The cost of a call and the cost of a put are almost directly related. If you have a $40 stock, a $40 call and a $40 put will be almost exactly the same price most of the time. If there is a difference, the possibility of an arbitrage usually exists meaning that there is a 0 risk strategy (minus commissions) to get something for nothing. This is true whether it’s a collar or another strategy. I don’t completely understand the full process that allows for that to happen, but a complex series of trades usually makes it possible. So if the price of a call and put are going to be the same that means generally the higher priced calls are due to greater risk. Some reasons may be historical volatility, as that plays a roll, but the implied volatility, that is, how much people expect or are betting on the stock to move, becomes important.

Covered call strategies have advantages and disadvantages. A covered call is essentially giving up a stocks potential for capital gains and exchanging it for income… As you probably can imagine, value investors and contrarian investors, or those who bet on a stock that they believe has underappreciated in value and is on the way down or moving sideways will generally be able to see some value in this. Income investors will love the extra yield.

Every day people speculate wildly on stocks putting leveraged bets that a stock will be bought out, or surge in value. However, for every buyer there is a seller, for everyone who buys the leverage, there are people who sell the leverage. If you dream of a $1 stock flying to $100, this isn’t for you, you should learn to be the one buying calls, not selling them. Be warned, however that if you are a buyer of call options that you will be taking on much greater risk, and you will be relying on the price of the stock moving up sometimes very significantly in order for you to make money. In addition, buying options require costs that are not redeamable, so even if the stock remains the same price you could still lose money buying options.

Many good trading systems use multiple exit strategies. In normal trading system, you need to know when to exit from a gain, and when to exit from a loss. Generally you want to be cutting your profits short, and letting your profits run. At a minimum, you generally want nearly a 3:1 gain to loss. This means you should take profits at 3 times the percentage amount as you cut your losses short. We will use this system and do the following

A good trading system is about much more than just selecting stocks. Certainly that is important as well. However, a good trading system will provide the ability for you to protect against losses, manage your money, add proper leverage when necessary, and also select a stock selection maximizing your reward and minimizing your risk.

A trading system is a methodology of trading. An investor who uses one system and follows a specific set of guidelines when making a decision, follows system trading, and will usually never deviate. A trading system is only one method of trading, and usual requires no thinking. It is possible to have one system that is governed by multiple system.