From this brief outline of the operation of a put option, it is quite
easy to grasp what occurs in the case of a call option. As a matter of
fact, call options are much more frequently entered upon by the public
than are put options, for the same reason that the public are far more
frequently Bulls than Bears. Perhaps it is the optimism of human nature
that accounts for this, or perhaps it is the fact that to buy is more
natural than to sell, especially when the operator has got nothing to
sell. Whatever may be the explanation, some of those who are frequently
Bulls themselves regard with horror anything in the nature of a Bear
transaction. They buy what they do not want without turning a hair,
whilst denouncing as a speculator, dangerous to himself and the
community, one who sells what he has not got. They may exercise their
judgment in selecting stocks and shares that will rise, but consider it
heinous to select those which are likely to fall. In fact, to some minds
such selection is tantamount to knocking down the price, to the severe
loss of those who hold the securities. We are always hearing of the
wicked Bears, but never of the wicked Bulls. In a hazy kind of way,
indeed, the Bull with his optimism is supposed to perform a public
service. These ideas are perhaps not very sound, but they are at all
events natural. All that, however, is a subject for the metaphysician;
it suffices here to remark that just as Bull operators are more popular
than Bear operators, so are call options more popular than put options.
In the case of the call option, the one who buys it thinks the price
will rise, and for that reason purchases the right to buy the stock at
the existing price some time hence. If he is right he can, when the
option period expires, sell the stock at a higher price than that at
which he can call it. If he is wrong, and the stock falls, he has only
to sacrifice the money he has paid for his call option. However far it
may have fallen, he loses no more.
In the case of the option for the put-and-call, the operator buys the
right either to sell or buy the certain amount of stock at a certain
price on a certain future date. Such options are generally arranged in
stocks of a widely fluctuating nature, and the operation partakes more
of a gamble, a mere betting upon chance, than do either put options or
call options. In these cases the operator has at least an opinion or a
belief upon which he lays out his money: in the one case he thinks the
stock will fall, and in the other case that it will rise. But in the
case of the put-and-call, the only opinion he has is that it will move
somehow; he does not know or care which way it moves, provided it moves
far enough to show a profit over the amount he has paid for the option.
The only question involved is as to whether the price will move widely
enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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