An ETF (exchange traded fund) is a collection of stocks that trades like a single stock. Many ETFs come with options available so investors can use them for covered calls. They make sense for covered calls because of the built in diversification they provide (important for smaller accounts). Because of the way ETFs are constructed, there is no single stock risk. If one of the stocks that is part of the ETF drops suddenly then the effect will be felt less by the ETF that contains that stock than by the stock itself.
Some exchange traded funds track specific indexes, allowing you an easy way to trade the index. For example, the symbol IWM represents an ETF that is comprised of 2000 stocks that make up the Russell 2000. When you buy IWM you are buying a collection of 2000 stocks. Other popular ETFs include QQQQ (for the NASDAQ 100) and SPY (for the S&P 500). And there are ETFs to track countries, sectors, or commodities. For example, EWJ tracks Japan, XLF tracks financial stocks, EWZ tracks Brazil, and GLD tracks gold.
The ETF with symbol GLD is an important one given the interest in owning gold. However, GLD doesn’t pay dividends. But, by using covered calls you can create dividend-like cash from gold, too. Just buy a gold ETF and write calls (in-the-money if you’re neutral to bearish on gold or out-of-the-money if you’re bullish on gold). GLD is by far the most liquid (meaning, most capital invested, and most highly traded) gold ETF and probably your best bet for covered call trading. Other ETF choices include DGL which has small open interest (not good), and UGL which is 2x leveraged and therefore quite volatile (not good).
Everyone needs some exposure to emerging markets for diversification. But financial information in other countries is hard to come by, inconsistent, and usually in a format that is difficult to digest. So it’s another good case for ETFs. The most popular emerging market ETF is EEM (iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund), which has nearly $41 billion in assets and is highly liquid. Another choice, if you want to limit your exposure to just China, for example, would be to use iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 (FXI).
There is one kind of ETF that you do NOT want to get involved with for covered calls, and those are the leveraged ETFs. Leveraged ETFs are designed to be two or three times more volatile than an unleveraged ETF. You can normally recognize leveraged ETFs because they have words in their names like “double”, “2x”, “ultra”, “triple”, “3x”, or “leveraged”. Leveraged ETFs are mostly the play thing of day traders and are not appropriate for conservative covered call investors. It can be tempting to do a covered call on one of these because the premiums are usually very high. But there’s a reason for those high premiums! Leveraged ETFs are, by definition, two or three times more volatile than their unleveraged counterparts.
Born To Sell’s site offers more information about covered calls. Covered calls can help you survive the next market meltdown. Here’s how: https://www.borntosell.com/covered-call-blog/market-meltdown.
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