Own the stock + sell a call against it. Generates monthly income. Caps your upside at the strike. The classic 'enhance return on stocks I already own' play.
Covered call = own the stock + sell a call against it. Generates monthly income from the call premium. Caps your upside at the call's strike — you're effectively selling that future gain.
Best on stocks you'd be willing to sell at the call's strike anyway, or stocks you expect to be range-bound. Bad if the stock rallies hard past your strike — you watch the upside go to someone else.
You own 250 shares of RELIANCE (1 lot) bought at ₹2,500. Current price ₹2,520. Monthly RELIANCE options available.
Sell 1 lot of next-month 2,600 CE at ₹40 premium. Receive ₹40 × 250 = ₹10,000 income.
If RELIANCE closes below ₹2,600 at expiry: call expires worthless, you keep the ₹10,000 plus the shares. You can do this again next month.
If RELIANCE closes above ₹2,600: shares get called away at ₹2,600 (you sell at the strike) plus you keep the ₹10,000. Total proceeds = 2,600 × 250 + 10,000 = ₹6,60,000 — better than just owning if you'd planned to sell anyway.
Aggressive (high income, more upside cap): 2-4% OTM call. Higher premium but you'll be called away on modest rallies.
Moderate (balanced): 4-6% OTM call. Premium is meaningful; calling-away requires a meaningful move.
Conservative (low income, less cap): 7-10% OTM call. Smaller premium but only called away on big rallies.
Range-bound stocks. Premium collected month after month with no calling-away.
Dividend stocks you're holding long-term. Income on top of dividends.
Stocks at resistance. The 2-5% OTM call near resistance pays you to take an exit-at-resistance plan.
Yes for stock options on NSE — they trade in lot-sized contracts. If you hold 100 shares and the lot is 250, you can't write a covered call on that holding. You'd need 250+ shares to write one lot.
No — NIFTY itself isn't tradeable. The closest equivalent is buying a NIFTY-tracking ETF (NIFTYBEES) and writing calls on... but NIFTYBEES doesn't have listed options. For index-level covered calls, you'd have to construct it via futures + short index calls (a more advanced 'synthetic' position).
Dividends are paid to the stock owner, which is still you (you own the underlying). The call holder gets nothing from the dividend. Dividends don't affect covered call mechanics.
Common: 4-6% OTM. Captures meaningful premium (typically 1-1.5% of stock value per month) while only being called away on real rallies. Adjust based on your view — bullish? higher strike. Want max income? lower strike.
Yes — if the stock rallies and you want to keep it, you can buy back the call (probably at a loss to its current value) and remove the upside cap. Useful for stocks you've decided you want to keep long-term despite the prior covered call.