How to Start Trading META Options: February 11th Expiration Strategy Guide

When you’re beginning to explore options trading, understanding the mechanics behind put and call contracts is essential. Meta Platforms Inc (META) recently presented new trading opportunities through February 11th expiration options. For investors looking to start trading these derivatives, Stock Options Channel’s analysis identified two contracts worth examining, each representing different approaches to generating income or executing investment strategies.

Understanding Put Options: A Beginner’s Guide to Generating Trading Income

If you’re starting your trading journey and want to own META shares at a discount, the put option path offers an intriguing alternative. At the $660.00 strike price, the put contract carries a bid of $23.45. Here’s how this works for someone beginning to trade: when you sell-to-open this put, you’re essentially agreeing to buy META shares at $660.00 if the option is exercised. However, the premium you collect ($23.45) effectively reduces your purchase cost to $636.55 per share—a meaningful discount from the current $670.83 trading price.

The mathematics here appeal to disciplined traders: this $660.00 strike represents approximately a 2% discount to current levels, meaning the contract is out-of-the-money. According to Stock Options Channel’s analytical data using greeks and implied volatility metrics, there’s a 56% probability this put contract expires worthless. If that happens, your premium income translates to a 3.55% return on your cash commitment, which annualizes to 86.46%—what Stock Options Channel terms the YieldBoost return. For someone starting out in trading, this illustrates a core concept: you can profit even when the stock price doesn’t move in your predicted direction, as long as it stays above your strike.

Covered Call Strategies: Starting Your Trading Journey with Call Options

For traders beginning with a different approach, the call option offers another framework. If you purchase META at today’s $670.83 price and simultaneously sell a call contract at the $675.00 strike (with a $22.40 premium), you’ve executed what’s called a “covered call” strategy—one of the most common approaches when starting to trade options.

This method caps your upside but provides immediate income. The $22.40 premium you collect drives your total potential return to 3.96% if the stock is called away at February 11th expiration. Unlike the put strategy, you retain share ownership if the option expires worthless—keeping both your shares and the $22.40 premium. Stock Options Channel’s analytics suggest a 53% probability of this outcome. Should the contract expire without being exercised, that premium boost equals a 3.34% extra return, or 81.25% annualized YieldBoost.

The $675.00 strike sits approximately 1% above current prices, making it out-of-the-money. This positioning is critical when starting to trade covered calls: you’re selling upside potential for current income, betting that META won’t dramatically surge by February 11th.

Comparing Risk and Reward: Which Strategy to Choose When Starting Out

Understanding volatility is fundamental when you begin trading options. The implied volatility for both these META contracts sits around 50%, while the actual trailing twelve-month volatility (measured across 251 trading days) calculates to 38%. This gap matters: higher implied volatility makes options contracts more expensive, affecting both your costs and potential returns.

For someone starting to trade, the choice between put and call strategies depends on your market outlook. The put strategy works best if you genuinely want to own META at a lower cost and are willing to tie up capital. The covered call approach suits traders who already own shares or are willing to buy them, seeking incremental income while accepting limited upside. Both demonstrate that options trading doesn’t require predicting dramatic price moves—small, calculated steps with clear probabilities can build consistent returns.

To deepen your options trading knowledge and explore additional contract ideas, visit specialized resources like Stock Options Channel, which continuously tracks contract odds and provides detailed analysis on trading opportunities across multiple underlyings.