Most people who lost their jobs in the past 2 years are familiar with the conventionally federal and state government run unemployment insurance. This program that pay ones a weekly salary of $405 (maximum, various by state) + $35 extra dollar implemented by President Obama in the Recovery Act. As most of us experience that $440 dollars does not quite cut it these days.
The weekly check of $440 barely covers life's necessities here in America. With millions of people having to pay their mortgages, student loans, car loans or leases, rents and food costs American life can be quite expensive. However one could benefit from this unfortunate and potentially financially devastating event.
How can one benefit from losing their job? Very simple, one can create their own unemployment insurance. Yes you heard me correctly, you can create your own unemployment insurance plans very cheaply. How does one create this plan? It's very simple and almost laughable. All one has to do is buy long-term out of the money put options of the company stock or related industry ETF. These options trade a mere pennies so the upfront costs are minimal.
Let's say you work at XYZ and you are uncertain about your future and XYZ's future. To protect yourself, all you have to do is buy long-term out of the money XYZ put options. This plan does have risks some of which are the company stock doesn't go down far enough to profit from these contracts. However, buy what you can afford and are comfortable losing.
Let's assume one's wants to buy 100 of these put contract at $0.10 per contract with a right to sell 100 shares at $2 (XYZ stock currently trades at $4 per share). One's total cost excluding commissions would be 100 contracts * 0.10 per contract * the right to sell 100 shares of the underlying stock in each contract which comes out to $1,000. Let's assume that in the future the stock prices falls to $1. You will profit handsomely on a $1,000 investment or your $1,000 unemployment insurance policy. Your profit from this event would be $9,000 ($1,000 outlay for purchasing 100 contracts, plus a $10,000 outlay for purchasing the stock in the open market at $1 minus exercising the put option with a right to sell the stock at $2 which would be $20,000).
We all know that $9,000 is not enough to cover expenses for very long but I kept the numbers small to illustrate how easy and cheap this can be done. Just multiply by a factor of 10 then your profit would be $90,000 ($10,000 outlay of purchase of 1,000 contracts at $0.10 each plus the $100,000 purchase of the stock in open market at $1 and executing the right to sell these shares at $2 which would be $200,000.
The likelihood of this event occurring is very small. The vast majority of these contracts will expire and you will be out the premium cost which I believe you could write off on your taxes. However, you may never want this even to occur because you will be out of a job. It's just like car insurance or life insurance, do you want really want your loved one to die or get into a car crash? That is why I call this insurance, "Just In Case Shit Happens" and you lose your job.
Some of you may feel that applying this form of insurance you may not feel that you are loyal. Worse your employer may have the same feelings. However, in our latest recession, how many employers were loyal to their employees? This has nothing to do with being disloyal or wishing your employer bad fortune, this is about protecting yourself and your family.
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