Steve, my "mild fear" of options comes from ignorance, to be sure. For example, I don't really know what LEAPS are, please fill me in if you could.
It takes all kinds to make an investment world, or even a thread for that matter. My own situation is that of a long-time buy-and-hold investor who has had a computer now less than a year. In one of my previous lives, I would come down out of a logging camp with a few nickels, pick up a newspaper, find the Canadian chartered bank with the lowest price/earnings ratio, and buy it. This progressed to reading analysts' stuff from a full-service brokerage, then to listening (embarrassing to recall, even) to "what's hot" from my broker. All in all, the first system served me best, though it was of course based on trailing earnings, and a good analyst can give you a hint of what's happening in the current and coming years.
Two things I ask of the majority of portfolio; Preservation of capital with a return that beats inflation, and Dividends...i.e. the share of profit rightly shared among the owners of a business. Options give neither, they give leverage, which can work for you or against you....
Not that we can't have fun and even make a few nickels with the remaining minority of portfolio, considering that we're now so electronically connected and all, we need the excitement if nothing else, eh? I play right now with BNC, CGZ, AOG, HTRN, VTN.A, DEN, PLT, various others.......watch for a pop soon with both BNC and DEN.....But I still hold them all long, and am prepared to hold them all through extended periods of paper losses, something you can't do with options......
I finally started up the thread on Pembridge, not the treatise it deserves, but time is short here in the spring.....I believe there are options available on PEM, at the AGM they "approved an increase in its option pool to mantain a balance of 10% of shares outstanding."
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