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December 20th Options Now Available For Western Midstream Partners (WES)

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Investors in Western Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:WES) saw new options begin trading today, for the December 20th expiration. One of the key inputs that goes into the price an option buyer is willing to pay, is the time value, so with 303 days until expiration the newly trading contracts represent a possible opportunity for sellers of puts or calls to achieve a higher premium than would be available for the contracts with a closer expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula has looked up and down the WES options chain for the new December 20th contracts and identified the following call contract of particular interest.

The call contract at the $35.00 strike price has a current bid of 30 cents. If an investor was to purchase shares of WES stock at the current price level of $30.59/share, and then sell-to-open that call contract as a "covered call," they are committing to sell the stock at $35.00. Considering the call seller will also collect the premium, that would drive a total return (excluding dividends, if any) of 15.40% if the stock gets called away at the December 20th expiration (before broker commissions). Of course, a lot of upside could potentially be left on the table if WES shares really soar, which is why looking at the trailing twelve month trading history for Western Midstream Partners LP, as well as studying the business fundamentals becomes important. Below is a chart showing WES's trailing twelve month trading history, with the $35.00 strike highlighted in red:

Considering the fact that the $35.00 strike represents an approximate 14% premium to the current trading price of the stock (in other words it is out-of-the-money by that percentage), there is also the possibility that the covered call contract would expire worthless, in which case the investor would keep both their shares of stock and the premium collected. The current analytical data (including greeks and implied greeks) suggest the current odds of that happening are 99%. On our website under the contract detail page for this contract, Stock Options Channel will track those odds over time to see how they change and publish a chart of those numbers (the trading history of the option contract will also be charted). Should the covered call contract expire worthless, the premium would represent a 0.98% boost of extra return to the investor, or 1.18% annualized, which we refer to as the YieldBoost.

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Meanwhile, we calculate the actual trailing twelve month volatility (considering the last 251 trading day closing values as well as today's price of $30.59) to be 23%. For more put and call options contract ideas worth looking at, visit StockOptionsChannel.com.