In times of market uncertainty like we are seeing now, many investors turn to options for the protection they can provide. Although the markets have recouped a good portion of their losses of the past few months, we cannot rule out another plunge that could test the depths of the recent decline. The high volatility in today’s...
Recently the Royal Bank of Canada lost its title as our country’s most valuable company in terms of market capitalization. For two brief weeks, Shopify sat at the top of the heap. Chart 1: Royal Bank vs. Shopify May 31, 2020 Source: Bloomberg SHOP’s run has been a sight to behold. Chart 2: Shopify...
As an investor, the first thing you need to know is how to choose which securities to buy. The second is when to sell them. That’s pretty easy, right? In this article, you will learn how to trade your first option. As you will see, you do not need to be an expert to start trading options. You just need to be familiar with...
In a bear market, the lows of the first market downturn are often retested following a rally like the one we have just seen. This article examines how put options can be used to maximize the return on a bearish projection. As can be seen in the following chart, the unit price of the iShares S&P/TSX Capped Financials Index...
The coronavirus crisis has caused massive sell-offs in global equity markets throughout the world. Canada has not been immune, and our benchmark large-cap S&P TSX 60 Index has lost over 36% from its February high. CHART 1 – S&P/TSX60 Source: Bloomberg A move of this magnitude from new highs to a...
In our last article we discussed how to reduce the risk associated with the time-value decay of options in a directional position. Now we will take advantage of the market meltdown to discuss the implied volatility in the price of an option, how it reflects the degree of market uncertainty over future price movements in the...
Reduce the risk associated with time value decay In this article, we will examine how to reduce the risk associated with the time value decay of options in a directional position, as well as how this affects the strategy’s payoff profile. As can be seen in the following chart, the price of shares in BCE Inc. (BCE) have...
Uranium Participation Corporation (Symbol U on the TSX exchange) is a company that invests in uranium. Uranium presents an attractive investment opportunity at this time. The commodity itself is currently trading at below the cost of production for most miners, a situation that cannot continue indefinitely. Eventually companies...
Just as a follow up to our block trade on Canada Goose Holdings Inc (GOOS) from November 14, 2019, the January 17, 2020 $46 strike call options have expired worthless, since the stock traded out-of-the money at market close. Effectively, we have captured the full option premium of $4.31/share and our cost is now reduced to...
Through 2018 and into the first quarter of 2019, Canadian marijuana companies represented one of the hottest sectors in the equities market. However, since its March 19, 2019 high of $23.87, the Horizons Marijuana Life Science ETF (HMMJ) has been on a steady decline, and by November 19, 2019 it was down to $8.34, having lost...