Married Puts: A Way to Get the Cow and the Milk for Free

If you did some bottom-fishing in technology stocks last year, or early this month for that matter, odds are you went through some pain.

Owning a put option on your bottom-fishing candidate would have helped you avoid that wrenching feeling of being separated from your money. With that put option in place, you would have had insurance on your long stock position, as well as a few good nights' sleep.

Not that you necessarily should be, but if you insist on bottom- fishing in this ugly market, the married put strategy is a good thing to know about. A married put is the simultaneous purchase of a put and a corresponding amount of the underlying security. ...