RE:what to do future?Picked up 20 Jan 2019 $25 calls CDN for 2.10 over the last week. Think a year or so out, I will have a double on my 2.10. This gives me control of 2000 shares of MFC with only 10% Down. No dividends, but dollar for dollar upside beyond 27.10, and enough time to get there. Downside is limited to my cash outlay. The play is derisked to a certain extent by the long date, and the beta of 1.3 provides generous upside if the market goes up (my belief going forward). I have been using these long date options for a couple of years now with pretty consistent success. The investee companies have all been downtrodden or stuck in a rut for some time , and the rebound momentum has provided some real lift to the share prices.
As far as using option pricing, I would be a little leary of using it as a crystal ball of sorts. There is a market maker behind the quotes.....it seems there is so little market activity that the market maker is setting very artificial prices,....it took me almost a week of bidding to get my fills..and I was fighting the market maker on price at every turn.
I have recently retired ( a year ago) from being a licensed insurance agent .....Manulife was one of my product suppliers. I think very highly of them, and how they handled the downturn. It might seem that the stock has been stuck in neutral for a couple of years, but I don't think many folks realize how close we all came to financial Armageddon. My hope for my investment in Manulife is that the interest rate increases coming will give them a big lift, as I know from experience that they have very good people, and very good products.
Cheers GLTA
Mark