It's yet another potentially meaningless index or metric that investors use to guage market sentiment. Like...if you found that there were a ton more puts out there then calls (i.e. investors being long the put or long the call), then it'd mean that market sentiment was bearish. If you own a put, you're betting the market is going down. And a call is...yeah, the opposite. So if there were an even number of puts and calls out there, then the market is probably...balanced.
The problem? The sentiment indicators don't really work. They sort of correlate over time with the data if you look in the rear view mirror in just the right way. But you're viewing them in a rear view mirror, meaning that things already happened. So it's hard to then make investing bets based on what the real-time data is giving you.
Our suggestion: crystal balls.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What Is a Call Option?25 Views
finance a la shmoop. what is a call option? option? option, where are you? okay
yeah yeah. not phone options, call options. and a close but no cigar. a call option [man smokes in a tub of cash]
is the right to call or buy a security. the concept is easy the math is hard.
you think Coca Cola's poised for a breakout as they go into the new low
calorie beverage business. their stock is at 50 bucks a share and you can buy a [man stands on a stage as crowd cheers]
call option for $1. well that call option buys you the right
to then buy coke stock at 55 bucks a share anytime you want in the next
hundred and 20 days. so let's say Coke announces its new sugarless drink flavor
zero it's two weeks later and the stock skyrockets to fifty eight dollars a
share. you've already paid the dollar for the option now you have to exercise it. [man lifts weights]
so you buy the stock and you're all in now for fifty five dollars plus one or
fifty six bucks a share and your total value is now fifty eight bucks. well you
could turn around today and sell the bundle that moment, and you'll have
turned your dollar into two dollars of profit really fast. and obviously had the [equation on screen]
stock not skyrocketed so quickly well you would have lost everything. still you
lucked out and now you're sitting on some serious cash, courtesy of your call [two men in a tub of cash]
options. as for Coke flavor zero turned out to be nothing more than canned water.
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