Many investors limit themselves to using stocks, bonds, funds, and other common investments in their portfolios. Yet by thinking outside the box and adding options strategies to the mix, you can take advantage of profitable opportunities that others will miss. Since 2009, the Motley Fool Options service has looked for ways to use options to squeeze more profits from promising stocks. Below, we'll show you how you can get access to Options and its winning picks -- for a far lower cost than you'd ever think possible.
What makes Options picks so successful
Motley Fool Options focuses first on finding stocks that have strong fundamental business prospects and attractive valuations. Then, the Options team comes up with tailored options strategies to take advantage of each stock's profit opportunity. In making its picks, Options follows several guidelines that its team of analysts likes to see:
- Each pick has a clear investing thesis, a desired outcome, and a predicted timeframe for completion. In addition, picks come with exit strategies that can protect your portfolio even if the investment thesis doesn't play out exactly as expected.
- The service uses long-term thinking to guide its decisions and remains focused even when short-term challenges hit a particular position. That doesn't stop Options from using short-term strategies when they're appropriate, but the longer-term perspective gives the service the ability to capitalize on opportunities that short-term options traders can't capture.
- Picks more often involve writing options than buying them, giving the service flexibility to consider future moves related to an options strategy.
- Picks can involve a wide range of strategies, but the service focuses on whichever strategy its advisors believe is most appropriate.
Most importantly, Motley Fool Options takes advantage of the power of the Motley Fool community to weigh in on recommendations and share their experiences. That helps make members more comfortable with the service's approach, especially when its picks take a different point of view from what other Motley Fool services recommend.
Every pick includes far more than just a stock name and an option contract. You'll get a detailed analysis of why the service is making the pick, with a business-oriented look at the company involved and an explanation of how the analyst team chose the particular options strategy in its recommendation. You'll also get specific guidance on how to set up the options position in your brokerage account, listing the necessary trades to implement the pick and what the possible long-term outcomes of the position are.
Even after the initial pick, Options revisits its recommendations regularly, providing ongoing coverage that keeps investors up to date on each pick's prospects. Investors also have ongoing access to weekly updates and lists of options strategies that are particularly attractive at that time.
The true value of Options picks
A look at the successful picks that Motley Fool Options has made shows its openness to handling different situations with varying strategies. Sometimes, the Options team sees an opportunity to offer market-beating returns by taking advantage of the leverage that options can provide. That was the case with the service's pick of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) in mid-2014. The social-media giant had come out of the gates with big share-price declines immediately following its 2012 IPO. But two years later, the stock had rebounded, and the Options team saw even greater potential for gains in the future. By using a long-term call option known as a LEAP, Options produced returns of 88% over the following year and a half -- almost doubling the returns of those who simply bought the stock.
At the same time, writing options can provide many small wins. Chipmaker Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has been under fire as it has tried to transform itself from its PC-chip roots to become more of a player in the mobile device business. The stock has been volatile, but on several occasions, Options saw the opportunity to take advantage of that volatility by writing put options on the tech giant. Each time, the service has eventually closed the position at no cost, effectively allowing members to keep the money they received up front when they wrote the option as free-and-clear profit.
Become an Options member right now!
Best of all, right now, you can sign up for Motley Fool Options at a special introductory rate. You'll then get immediate access to the service's latest picks, as well as all the other resources that Options offers to its elite group of subscribers.
If you want to go beyond simple stocks and bonds to maximize the potential of your portfolio, it's important to beat the crowd and get access to all the picks and guidance that Motley Fool Options has offered its members for more than a decade. Join the Motley Fool Options community right now and find out how you can use options to be even more successful with your investing.
