Entering Stock Option Trades in a Brokerage Account

Question

Stock options can be traded as a single transaction or as a combination of two or more different stock options executed as one trade. As an example: I can sell short 1 XYZ Company Nov17 2021 10.00 Call option for a price of $3.00 giving me a credit of $3.00 and at the same time buy long 1 XYZ Company Nov 17, 2021, 15.00 Call option at a price of $1.00 creating a debit of $1. In this example, these two options executed as a single trade yields a net credit of $2.00. How do I enter this one (two-part) trade into my brokerage account within Quicken Premier?

q_lurker · Answer

Even though I trust that you answered Tom accurately (they are two legs of the same 'trade'), I think he is right that in Quicken you are going to have to treat them as two separate trades.  There are no provisions in the Quicken transaction library for such a multi-legged transaction.

felixrod · Answer

Thanks to Sherlock and Tom for the reply. Tom, to answer your question: No. The two legs are entered as a strategy making it one trade. As such, both legs of the trade must be executed at the same time; therefore, it is not possible to have separate settlements.

Sherlock · Answer

I suggest entering two transactions: a ShrtSell and a Bought