In general, you want to buy a put option when you have a bearish sentiment about a security. In other words, buy puts when you believe the stock’s price will go down. For example, if someone owns a lot of Apple, they may want to buy an Apple put so they won’t lose everything if Apple crashes. Commodities are tangible things such as gold, oil, and agricultural products, including wheat, corn, and pork bellies.

Call vs. put options

When an option loses its time value, the intrinsic value is left over, which is equivalent to the difference between the strike price less the underlying stock price. Puts with a strike price of $50 can be sold for a $5 premium and expire in six months. In total, one put contract sells for $500 ($5 premium x 100 shares). A stockholder can purchase a “protective” put on an underlying stock to help hedge or offset the risk of loss from the stock price falling. Some traders sell puts on stocks they’d like to own because they think they are currently undervalued. They are happy to buy the stock at the current price because they believe it will rise again in the future.

1. Your maximum loss is much higher and is equal to the put strike price less the premium received.
2. When done right, this strategy lets you get paid while waiting to buy shares at your desired price point.
3. Their potential loss is unlimited – equal to the amount by which the market price is below the option strike price, times the number of options sold.
4. If you don’t own the shares before exercising the option, then you’ll need the buying power to cover that purchase—even though you may only own the shares for a matter of minutes.
5. You’ve been watching Company ABC, whose stock currently trades at $100.
6. So for the same initial investment, a trader can actually earn much more money than short-selling a stock, another technique for making money on a stock’s decline.
7. Examples are hypothetical, and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific investment issues.

Investments

A put option’s value also decreases as its expiration date approaches. Conversely, a put option loses its value as the underlying stock increases. Buying put options can be attractive if you think a stock is poised to decline, and it’s one of two main ways to wager against a stock. After all, they realize you could ask them to buy it any day during the agreed-upon period. They also realize there’s the possibility the stock could be worth much less on that day. But they think it’s worth it because they believe the stock price will rise.

Put options: What they are, how they work and how to buy and sell them

1. Assume an investor buys one put option on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which was trading at $445 (January 2022), with a strike price of $425 expiring in one month.
2. The appeal of selling puts is that you receive cash upfront and may not ever have to buy the stock at the strike price.
3. Some investors buy puts to place a bet that a certain stock’s price will decline because put options provide higher potential profit than shorting a stock outright.
4. If ABC’s stock price falls to Rs. 450, the investor can exercise the put option, selling shares at the higher Rs. 500 strike price.
5. The option sellers (call or put) are also called the option writers.

When you sell a put option, you’re essentially playing the role of the insurance company—collecting premiums in exchange for agreeing to buy shares at a specific price if they fall. When the price of a stock goes beyond a contract’s strike price, the transaction may take place on a specific expiration date. In such a scenario, exercising a call option can let its buyer purchase the stock at a much lower price.

Hopes the underlying stock will trade above strike price by put meaning in share market expiration so the option can be exercised or resold. So while the stock market has two types of participants — buyers and sellers — the options market has four. A put option is the right to sell a security at a specific price until a certain date. It gives you the option to “put the security down.” The right to sell a security is based on a contract. The securities are usually stocks but can also be commodities futures or currencies. Perhaps this is the reason why Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book “Fooled by Randomness” says “Option writers eat like a chicken but shit like an elephant”.

How To Gain From Selling Put Options in Any Market

When you sell a put option, you agree to buy a stock at an agreed-upon price. Likewise the premium of the option depends on certain forces called as the ‘Option Greeks’. Crudely put, some Option Greeks tends to increase the premium, while some try to reduce the premium. A formula called the ‘Black & Scholes Option Pricing Formula’ employs these forces and translates the forces into a number, which is the premium of the option. In fact, you might be interested to know that a return of 100% or so while trading options is not really a thing of surprise. But please don’t just get carried away with what I just said; to enjoy such returns consistently you need to develop a deep insight into options.

Let us say investor X decides to buy a put option with the expectation of a price decline. The current price of this stock is Rs. 800, and he is predicting its price to go down up to Rs. 600. He enters a put option contract with investor Y with a strike price of Rs. 600. Investors buy put options when predicting a decrease in the price of an underlying asset. On the other hand, sellers are driven by the prediction that an asset’s market price will either increase or remain stable. In general, the value of a put option decreases as its time to expiration approaches due to time decay because the probability of the stock falling below the specified strike price decreases.

5 – Put option buyer’s P&L payoff

You’ve been watching Company ABC, whose stock currently trades at $100. After analyzing the company’s fundamentals and technical support levels, you think it’s unlikely to drop below $95 in the next month. Instead of placing a limit order to buy at $95, you could sell a put option.

We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. While we strive to provide a wide range of offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. But done prudently, selling puts can be an effective strategy to generate cash, especially on stocks that you wouldn’t mind owning if they fell. Limit orders are also a must with options trades, so that you avoid running up your costs. With a limit order you specify the price you’re willing to accept for a trade, and if the market can’t meet your price, your trade won’t execute. As you’re placing your trade, you’ll also want to consider the breakeven price for your trade, that is, what price does the stock need to reach before you make money on the option at expiration.

Conversely, a put option loses its value as the price of the underlying stock increases. As a result, they are typically used for hedging purposes or to speculate on downside price action. The best put-selling prospects tend to arise when investors are at their most anxious, but that’s also when careful position sizing is most important. During strong markets, as in 2024, put premiums tend to be lower because there’s less fear among traders.