Common Questions
1.
How does the calculator get the prices of the stock and
option?
There
is a FREE add-in to Microsoft Excel called "MSN Money
Stock Quotes". The instructions you will read when
you purchase the product will link you to the right place, or
you can just Google it.
2.
I
don't have PayPal and I don't want to sign up for it either!
Don't
worry, you can still pay with credit card, but it's just
through PayPal (it is the easiest way for a small merchant
like me to accept payments), just click the main payment
button and select "I will Pay with..... Paypal",
fill in the fields, and hit "Buy Now"
Then
on the bottom-left, find the "Don't have a PayPal
account?" and click on "Continue".
3.
Will
it work with Microsoft Office 2007? - Yes
4.
Will
it work with MAC's - Yes
5. Does
your calculator work with writing/selling a LEAP as the call
option (vice the more typical short term call option)?
Yes - I have never done so myself, but the calculator just
uses standard ticker symbols which LEAPS have.
6.
Does
your calculator work with buying a LEAP call and then writing
a short term call on the long term LEAP? - Yes - same explanation
as above
7.
What other countries does your calculator work with?
The
calculator uses a free add-in to Excel called MSN Money Stock
Quotes which pulls quotes from www.moneycentral.msn.com.
So the question is "what countries does the MSN Money
website support". Going to the MSN webpage here,
you see that MSN Money can pull from many different exchanges
throughout the word. You have to be careful to enter the
ticker symbol in the format that MSN Money wants it. For
example, the Italian car company Fiat has a ticker symbol of
"F", so in excel you would place "IT:F".
Now
for the options side, my honest answer is I don't know.
I've done research, and I know for example that the Australian
company BHP has options, but MSN says no option data is
available. So if you are interested in purchasing this
for foreign securities, just let me know ahead of time and I
will troubleshoot it with you.
Lastly,
I know for example the Australian option contracts are for
1000 shares vice 100 in the U.S. So differences like
this will effect some of the calculations, but this can be
easily worked around.
8.
Right
now I am looking for a screening tool that will search the
market and find calls with high returns, particularly focusing
on the option premium as a percent of the price of the stock.
The service I used to use for this screening (www.coveredcalls.com) has just
changed over to a subscription based service. Does your
program perform this function, or anything like it?
Yes and no -
Firstly, the tool is NOT a screener like coveredcalls.com or
OptionMonitor (I recommend this). But it does help you
further "screen" possible positions more from a risk
perspective. I am, and thus the tool is, very sensitive
to the risk you set in your CCs. For example, the
calculator will estimate how much you will loose in your
portfolio if this position is stopped out - which may be way
to much such as 5%. So in a sense it does
"screen" candidates before you enter the trade.
It can also be used to ensure you get a good enough fill, or
the slippage will eat away your profits.
The tool is mostly
for assisting you in making decisions once the trade is open.
But it can be used as a secondary "screen" to ensure
you're not exposing yourself to too much risk or slippage.
But in the sense of your question, my program does not assist
in screening.
9.
When
I launch the spreadsheet I get the warning message from Excel: "This workbook contains links to other
data sources". I'm assuming I click on the Update button.
Is this correct? When
I do this I then get the warning message: "This workbook
contains one or more links that cannot be updated" I can
either "change the source of the links, or attempt to
update the values again" by clicking the Edit links
button OR "open the workbook as is" by clicking the
Continue button. I assume
Hit "don't
update" on the first box, then "enable automatic
refresh" on the second box.
Other Resources
A completely free stock
charting program. You can overlay almost anything
imaginable. I especially like that it
shows quarterly earnings reports (the only charting
site I've found that does this, and is very useful
for covered
call writers).
This is the brokerage I use. The best part is the
Virtual Trading platform so you can practice trading with fake
money
Although OptionsXpress has a covered calls screener,
this one is better ($34.95/month)
This has all of the
fundamental information and news on any company that I could
possibly use.
Recommended Books
New Insights to Covered Call Writing
by Richard Lehman
Trade your Way to Financial Freedom
by Dr Van Tharp
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