PandoraOptions

Strike price

The fixed price at which an option can be exercised: the price where a call buyer may buy, or a put buyer may sell, the underlying shares. Strikes are set by the exchange in standardized increments, and an option’s entire payoff profile bends at this one number.

Every payoff diagram on this site is a straight line except at strikes — that is where calls and puts switch between worthless and share-like. Choosing a strike is therefore choosing the price level your thesis actually depends on.

Strike selection interacts with premium: further out-of-the-money strikes cost less and pay off less often. There is no free lunch in moving the strike, only a different trade-off.

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