Neutral & Income — Strategy calculators

A covered call sells a call against 100 shares you own to collect premium income. It caps upside at the strike in exchange for a cushion and steady yield — a favorite of income investors.

Selling a cash-secured put earns premium and obligates you to buy the stock at the strike if assigned — a way to get paid while waiting to buy a stock cheaper.

An iron condor sells an out-of-the-money put spread and call spread at once, collecting premium that you keep if the stock stays within a range. Defined risk on both sides.

A long butterfly combines a bull and bear spread to profit if the stock pins near the middle strike at expiration. Low cost, defined risk, high reward-to-risk near the target.

A collar protects a stock position by buying a put and financing it with a covered call. It caps both downside and upside — low-cost insurance for gains you want to keep.

A call calendar sells a near-term call and buys a longer-term call at the same strike, profiting from faster decay of the front option. Multi-expiration, defined risk.

A put calendar sells a near-term put and buys a longer-term put at the same strike, profiting from the faster decay of the front option. The put-based mirror of the call calendar — multi-expiration, defined risk.

A jade lizard sells a put and a call spread at the same time. Structured so the total credit is at least the width of the call spread, it carries no risk if the stock rises — only downside risk, like a short put.

A broken wing butterfly is a butterfly with one wing moved further out. Shifting the wing cheapens the trade — often to a net credit — which removes the loss on that side, at the cost of a larger loss on the other.

A short straddle sells a call and a put at the same at-the-money strike. You collect the maximum premium and profit if the stock barely moves, with the premium decaying in your favour. The trade-off is serious: the risk is effectively unlimited if the stock makes a big move either way.

A short strangle sells an out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put. It is the wider, lower-premium cousin of the short straddle: you collect less, but the stock has a bigger range to stay in before you lose. The risk is still effectively unlimited on a large move.

A long call condor buys a low and a high strike call and sells two middle strikes between them. It behaves like a butterfly with a flat top: a defined-risk, neutral trade that profits when the stock stays inside the two short strikes, built entirely from calls.

A double diagonal sells a near-term out-of-the-money call and put and buys longer-dated, further-out-of-the-money call and put. It is a neutral income strategy: the short near-term options decay fast in your favour while the long-dated options cap the risk and can be kept after the front month expires.

A box spread combines a bull call spread and a bear put spread at the same two strikes. Its payoff at expiration is fixed at the distance between the strikes, no matter where the stock lands — so it behaves like a zero-risk bond or synthetic loan. In practice it is mostly an educational and financing tool, with important real-world caveats.

A covered strangle owns 100 shares and sells both an out-of-the-money call and an out-of-the-money put. You collect double the premium of a covered call, but you take on extra downside: a falling stock loses on the shares and obligates you to buy 100 more at the put strike.

A Christmas tree butterfly (with calls) buys one lower call, sells three calls a couple of strikes higher, and buys two calls one strike above that. It is a skewed, cheaper relative of the standard butterfly, with a bullish-leaning profit zone and strictly defined risk.

A conversion owns 100 shares and wraps them in a synthetic short — long a put and short a call at the same strike. The combined position has a fixed value regardless of where the stock goes: a defined, near-riskless arbitrage that captures small mispricings in put-call parity.

A reversal, or reverse conversion, shorts 100 shares and wraps them in a synthetic long — long a call and short a put at the same strike. Like the conversion it mirrors, the combined value is fixed regardless of price: a defined, near-riskless arbitrage built on put-call parity.

A big lizard sells an at-the-money straddle and buys an out-of-the-money call to cap the upside. When the credit collected is at least as large as the call-spread width, the upside risk disappears entirely — you keep premium if the stock stays near the strike, with risk only on the downside.

A reverse jade lizard sells an out-of-the-money call and a bull put spread below the price. It is the mirror of the jade lizard: when the credit collected is at least the width of the put spread, the downside risk vanishes, leaving only upside risk from the short call.

A ratio call write owns 100 shares and sells two calls against them. One call is covered by the stock, the other is naked, so you collect double the premium of a covered call — but you take on uncapped risk if the stock rallies through the strike.

A jelly roll pairs a long call calendar spread with a short put calendar spread at the same strike. The directional exposure cancels, leaving a nearly flat payoff whose value comes from the difference in carrying costs — interest and dividends — between the two expirations.

A double calendar sells a near-term put and call and buys longer-dated put and call at the same strikes — a put calendar below the price and a call calendar above it. It builds a wide profit "tent" that pays off if the stock stays between the two strikes while the near-term options decay.

A ratio put write pairs short stock with two short puts at a strike below: one put is covered by the short shares, the other is naked. You collect double premium and profit most if the stock drifts down to the strike, but you carry risk on a large move either way — unlimited above from the short shares, and accelerating below the strike from the naked put. It is the bearish mirror of the ratio call write.

A long put butterfly buys one higher-strike put, sells two middle-strike puts, and buys one lower-strike put, all equally spaced. It is a defined-risk, low-cost bet that the stock will pin the middle strike at expiration. The payoff is a tent identical to the long call butterfly at the same strikes — maximum profit at the body, small loss (the debit) beyond the wings.

A long put condor buys the two outer put strikes and sells the two inner ones, spreading a butterfly out into a flat-topped tent. It is a defined-risk, net-debit trade that profits if the stock finishes anywhere between the inner strikes at expiration — a wider, more forgiving target than a butterfly. The payoff matches a long call condor at the same strikes.

A put broken wing butterfly is a put butterfly with the lower wing pushed further out, skewing the risk to one side. It is long one near put, short two middle puts, and long one far lower put. Widening the lower wing often turns the trade into a net credit that carries no risk to the upside — you keep the credit if the stock rises — in exchange for a larger, but still defined, maximum loss on the downside.

A put christmas tree butterfly is a skewed, budget butterfly: long one put near the money, short three puts a couple of strikes lower, and long two puts one strike lower still. The uneven quantities create a cheaper, bearish-leaning tent whose profit zone sits below the current price. It is the put-side twin of the call christmas tree butterfly, with defined risk.