Buying a year or more of exposure for a fraction of the share price — and what that discount costs.
2 min read
LEAPS — Long-Term Equity AnticiPation Securities, an acronym nobody enjoys — are simply options with a long time to expiration, conventionally a year or more. Mechanically they're ordinary options. What changes with that much time is how they behave, and that changes what they're good for.
On the wheel you sell short-dated options to collect premium. A LEAPS position is the opposite trade: you buy one, and pay premium, to hold a long-run position in the stock for less capital than the shares would cost.
100 shares vs one LEAPS call
Stock at $100. 100 shares cost $10,000.
A $70 call expiring in 18 months costs $35.00 — $3,500 for one contract.
The call has $30 of intrinsic value and $5 of extrinsic (time) value.
Delta ≈ 0.85: the call gains roughly $85 for every $100 the shares would gain.
You control ~85% of the exposure for 35% of the capital.
Max loss: $3,500. Max loss on the shares: $10,000 — but only if it goes to zero.
The $6,500 you didn't spend is the entire point. It can sit as collateral for cash-secured puts elsewhere, or simply not be at risk.
$0.50 spread is $50 gone on entry and again on exit.Three things shares do that a LEAPS call doesn't
It expires. Shares let you be wrong for a decade; an option gives you a deadline, and being right afterwards pays nothing. It decays. That $5 of extrinsic value bleeds away even if the stock never moves — the position has to go up just to break even. It pays no dividends. On a stock yielding 3%, that's roughly 4.5% of forgone income over 18 months, which is a large share of the capital you saved.
There's also a volatility exposure that doesn't exist with shares. A long option gains value when implied volatility rises and loses it when volatility falls, so buying a LEAPS when IV is unusually high means paying for volatility that may simply drain away — even if you're right about direction. See the Greeks.
A LEAPS call is not part of the wheel cycle — it doesn't generate premium, it consumes it. Wheel Folio tracks LEAPS separately for that reason: mixing bought positions into wheel P&L would make the income figures meaningless. Two ways they connect:
A note on LEAPS valuation in the app
Wheel Folio's LEAPS P&L estimate uses intrinsic value only, because it doesn't pull a live options chain for long-dated contracts on every plan. That deliberately understates what a contract could actually be sold for — a call with a year left is worth more than its intrinsic value. Treat the figure as a floor.
Run the numbers: LEAPS Calculator
Breakeven, how much capital a long-dated call saves against shares, and what you're paying for time.
Educational only
Nothing here is investment, financial, or tax advice. Options carry risk, including losing more than the premium collected, and the examples use round numbers to show the mechanics rather than to suggest a trade. Read risk and position sizing before putting real money behind any of it.
The Poor Man's Covered Call
A covered call without the shares — cheaper, sharper, and unforgiving if you get the width wrong.
The Greeks & Implied Volatility
Four numbers that tell you what a position will do next. Delta and IV rank do most of the work.
Risk & Position Sizing
The part that decides whether a bad month is annoying or account-ending.