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Options Research

Spot and pursue the next opportunity with options trading strategies

Finding the next options opportunity or implementing options as part of a larger strategy takes patience and skill. Acting on it at the right moment takes confidence and speed. With our research, tools, educational resources, and powerful platforms, like
thinkorswim, you’ll be able to judge volatile conditions and react more quickly to the ever-changing market.

Boosting Your Knowledge

Discover more option strategies with interactive learning tools, like the Option Essentials, available in the Education Center. Develop a strategy that uses covered calls that may help generate income by selling a call option on stocks you already own, or protective puts that can help protect your stock positions against market declines – essential options strategies to help pursue your investment goals.

Basic Strategies

Discover how option contracts work, and how to use them to help profit from investments you already own and market price movements. You can also use them as a hedge to help minimize risk in an existing position or portfolio holding.

Covered Calls

Explore covered calls and learn to use one of the most common options strategies to your advantage. Covered calls allow you to sell, or “write” a call option on shares you already have in your portfolio for a contract price that is credited to your account. You may also profit from limited stock price appreciation and dividends. The risk is that if assigned, you would have to sell your stock at the contract strike price.

Protective Puts

Learn how to use one of the most popular market hedging strategies to potentially lock in a share price and minimize downside risks. If you feel the market may decline, this options strategy can help protect individual stock positions from a price decline. There are risks, but they're limited to the amount you pay for the put option contract.

When you create your account with TD Ameritrade, you’ll get access to a larger library of educational resources, so you can learn just about anything and everything when it comes to investing and trading.

Harnessing thinkorswim

thinkorswim offers professional tools like SpreadBook, SpreadHacker™, and quantitative analysis features. Check out orders other customers are working on, find defined-risk options trades, and perform stress tests in real and hypothetical positions to plot profit/loss potentials and more.

Take Action with Trade Triggers™

Trade Triggers lets you generate alerts and enter orders in your account when options you are following reach certain conditions – both outright price and relative value. Activated based on market conditions you set, you’ll stay in step with the fast-moving options market.

Real-Time Insights from Analytic Chain

Analytic chain lets you easily modify and recalculate theoretical values in real-time, helping you spot potential trading opportunities and gauge the market’s volatility outlook. Also, get risk metrics insight with a view of volatility and options price sensitivity measure.

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Market volatility, volume and system availability may delay account access and trade executions.

Options involve risks and are not suitable for all investors as the special risks inherent to options trading may expose investors to potentially rapid and substantial losses. Options trading privileges subject to TD Ameritrade review and approval. Please read Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options before trading options.

The covered call strategy can limit the upside potential of the underlying stock position, as the stock would likely be called away in the event of substantial stock price increase.  Additionally, any downside protection provided to the related stock position is limited to the premium received. (Short options can be assigned at any time up to expiration regardless of the in-the-money amount.) 

The covered call strategy can limit the upside potential of the underlying stock position, as the stock would likely be called away in the event of substantial stock price increase. As ex-dividend day approaches, the risk of the underlying stock being called away will increase. If this happens, eligibility for the dividend is lost. 

The maximum risk of a covered call position is the cost of the stock, less the premium received for the call, plus all transaction costs.

With the protective put strategy, while the long put provides some temporary protection from a decline in the price of the corresponding stock, this does involve risking the entire cost of the put position.  Should the long put position expire worthless, the entire cost of the put position would be lost.

Past performance of a security does not guarantee future results or success.

TD Ameritrade was evaluated against 14 other online brokers in the 2022 StockBrokers.com Online Broker Review. The firm was rated #1 in the categories "Platforms & Tools" (11 years in a row), "Desktop Trading Platform: thinkorswim®" (10 years in a row), "Active Trading" (2 years in a row), "Options Trading," "Customer Service," and "Phone Support." TD Ameritrade was also rated Best in Class (within the top 5) for "Overall Broker" (12 years in a row), "Education" (11 years in a row), "Commissions & Fees" (2 years in a row), "Offering of Investments" (8 years in a row), "Beginners" (10 years in a row), "Mobile Trading Apps" (10 years in a row), "Ease of Use" (6 years in a row), "IRA Accounts" (3 years in a row), "Futures Trading" (3 years in a row), and "Research" (11 years in a row). Read the full article.

You are responsible for all orders entered in your account when a trigger you set is activated. Please make sure you keep sufficient funds or positions in your account to support the trigger.  Trade Triggers options functionality limited to option-approved accounts.

This is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction where we are not authorized to do business or where such offer or solicitation would be contrary to the local laws and regulations of that jurisdiction, including, but not limited to persons residing in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UK, and the countries of the European Union.

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