Vision Advisors’ principal objective in its Equity Portfolio is to seek returns from a diversified group of large cap U.S. traded equities that it believes have the potential to outperform the S&P 500 Index over time. The Equity Portfolio is primarily composed of a diversified portfolio of large-cap stocks that currently exhibit a high degree of financial strength and potential for growth. The total amount of diversification is a function of the total amount of the individual client’s funds invested in the E-Portfolio. An account with a smaller amount invested generally will incorporate fewer stocks and therefore be less diversified.
Vision Advisors’ research efforts focus on identifying companies that have sustainable gross revenue (top line) and earnings or net income (bottom-line) growth, competitive advantages and strong returns on equity. Vision Advisors selects and purchases stocks based upon its research and evaluation of a given company. During this process, we will review a given company’s past revenue and earnings growth, current cash flow status, debt factors, financial ratios such as the price-earnings ratio (“PE”) and additional ratios and factors we deem to be relevant.
Securities in the Equity Portfolio may represent several sectors of the economy, but generally will not be concentrated in any one sector or constitute more than 15% in any one issuer. Securities are sold when Vision Advisors deem the ownership of that company is no longer attractive, or to replace that security with another security that we believe is more attractive. Considerations to sell a security may include deceleration in sales or earnings growth or expected future growth, a high stock price based on PE Ratio or key management changes, among other factors.
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 Equity 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 works 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 will attempt 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. Further information about writing covered calls may be found here.
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 the 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.