Ewgi@Ssaasquatch
Haven’t shared this before, but a lot of people ask me how I do it, so here goes:
Long-dated options, or LEAPS, are a powerful way to aggressively compound portfolio gains if you have high conviction about the future price of a stock. I have personally made a lot of money doing this. Yes it works!
LEAPS gives you opportunity to control at least 100 shares of a stock without owning them. I use this mostly for swing trades I plan to dump in <1 year or two. No point doing this for long term holds.
Eg: A stock trades at $10 and you believe it can hit $20 within a year, Instead of spending $1,000 to buy 100 shares, you buy 3 call contracts with $11 strike (will explain this later), expiring roughly a year from now. Some people do short dated ones too. That’s fine as look as it’s not too short. You need time for your thesis to play out. Avoid ODTEs if you know what’s good for you except you’re an idiot.
Assume premium is say $3 per share? Each contract would cost: $3 x 100 = $300. 3 contracts would cost: $300 x 3 = $900. Total cost = $900
Now suppose the stock doubles to $20 in one year, just as you projected.
Each contract is now worth:
($20 - $11) x 100 = $900. Meaning 3 contracts you bought would be worth $2700
Summary:
Initial cost: $900
Final value: $2700
Profit: $1800
Assuming you bought the stock outright:
100 shares at $10= $1k. If the stock goes to $20, your shares are worth $2k. Profit: $1k.
In other words, LEAPS compounded your returns with lesser capital and vice versa.
Are there risks involved ? Of course. A lot of risk.
If the stock does not rerate meaningfully higher, you can lose most or all of your capital.
A wise man once said, “Leverage is for idiots.” and he wasn’t exactly wrong.
This isn’t something you YOLO, and definitely not with a large chunk of your port. I personally never risk more than 10% of my port (Okay fine, I’m lying. It goes as high as 20% sometimes)
You only use LEAPS when your conviction is extremely high and you believe the stock can rerate aggressively to the upside.
Now here’s the real alpha:
How do you manage risk and find the right stock for this kind of bet?
This is the filter that has consistently worked for me:
1. I like beaten down assets with improving business margins ie Growing revs & bottom line, positive or improving EBITDA (adj), and a low D/E ratio.
On the technical side, the stock should be trading within say 10% of their 52-week low, RSI below 40, and sitting on key support across all long timeframes.
The goal is to always find a mispriced asset, not to catch a falling knife.
2. Buy around 10% OTM strikes ie If a stock is at $10, I’m looking around the $11 strike.
That way, the stock only needs to move above the strike plus the premium paid for the trade to become profitable. If you buy very far OTM strikes, you can still lose money even if the stock moves meaningfully higher. This is essentially baba ijebu.
3. Theres no point holding the contract into the final 60 days unless it is already deep ITM and you are comfortably profitable. Read up about something called thetas and option decays.
At that point, either sell it, roll it, convert to shares, or take the loss on the chin. You live to fight another day.
4. Only buy LEAPS when implied volatility is low cos Low IV = cheaper premium. Thats when LEAPS make the most sense cos you don’t want to overpay for optionality, then be directionally right and still get hurt cos IV compresses.
My current LEAPS:
$HIMS
$SOFI
As always, This is not financial advice. Just sharing what works for me.
There are tons of tutorials on YouTube that explain the mechanics better, but take this as a primer.
You’re welcome :)
