370 Part Ill: Put Option Strategies 
1. underlying stock price, 
2. striking price, 
3. time remaining, 
4. volatility, 
5. risk-free interest rate, and 
6. dividend rate. 
The relative influence of these factors may be a little more pronounced for 
LEAPS than it is for shorter-term equity options. Consequently, the trader may think 
that a LEAPS is overly expensive or cheap by inspection, when in reality it is not. One 
should be careful in his evaluation of LEAPS until he has acquired experience in 
observing how their prices relate to the shorter-tenn equity options with which he is 
experienced. 
It might prove useful to reexamine the option pricing curve with some LEAPS 
included. Please refer to Figure 25-1 for the pricing curves of several options. As 
always, the solid intrinsic value line is the bottom line; it is the same for any call 
option. The curves are all drawn with the same values for the pertinent variables: 
stock price, striking price, volatility, short-term interest rate, and dividends. Thus, 
they can be compared directly. 
The most obvious thing to notice about the curves in Figure 25-1 is that the 
curve depicting the 2-year LEAPS is quite flat. It has the general shape of the 
shorter-term curves, but there is so much time value at stock prices even 25% in­
or out-of-the-money, that the 2-year curve is much flatter than the others. 
Other observations can be made as well. Notice the at-the-money options: The 
2-year LEAPS sells for a little more than four times the 3-month option. As we shall 
see, this can change with the effects of interest rates and dividends, but it confirms 
something that was demonstrated earlier: Time decay is not linear. Thus, the 2-year 
LEAPS, which has eight times the amount of time remaining as compared to the 3-
month call, only sells for about four times as much. This LEAPS might appear cheap 
to the casual observer, but remember that these graphs depict the fair values for this 
set of input parameters. Do not be deluded into thinking that a LEAPS looks cheap 
merely by comparing its price to a nearer-term option; use a model to evaluate it, or 
at least use the output of someone else's model. 
The curves in Figure 25-1 depict the relationships between stock price, striking 
price, and time remaining. The most important remaining determinant of an option's 
price is the volatility of the underlying stock. Changes in volatility can greatly change 
the price of any option. This is especially true for LEAPS, since a long-term option's 
price will fluctuate greatly when volatility changes only a little. Some observations on 
the differing effects that volatility changes have on short- and long-term options are 
presented later.