Long-dated bull verticals

Two books, same cushion

A call debit buys the lower-strike call and sells the higher-strike call. You pay a net debit; that debit is the most you can lose. A put credit sells the higher-strike put and buys the lower-strike put. You collect a net credit; defined risk is width minus that credit. When the strikes match, both are the same expiration bet: the stock holds near or above the short strike.

Cash is not the same as prepaid loss. The debit is paid up front. The credit sits as defined-risk collateral, not spare cash to invest. RANK uses each row’s own fee-adjusted natural ROI. Credit does not win because cash sits in the account.

Assignment differs. An ITM short call can be assigned into a short stock position. An OTM short put usually expires worthless if the stock holds; if it does not, assignment means long stock. These rows are research examples, not advice.

What a bull call spread is

A bull call spread — also called a call debit spread, a long call spread, or a bullish vertical debit — buys one call and sells a higher-strike call on the same stock with the same expiration. You pay a net debit to enter. That debit is the most you can lose at expiration. The short call lowers the cost and caps the gain at the higher strike.

The outlook is moderately bullish: you want the stock up enough to reach or hold the short strike, not an unlimited breakout. Risk and reward are both defined before the order is sent.

What this board screens

This ledger lists mostly in-the-money and at-the-money long-dated verticals, about 3–13 months out — call debit and put credit. The short strike sits from about 20% below today’s price through a few percent above it. A short call there is usually ITM; a short put at the same strike is usually OTM. The aim is a steadier, capped return if the stock holds near or above that short strike by expiration — not a far-out-of-the-money lottery on a breakout.

Strike sleeves, in words: deep cushion (short strike 12–20% below spot), mid (6–12% below), near (1–6% below), and ATM (0–3% above). Steadier and high-octane describe the stock’s past price path. They are labels, not a recommendation to buy.

The three numbers

• Max loss = net debit paid
• Max profit = (short strike − long strike) − debit
• Breakeven = long strike + debit

Below the long strike at expiration both calls expire worthless and the debit is lost. Between the strikes the payoff rises with the stock. At or above the short strike the gain is capped.

Hypothetical, not a live quote: stock at $100, 180 days left, buy the $90 call and sell the $95 call for a $3.50 debit. Max loss is $350 per spread. Max profit is $150. Breakeven is $93.50. The short strike is already below today’s price, so the stock does not need a rally for the spread to finish in the profitable zone — it needs to hold.

Long-dated / LEAPS vs a diagonal

A LEAPS call spread is the same two-leg vertical with both calls long-dated. This board is that structure on a 3–13 month window, not a three-year LEAPS. A poor man’s covered call buys a long-dated call and sells a nearer-dated call at a different expiration, then rolls the short leg. That diagonal is not what the table lists. Every row here uses one expiration.

A put is not a cover on this spread

A same-expiry long put adds crash P&L but always cuts the spread's cap. At the long call strike, a put struck there or lower is worthless, so the package can still lose both debits.

Worked from a posted WMT 85/90: $3.60 mid debit, about $1.39 of cap. Recovering that debit with the stock at 85 needs a put at 88.60 or higher. That put is deep in the money today. Any put mid at or above $1.39 makes the up-case a losing package, so this board will not list it. We do not invent a put price.

A PUT APY below the spread APY is the capped up-case after buying the listed put; RANK ignores it. No PUT line means no same-expiry quote kept max return positive and improved the crash result. Open the row for the side-by-side cost, return, APY, and crash comparison.

Versus a long call or a far-OTM debit

Selling the higher strike cuts the debit versus buying the lower call alone, so breakeven is lower and the most you can lose is smaller. The tradeoff is a hard cap. ITM and ATM spreads pay more debit than far-OTM tickets and need less of a rally; far-OTM spreads are cheaper and only pay if the stock makes a large move.

How this ledger uses the words

• Cost — call rows show ASK debit and MID. Put rows show CREDIT now and defined risk (width − credit). Neither is a fill. Credit is not spare cash.
• Cushion — distance from today’s price to the short strike. Not protection and not a probability of profit.
• APY — ASK and MID max return × 365 / days left. RANK uses the ASK run-rate. Not a yield.
• Breakeven — call: long strike + debit. Put: short strike − credit.
• Geometry — ASK / WIDTH is how much of the capped payoff is paid up front. FILL GAP is ASK minus MID as a share of width. INTRINSIC / TIME splits the ask debit using today’s stock price; it is not a valuation.
• Level distance — a compact E50, E200, ATR, 20-day, or 52-week label places the short strike against the nearest nightly stock-price level. It is context, not a target or forecast.

Rank, HIT, and TYP

RANK sorts the board by a bounded hold score: that row’s calendar APY (debit or credit), quote fillability, quality/Calmar/Sharpe, cushion versus typical drawdown, a small HIT tap, path median and left tail, and a crisis penalty. Call and put compete in one sort. It is not a trade rank and not advice.

HIT is the share of this ticker’s completed same-length stock holds where expiry close finished at or above this ticket’s relative short strike. It needs at least 30 windows or the cell is blank. TYP is the median underlying return over those same holds, clipped at ±40% for display. Both are stock-path facts — not option P&L, not a fill, and not a probability of profit.

Open-row evidence also reports how often the minimum close breached the relative short during matching holds, median intra-hold drawdown, and median time below the short. These are stock-path observations. Exact posted episodes show natural and midpoint paper marks. The ledger-wide natural line reports the share of scored marks above zero, with sample and missing counts; it is not a forecast.

Shorter DTE raises displayed APY; RANK caps that calendar APY at 100% for scoring. A 40% max return in 106 days prints about 140% APY; the same 40% in 379 days prints about 40% APY, so the longer ticket can still rank higher. A longer ticket is a different hold — more calendar, often a different sleeve — not a worse copy of the short one. Do not annualize by stacking two shorts. Open a row to see the other live windows on the same ticker, or type the ticker in search. Those rows are two same-expiry verticals, not a calendar. A calendar would buy one farther call and sell a nearer call at another expiration — not listed, not scored.

Exhaustion chips (Pro) filter names from nightly EXH-BUY / seller-zone flags. The public /track-record scores seller-exhaustion RELEASE over 21 sessions. The same tab shows the stock path at these 90–400 DTE holds — leftover vs SPY is about zero. EXH does not validate the vertical.

Research examples only. Not personalized advice. LOPJLB does not place these trades.