← Back to Playbook
LEAPS (Long-Dated Call)
growth Capped lossA long-term, stock-replacement bullish bet.
⚠ A directional growth play, not income — never auto-picked for income. (Its backtest ran in a bearish window.)
When to use it
High-conviction multi-quarter bullish thesis. Buy a deep-ITM call expiring 12+ months out as a leveraged stock substitute.
Max profit
Unlimited to the upside.
Max loss
The debit paid.
Payoff at expiry
illustrative shape — not to scale
■ profit zone
■ loss zone
X axis = stock price at expiry →
How it's built
Strikes shown low→high. Sell = collect premium · Buy = pay premium for protection or upside.
Hermes-evaluated setups
High-conviction per-ticker applications — setups with a confidence-adjusted win rate ≥ 80% over ≥20 backtested trades (95% lower bound — honest for the sample size, never a raw 100%). Avg P/L is the mean profit/loss per one-contract position.
| Ticker | Win Rate | Avg P/L / contract | Sharpe | Trades | DTE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QQQ | 87% | +$4,955.00 | 4.5 | 82 | — |
| SPY | 85% | +$3,272.00 | 4.2 | 82 | — |
| VOO | 85% | +$3,020.00 | 4.2 | 82 | — |
| VTI | 82% | +$1,249.00 | 3.7 | 82 | — |
Backtested results are not a guarantee of future performance.