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Covered Call Writing - What affects the price of the options?
All else being equal, you should look for more volatile (riskier) stocks. Technically, it was all time value - the entire value of an "out of the money" option is time value.   What's confusing is that time value is affected by numerous variables, only one of which is time. The reason volatility is the one to look at is that all the rest are likely already intuitive to you, or are too minor an influence to worry about: Current risk-free interest rates and a stock's dividend payout during the life of the option affect the value of the call, but are usually minor infulences.   (Higher interest rates makes call values higher, and higher dividend yield makes call values lower.) Longer time to expiration will increase the value of the call, but you're pretty likely already focused on that. The strike price's proximity to the current price affects the call's value - agreeing to sell a stock 5% above current levels will pay more than agreeing to sell it 10% above current levels - but again, this is likely obvious to you. Volatility, or the percent by which the stock is likely to move up or down on a given day, is almost certainly the variable that's not already obvious. Stocks that jump all over the place have higher volatility than those that move more predictably.     The reason that options (calls and puts) cost more on higher volatility names is that options' payout is asymmetrical.  In the case of calls, the option holder gets all the upside, but none of the downside, other than what they paid for the opotion.     If one stock goes up or down $5 every day, and another goes up or down $20 every day and you could pay some fixed amount to get that stock's upside, but not have any exposure to its downside, other than that fixed amount, you'd pay more for the one that pays you $20 or $0 than you would for the one that pays you $5 or $0.    That's why higher volatility (meaning larger daily moves) makes optimum prices higher.