Bull Call Spread: An Options Strategy Dissected

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]All right, welcome to the Explainer.

[00:00:02]Today, we're going to break down a really interesting options trade. One that honestly looks like a total contradiction at first glance. We're going to figure out what the strategy was all about, so let's just jump right in.

[00:00:13]So, we're looking at a real trade someone made on Teva stock. And right off the bat, it's a head-scratcher. This person bought options betting the stock would go up, but then they turned around and sold even more options betting it would go down. I mean, what's going on there? Why on earth would you do that?

[00:00:29]Okay, let's get into the nitty-gritty.

[00:00:31]Here's exactly what they did. They bought five call options with a $12 strike price. That part's simple, right?

[00:00:37]They're hoping the stock goes above 12 bucks. But, at the exact same time, they wrote, which is just a fancy word for sold, 10 call options with a higher $15 strike price. That's a bet that the stock will actually stay below 15. See?

[00:00:50]It's a puzzle.

[00:00:52]So, to figure out what this investor was thinking, we've got to go back to basics for a second. We need to really understand the two sides of this coin, buying a call versus writing one.

[00:01:02]And this, right here, is the heart of the conflict. When you buy a call, you're an optimist. It's a straight-up bet that the stock is going to the moon, and hey, your potential profit is technically unlimited. But, when you write a call, you're doing the complete opposite. You're getting paid a little bit of money up front, the premium, and you're basically betting that the stock price is going to sit still, maybe even go down, because if you're wrong, and that stock takes off, your potential losses are, well, they're also unlimited.

[00:01:29]Okay, so we've got the theory down. Now, let's follow the money. How much did it actually cost this person to put on this weird, complicated trade?

[00:01:38]First up, the money going out. They bought five call option contracts. Now, just to keep things simple, we're going to talk about everything on a per share basis. So, at a dollar per share, that's five bucks out the door to buy those calls.

[00:01:51]But, remember, that's only half the story. They immediately got some cash in by selling or writing those 10 other call contracts. At 40 cents a pop, that brought $4 straight into their account.

[00:02:02]So, you can see it's already offsetting most of what they spent.

[00:02:06]So, you do the math. $5 out, $4 in, and the grand total, the net cost to get into this entire position was just a single dollar. And you got to understand, this super low cost is the whole reason anyone would even consider a strategy like this.

[00:02:21]This really gets to the core of what the investor was thinking. They weren't just bullish, it was a much more specific bet. They were saying, "Yeah, I think Teva is going to rise, but I think it's going to run out of steam right around that $15 mark."

[00:02:35]So, what's the dream scenario here? The absolute best thing that can happen is if the stock price lands exactly at $15 when the options expire. Let's walk through why. The five calls they bought with a $12 strike, well, they're now in the money by three bucks each. That's a $15 gain right there. And the 10 calls they sold at the $15 strike, they expire completely worthless, so they don't cost a thing. Perfect. So, you take that $15 gain, subtract the $1 it cost to get in, and the max profit is $14. Now, think about that. A $14 profit on a $1 investment, that's a 1,400% return. I mean, on paper, that sounds absolutely incredible, right?

[00:03:13]And yeah, a 1,400% return sounds amazing. But, and this is a huge but, what about the risk? This is where this whole strategy starts to get really, really dangerous.

[00:03:23]Before we go further, let's quickly define a super important term, a hedge strategy. All it means really is that your risk is capped, you know, from the very beginning. The absolute most money you could possibly lose on the trade.

[00:03:35]There are no nasty surprises.

[00:03:37]And this is where the wheels come off our trade. There's a really critical rule of thumb in options trading, which is that a strategy is only truly hedged if the number of options you write is less than or equal to the number of options you buy. Well, our investor wrote 10 calls and only bought five.

[00:03:54]They broke the rule. This position is unhedged and that means the potential for loss is, you guessed it, unlimited.

[00:04:02]So, let's stress test this thing. What happens if the investor's dead wrong?

[00:04:06]What if the stock doesn't stall at $15, but instead it just keeps on climbing?

[00:04:10]Okay, let's say the stock goes nuts and hits $50 a share. The five calls they bought, they do great. That's a $190 profit. But, remember this 10 calls they sold? That becomes a massive $350 liability. So, what's the final score? A shocking $161 loss all from a $1 bet.

[00:04:33]The thing that was supposed to make the money completely backfired.

[00:04:36]And the scariest part about an unhedged strategy like this, the pain doesn't stop. As the price keeps rising, the losses just get bigger and bigger. They accelerate.

[00:04:47]Let's push it even higher. Say the stock goes to $80 a share. Now the loss almost doubles to $311.

[00:04:56]The higher that stock price climbs, the deeper the hole gets for this investor and there is absolutely no limit to how much they can lose.

[00:05:04]So, now that we've seen the potential and pretty tiny profit and the absolutely terrifying risk, we can finally put the last piece of the puzzle together and understand why someone would do this.

[00:05:16]Okay, so here's the real reason for the trade. The goal wasn't really about the stock stopping perfectly at $15. That was just the best case scenario. The investor simply wanted to make a bullish bet by buying calls, but they didn't want to pay full price. So, they used the money they got from selling the other calls to finance the whole thing.

[00:05:34]It was just a way to turn a $5 bet into a $1 bet.

[00:05:38]You know, there's an exact price where this trade goes from making a little bit of money to losing a lot of money. This formula here basically represents that tipping point. It's the moment where the gains from the calls they bought get completely canceled out by the losses from the calls they sold plus that initial $1 cost. And when you solve for X in that equation, you get the break-even price, $17.80.

[00:06:01]If Teva stock closes just one penny above that price when the options expire, this whole thing becomes a losing trade.

[00:06:07]So, when you boil it all down, what have we learned? This strategy is, at its core, a big trade-off. Yes, it's a super cheap way to bet on a stock going up, but only a little bit. That discount comes with a huge catch. Your profit is capped, and you're exposed to massive, unlimited risk if you're wrong. You're trading safety for a lower entry price.

[00:06:28]And that really brings us to the question that's at the heart of so many trading strategies, right? Is it really worth it? Is dramatically lowering your cost of entry worth taking on the risk of a truly unlimited loss?