Why don’t more people write covered calls? There are numerous reasons. The general population is unaware such investment exists. Only a hand full of investing services promote them but popularity has increased as more brokers push option trading strategies these days. Also, they do require a level of education to learn them in depth. The popularity increase has moved covered calls by leaps and bounds as it should. This is moving investing to the next level which is income investing.

Many financial advisors, brokers, planners, and others in the finance industry either are not comfortable with covered calls or simple don’t understand the opportunity for covered calls in their clients’ portfolios. Many advisors are fee-based and accept sizable commissions from funds to recommend their products. They make extra money when you buy these paid recommendations in place of a strategy such as covered calls. Basically, covered calls are just not on their priority list.

The information disseminated about covered calls by advisors and websites who don’t know the theory behind covered calls tend to paint the strategy as being dangerous with little return for the risk taken. Then, these same advisors recommend you to hold low performing stocks or churn your account to increase commissions. If they used covered call writing on the buy and hold stocks it would generate income that will lower overall risk of the investment.

How can producing income from an asset increase the inherent risk of owning an asset? This argument against covered call is nonsense on the face. For example, a real estate developer is usually willing to hold properties that generate positive cash flow. If they don’t cash flow, then you have a tax write off and a hope to sale at a higher valuation – sounds like buy and hold right!  Advisors recommend buying stock and funds based on commissions. If you are in the hammer business, everything looks like a nail.

Brokers fear liability when customers lose money, even on self-directed option trades and they make little on options trades.  The education of clients on options will increase the risk of them deflecting to discount options brokers online once they feel comfortable with covered calls.

You can’t blame the financial industry for doing what is in their best economic interest any more than in other industries such as plumbers, electricians, and other trades. Just recognize your interest are different than the financial industry in terms of your long-term investing. Advisors make money when you do and they make money when you don’t. Your choice is to rely upon their advice or handle your own investing. What should you do?

Here is a great quote from the greatest options expert Larry McMillan: “You will have to predict something in order to profit, for only market makers and arbitrageurs can construct totally risk-free trades that exceed the risk-free rate of return.” Regardless of your style, stock picking or options trading, you must make choices and you must predict outcomes.

At Get Rich Investments, we believe covered calls do require a prediction but they lower the overall risk of investing. They produce premium income to offset some downside in stock price movement. If used with dividend stocks, they add another layer of income. Then, we couple a portion of our portfolio to monthly dividend stocks to lower portfolio volatility and risk while maximizing total portfolio income.