April 21 options now available for Zoom (ZM) video communications
Investors at Zoom Video Communications Inc (Ticker: ZM) saw new options become available today, for the April 21 expiry. One of the main inputs that goes into the price an option buyer is willing to pay is time value, so with 74 days to expiration, newly available contracts represent a potential opportunity for sellers to puts or calls to obtain a higher premium than would be available for contracts with closer expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula scoured the ZM options channel for new contracts on April 21 and identified one particularly interesting put contract and one call contract.
The put contract at the strike price of $75.00 has a current bid of $6.65. If an investor were to sell to open this put contract, they agree to buy the stock at $75.00, but will also collect the premium, placing the cost base of the stock at $68.35 (before brokerage commissions ). For an investor already interested in buying shares of ZM, this could represent an attractive alternative to paying $77.62/share today.
Since the $75.00 strike represents about a 3% discount to the current stock price (in other words, it’s out of the money by that percentage), it’s also possible that the sales contract expires worthless. Current analytical data (including Greeks and implied Greeks) suggests that the current chance of this happening is 99%. Stock Options Channel will track these odds over time to see how they change, by posting a table of these numbers on our website under the contract detail page for that contract. If the contract expires worthless, the premium would represent an 8.87% return on the cash commitment, or 43.76% annualized – at Stock Options Channel, we call this the Yield increase.
Below is a chart showing Zoom Video Communications Inc’s last twelve months trading history, and highlighting in green where the $75.00 strike falls in relation to that history:
On the call side of the options chain, the call contract at the strike price of $90.00 has a current bid of $4.05. If an investor were to buy ZM stock at the current price level of $77.62/share and then sell to open this call contract as a “covered call”, they are committing to sell the stock at 90 $.00. Assuming the call seller will also collect the premium, this would result in a total return (excluding dividends, if any) of 21.17% if the stock is called at the April 21 expiry (before broker commissions) . Of course, a lot of upside could potentially be left on the table if ZM stock really does soar, which is why it becomes important to look at Zoom Video Communications Inc’s trading history for the past twelve months, as well as to study the fundamentals of business. Below is a chart showing ZM’s trading history over the last twelve months, with the $90.00 strike highlighted in red:
Considering that the strike price of $90.00 represents a premium of approximately 16% to the current stock price (in other words, it is out of the price by that percentage), it It is also possible for the covered call contract to expire worthless, in which case the investor would keep both his shares and the premium collected. Current analytical data (including Greeks and implied Greeks) suggests that the current chance of this happening is 99%. On our website, under the contract detail page for that contract, the Stock Options Channel will track those odds over time to see how they change and publish a table of those numbers (the option contract’s trading history will be also plotted). If the covered call contract expires worthless, the premium would represent a 5.22% increase in incremental return to the investor, or 25.75% annualized, what we call the Yield increase.
Meanwhile, we calculate the actual volatility for the last twelve months (considering the closing values of the last 250 trading days as well as today’s price of $77.62) at 62%. For more put and call options contract ideas worth considering, visit StockOptionsChannel.com.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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