The principal objective of the Balanced Portfolio is to provide income and capital gains from a combination of stocks (common and preferred), bonds, notes, cash, cash equivalents and option premium income. The equity portion of the Balanced Portfolio is managed using the methods employed to manage the Equity Portfolio accounts. Within the fixed income portion, securities are evaluated and selected based upon Vision Advisors’ interest rate assumptions, the U.S. Treasury yield curve, credit risk and a number of macro economic variables that may affect the relative performance of the specific bonds. Fixed income holdings can include preferred stocks, municipal bonds, corporate bonds, U.S. Government Agency debt securities and other debt instruments.
Vision Advisors also believes that it makes sound economic sense to employ, from time to time, a strategy of writing covered call positions against some or all of the stocks in the Balanced Portfolio.
The primary purpose of option writing is to earn additional income through premiums received from the buyers of the call options. By monitoring the volatility, delta and time to expiration, Vision Advisors seeks to optimize the tradeoff between receiving option premium income and the possibility of forgoing future price appreciation on the underlying stock above the written strike price of the option, until the option expires. At the same time, the investor receives a small measure of downside protection, to the extent of the net option premium received, should the price of the stock decline. By adding a covered call position to an existing long stock position, Vision Advisors attempts to enhance the potential overall return in the portfolio.
The goal of a covered call position is for the short option value to decay over time and allow the account holder to realize a gain, up to the total net option premium received, should the option position expire worthless. In order to calculate the gain or loss on the overall covered call position, one must measure the profit or loss realized during the period the covered call option position was open against the profit and loss of the open securities position during the same time period.
In addition to covered calls, Vision Advisors may, from time to time, purchase out-of-the-money put options to further add to the level of downside protection. The ratio of purchased put options may be less than the number of long shares of stock owned in the account. Please recognize that employing puts to help protect the stocks in an account is likely to temper total returns (due to the premium paid to purchase the put options), but does provide some downside protection against declines in value of the underlying stocks.
*Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. Prior to buying or selling an option, a person must receive a copy of Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options. Besides being accessible via our Web site, copies of the Options Disclosure Document are available from your Vision sales representative, or by calling 1-888-OPTIONS, or from The Options Clearing Corporation, One North Wacker Drive, Suite 500, Chicago, Illinois 60606.