Option trade diary #4 – Heineken

Another new position, this time Heineken. Also a bit different this time it’s a written call option instead of a put option. Which means I am bound too deliver the shares at the strike price up until the expiration date. There are two ways to go about this. Covered and uncovered , when you write a covered option this can be done when you have the shares in your possession. You expect the shareprice to stay more or less the same or go down and the option premium is a bit of an extra result on your stock position. You are covered by the fact you own the right amount of the stock. This can also work against you, when the share rises above the strike price effectively limiting your profits, which will be strike price plus option premium.

This is the easy way of covering, there are other ways , but those are for another post and another time.
Leaves us with the second variation, writing uncovered calls. Which means you don’t own the right amount of stock and you gamble om a downturn in the share price. Your potential loss is infinite as the share price can rise well above your strike price and when called upon too deliver , you will have too buy at market price.
You do have the option to buy the option back at any given time. So before you do anything be well aware of the risk and your risk appetite.

That’s the theory behind it in a nutshell, back to the position itself. Heineken’s share price rose above 100 Euro’s last week, at that time it got me thinking the valuation seems a bit high at the moment. The last jump up was also quite significant. Nonetheless Heineken remains a very solid company with great dividend history, worth having in any portfolio.

So I took a bit of a gamble and sold a Call option, strike price 100 euro, expiration date 15 December 2023. At 12,50. And I have set a goal buying the option back at 9,25. Let’s see how this works out.

Option trade diary #3 – NN

Another edition of the options trading diary , in this case other insurance company. Nationale Nederlanden. This insurer is an investment for the long term, yielding an excellent dividend and has been optimizing on multiple fronts. The low interest rates will remain a problem however , but for now this has not been a factor in the growth and the flow of dividends.

As I am planning on owning the stock I have written a put option, one that ends next month on the 19th of July and has a strike price of 34 euro’s.

Just a quick reminder of what this means, when the share price dips below 34 euro’s I have an obligation to buy 100 shares NN at 34 euro. Which is a discount of 3,8% on the share price on the moment of writing the option.

For a period of 3,5 weeks I received 35 euro’s. If the price of the stock stays above 34 euro I will get too keep this. It’s a very short running option so you always have to be aware of the risk of getting assigned.
You can always buy back the option and write another one which expires further in the future. Or let the option run it’s course and get 100 shares at 34 euro’s.

So far so good , at the time of writing this post the option has lost 50% of it’s value.