gives you the right to buy stocks, bonds, commodities, or other securities at a specific price up to a defined expiration date. Buying a call option is considered a good entry point for anyone interested in beginning to trade options, but as with any type of investing, caution is advised.

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. To learn more about options, check out our free online course on the related topic.

How is a call option different from a put option?

Just ask traders who sold calls on GameStop stock in January 2021 and lost a fortune in days. If the stock finishes between $20 and $22, the call option will still have some value, but overall the trader will lose money. And below $20 per share, the option expires worthless and the call buyer loses the entire investment. If you own a call option there are three things you can do with it. A Put option is a derivative instrument through which the buyer gains the right, but not the obligation, to sell a determined underlying asset at a given strike price. In order to acquire this right, the buyer pays a sum called the premium.

If the stock trades below the strike price, the call is “out of the money” and the option expires worthless. Then the call seller keeps the premium paid for the call while the buyer loses the entire investment. A trader pays a fee to purchase a call option, called the premium. It is the price paid for the rights that the call option provides (i.e. the price to draft the contract and its terms). If at expiration the underlying stock price is below the strike price, the call buyer loses the premium paid. Options are simply contracts.Rather than buying (Call option) or selling financial assets such as stocks,ETFs, futures, currencies (FOREX), regulated instruments or CFDs, with options you simply trade contracts.

How We Make Money

When purchasing a call option, its time value is defined by the time remaining until its expiration. You take a look at the call options for the following month and see that there’s a 115 call trading at 37 cents per contract. So, you sell one call option and collect the $37 premium (37 cents x 100 shares), representing a roughly 4% annualized income.

Potential losses theoretically are infinite if the stock price continued to rise, so call sellers could lose more money than they received from their initial position. For a call buyer, if the market price of the underlying stock price moves in your favor, you can choose to “exercise” the call option or buy the underlying stock at the strike price. American options allow the holder to exercise the option at any point up to the expiration date. European options can only be exercised on the date of expiration. When you buy a call option, you’re betting that the stock price will rise above the strike price before the option expires. If it rises enough to cover the premium you paid, then the trade might be profitable.

AccountingTools

Our estimates are based on past market performance, and past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. Just as a call option gives you the right to buy a stock at a certain price during a certain time period, a put option gives you the right to sell a stock at a certain price during a certain time period. Think of it as “putting” the stock to the person on the other end of the transaction — You’re forcing that person to buy the stock from you at the specified price. There are other factors that affect the price of options including interest rates and whether or not the underlying stock pays a dividend. But typically these have less of an impact on an option’s price, especially when there is less time until expiration.

The option’s strike price is $50, and it has an expiration date of Nov. 30. You will break even on your investment if ABC’s stock price reaches $52—meaning the sum of the premium paid plus the stock’s purchase price. Thus, the payoff when ABC’s share price increases in value is unlimited. Since each contract represents 100 shares, for every $1 increase in the stock above the strike price, the option’s cost to the seller increases by $100. The breakeven point of the call is $55 per share, or the strike price plus the cost of the call.

How we make money

Optionality does not provide any financial or investment advice. Additional information about Optionality Securities, LLC can be found in the links below. While selling a call seems like it’s low risk – and it often is – it can be one of the most dangerous options strategies because of the potential for uncapped losses if the stock soars.

• This information is neither individualized nor a research report, and must not serve as the basis for any investment decision.
• For this option to buy the stock, the call buyer pays a “premium” per share to the call seller.
• It’s important to note that exercising is not the only way to turn an options trade profitable.
• Going long with call options can provide you with much higher returns than buying the same amount of the underlying stock itself.
• They’re the best-known kind of option, and they allow the owner to lock in a price to buy a specific stock by a specific date.
• This strategy involves buying call options at a higher strike price while also selling the same quantity of calls with the same expiration date at a much lower strike price.

This effectively gives the seller a short position in the given asset. The term “call” comes from the fact that the owner has the right to “call the stock away” from the seller. Currency Hedging and options trading is becoming increasingly popular in Australia.

If the price rises above the call’s strike, they can sell the stock and take the premium as a bonus on their sale. If the stock remains below the strike, they can keep the premium and try the strategy again. Options trading entails significant risk and is not appropriate for all customers. Customers must read and understand the Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before engaging in any options trading strategies.

Any estimates based on past performance do not a guarantee future performance, and prior to making any investment you should discuss your specific investment needs or seek advice from a qualified professional. There are two main types of written call options, naked and covered. Here we discuss one specific type of option — the call option — what it is, how it works, why you might want callable option meaning to buy or sell it, and how a call option makes money. Doug is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst who spent more than 20 years as a derivatives market maker and asset manager before “reincarnating” as a financial media professional a decade ago. A value proposition is a promise that a company makes to its customers to convince them to choose that company’s product over another.

• A call option is covered if the seller of the call option actually owns the underlying stock.
• Examples are hypothetical, and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific investment issues.
• “In the money” refers to a call option where the strike price of the underlying asset is below the current market price, so you can exercise your contract and make a profit right away.
• The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers.
• All investments involve risk and past performance of any security does not guarantee future results or returns.

Investors can sell call options to generate income, and this can be a reasonable approach when done in moderation, such as through a safe trading strategy like covered calls. Especially in a flat or slightly down market, where the stock is not likely to be called, it can be an attractive prospect to generate incremental returns. For the stockholder, if the stock price is flat or goes down, the loss is less than that of the option holder. Owning the stock directly also gives the investor the opportunity to wait indefinitely for the stock to change direction. That’s a significant benefit over options, whose life expires on a specific date in the future.

For options that are “in-the-money,” most investors will sell their option contracts in the market to someone else prior to expiration to collect their profits. This means the option writer doesn’t profit from the stock’s movement above the strike price. The options writer’s maximum profit on the option is the premium received. Call options give the holder the right to buy 100 shares of a company at a specific price, known as the strike price (exercise price), up until a specified date, known as the expiration date.

At that point, the stock could go to $0 and you would still only lose what you paid for the call option. The tradeoff is that if the stock goes up, you won’t make as much money as if you simply bought 100 shares of the stock. The buyer can also sell the options contract to another option buyer at any time before the expiration date, at the prevailing market price of the contract. If the price of the underlying security remains relatively unchanged or declines, then the value of the option will decline as it nears its expiration date. Buying call options enables investors to invest a small amount of capital to potentially profit from a price rise in the underlying security, or to hedge away from positional risks. Small investors use options to try to turn small amounts of money into big profits, while corporate and institutional investors use options to increase their marginal revenues and hedge their stock portfolios.