Fast forward 2 days. XYZ won legal battle! Investors are more confident of stock and price jumps to $72. The $65 Call is now $7 In-The-Money and its premium is now $8.00. The $65 Put is now Way-Out-Of-The-Money and its premium is now $0.25. If we close out both positions and sell both options, we would cash in $8.00 + $0.25 = $8.25. That's a profit of $4.50 on our initial $3.75 investment!

Of course, we could have just bought a basic Call option and earned a greater profit. But we didn't know which direction stock price would go. If XYZ lost legal battle, price could have dropped $10, making our Call worthless and causing us to lose our entire investment. A Straddle strategy is more conservative and will profit whether stock goes up or down.

If Straddles are so good, why doesn't everybody use them for every investment?

It fails when stock price doesn't move. If price of stock hovers around initial price, both Call and Put will not be that much In-The-Money. Furthermore, closer it is to expiration date, cheaper premiums are. Option premiums have a Time Value associated with them. So an option expiring this month will have a cheaper premium than an option with same strike price expiring next year.

So in case where stock price doesn't move, premiums of both Call and Put will slowly decay, and we could end up losing a large percentage of our investment. The bottom line is: for a Straddle strategy to be profitable, there has to be volatility, and a marked movement in stock price.

A more advanced investor can tweak Straddles to create many variations. They can buy different amounts of Calls and Puts with different Strike Prices or Expiration Dates, modifying Straddles to suit their individual strategies and risk tolerance.

If you want to read more information on straddles and other option strategies, visit http://www.option-trading-guide.com/options_guide.html

Previous Residence? Zero to five years, some creditors only go to three years. Then score zero points. You move around too much! Over five years? Good. Score one point.

Years on Job? The longer better. Less then one year at present employer? Sorry, no points for you! One to three years? Give yourself one point. Four to six years is worth two points. Over seven years at same company score three points.

What kind of Job? Unskilled? You still get one point. At least you have a job! Skilled? Two points. Professional? Three points. The creditor decides classification. Use common sense, when scoring yourself.

Monthly Income? Should be obvious, more better! Under $800 a month earns you one point. Up to $1,000 gives you two points. Pull down $1,500 gives you three points. Over $1,800 gets four points. This score can vary quite a bit with different creditors. Depends on part of country you live in, type of job, many other factors.

How deep are you presently in debt? Nothing to $300 per month earns you two points. $301 to $500 gives you one point. Anything over $500 in most cases earns you no points.

Previous Credit History: Very important to all creditors. It's your track record and is a good indicator of how you should pay off debt in future. All creditors belong to at least one credit reporting agency. Information is shared. If you have a good credit history with company you're seeking loan from, all better. Of course they believe their own information more then somebody else's. So if you paid off a loan with them with no problems, most give you four to five points. Good record with other creditors should earn you two to three points.

Other Information: Having a saving and or checking account with a balance over $500 helps, if it's not something you just opened a few weeks ago. Should have been at least a couple years to do you any good. Most creditors give you a couple points. Phone in your name? gets you another two points.

OK now ad up your score. Remember more points you score better credit risk you are. Most creditors have a cut-off around eighteen points. Some will go as low as fifteen points, other higher then twenty. Again, it depends on availability of funds and built-in bias of creditor that you applied to. If turned down try somebody else!

A few points away from cut off? Well, you may be able to cheat a little. Not recommended, but if you're only a couple points away you may get your employer to say you worked longer then you have, or that you earn a little more then you do. If you don't rent or have a mortgage try an improve this situation to earn more points. Also consider building up your credit record by getting a secured loan. You will be usually issued a credit card as well. Not every bank provides this service, but a surprising number do. The only catch is of course you can't touch money in account, and if you don't pay off your credit card balance in full each month you will rack up quite a bit of interest charges on top of whatever you charge with credit card. Secured loans are not based on credit history because you put up funds equal to loan. It's a safe deal for bank and can help improve your credit rating. The catch is it takes time to build up your credit rating.

Another method is to open a regular savings account and deposit $200-$500. Leave it there 30 to 60 days, then get a loan on account. Pay loan off before due date. Withdraw part or all of money. Open another account at some other bank. Repeat process over and over. Your local credit bureau will get good reports on you, and before you know it, your mail box will be stuffed with offers for free credit cards - no more secured accounts, and you should have an easier time of obtaining credit. If all else fails, try to get a smaller loan, or see if someone is willing to co-sign.