LEAPS Options Explained: 3 Real Long Call Trades (Google and Nvidia)
By Stephen Manning · @StephenCFU on X · · 9 min read
What a LEAP is and how to pick one, through three real long call trades on GOOGL (Alphabet) and NVDA (Nvidia), plus a cheaper spread and the risks.
A LEAP is a long-dated option, usually a year or more from its last day. In early November 2026, Kyle, one of our traders at Cash Flow University, closed three LEAP calls that together made $2,460.
Two were on GOOGL (Alphabet) and one on NVDA (Nvidia), one contract each, held from under a day to one week.
I'm Stephen, from Cash Flow University. This is education, and none of it is advice.
The trades are Kyle's real fills, posted to our members, before fees. The option prices are real quotes, dated on each chart.
What is a LEAP?
A LEAP is an option with a long time left before it expires, usually a year or more. LEAPS stands for Long-term Equity Anticipation Securities.
An option is a contract on 100 shares, and its price, called the premium, is quoted per share. A call is the right to buy 100 shares at a set price, called the strike, until a last day, called the expiration. So a $41.10 premium, like Kyle's first call, costs $4,110 for one contract.
When you buy a call, you pay the premium up front, and that's the most you can lose. If the stock rises, the call usually rises with it, and you can sell it any day before it expires.
Why does the long expiration matter?
Part of every option's price is time, and that part shrinks a little every day. The shrinking is called time decay, and it speeds up as the expiration gets close.
Take two NVDA calls with the same $165 strike, priced on November 13, 2026. The one expiring December 18, 2026 cost about $1,013 and lost about $17.59 a day to time decay. The LEAP, expiring December 17, 2027, cost about $3,190 and lost about $4.51 a day.
So the LEAP cost about three times as much, and lost about a quarter as much each day.
What is delta?
Delta is how much a call's price moves when the stock moves one dollar. The December 2027 NVDA call had a delta of about 0.6, so if NVDA rose a dollar, the call would rise about 60 cents a share, or about $60 on the contract.
So a LEAP gets most of the stock's move, loses little to time, and costs a fraction of 100 shares, which cost about $16,000 on November 13.
Kyle's three LEAP trades
Trade one: GOOGL, five days
On October 30, 2026, GOOGL was near $278.76, down 31.8% from its May 18 high of $408.61. Kyle bought one GOOGL $280 call expiring September 17, 2027, at $41.10 a share. It cost $4,110, and 100 shares would have cost $27,876.
On November 4, with GOOGL near $293.66, he sold the call at $50.00, for $5,000. That's $890, or 21.65%, in five days. The 100 shares would have made $1,490, using about 6.8 times the money.
Trade two: NVDA, under a day
On November 10, NVDA dropped to about $168.40. Kyle's chart showed support there, a price where the stock had stopped falling before. He bought one NVDA $165 call expiring December 17, 2027, at $36.55 a share, for $3,655.
The next day, NVDA bounced to about $176.47, and he sold the call at $41.75, for $4,175. That's $520, or 14.23%, in under a day.
After the close that day, a news report about Nvidia's CEO came out, and NVDA fell about 8% after hours. Kyle had sold a few hours earlier, with no way to know that report was coming.
Trade three: GOOGL, one week
On November 5, GOOGL dropped to about $283.84. Kyle saw support just below that price, and he bought again: one GOOGL $290 call expiring December 17, 2027, at $46.00 a share, for $4,600.
One week later, on November 12, GOOGL was near $299.94, and he sold the call at $56.50, for $5,650. That's $1,050, or 22.83%. Kyle called it his most profitable LEAP yet, and it's the biggest LEAP close in his posts back to July 2024.
How do you pick a LEAP?
Picking a LEAP comes down to three choices: the expiration, the strike and the size. Kyle's LEAPs usually have about a year left when he buys them, give or take a few months, which keeps the daily decay small and gives the trade room to work. These three had 10.6, 13.2 and 13.4 months left.
For the strike, a call is in the money when its strike is below the stock price, and out of the money when it's above. A lower strike costs more and moves more like the stock. A higher strike costs less, but the stock has to climb further before it pays.
On November 13, 2026, with GOOGL near $294.26, its December 17, 2027 calls showed the trade-off. The $240 call cost about $8,205 and moved about 79 cents for each dollar GOOGL moved, the $290 about $5,373 and 63 cents, and the $350 about $2,968 and 44 cents.
Break-even at expiration is the strike plus what you paid. For the $350 call, that's $350 plus $29.68, so GOOGL would need to be above $379.68 at expiration.
Kyle's strikes here were all close to the stock price. For the size, on his second GOOGL trade he told members to pass if it was too large for their account.
What is a call debit spread?
A call debit spread is a cheaper version of a long call, and Kyle gave members one for smaller accounts. You buy the call, and you sell a call with the same expiration at a higher strike, which pays you something back.
You still pay to open it, and that payment is called the debit. The trade-off is a cap: the most the spread can be worth at expiration is the gap between the strikes.
An example, built on Kyle's $290 fill and real quotes: on November 5 at 10:38 AM ET, buying the GOOGL $290 call at $46.00 and selling the $340 call at its $26.50 bid, the most any buyer was offering, cost $19.50 a share. That's $1,950, less than half the $4,600 call.
Here the strikes are $50 apart, so the spread can be worth at most $5,000 and gain at most $3,050.
A week later, the spread had gained about $155 if the $340 call was bought back at the ask, the lowest any seller was offering, or $220 at the midpoint between the bid and the ask. The call that was sold rose too. In the same week, the full call made $1,050.
What are the risks of LEAPS?
A LEAP can lose everything you paid. If the stock is below the strike at expiration, the call expires worthless.
Kyle had that happen with a DIS (Disney) $125 call expiring March 20, 2026. He paid $1,230 in July 2025, about 8 months before it expired. DIS never reached the strike, and he lost all $1,230.
His note to members on it: losses are fine, as long as they're sized properly in your account.
Before expiration, a falling stock pulls the call down too. The NVDA LEAP from trade two was worth about $3,190 on November 13, two days after Kyle sold it, which is $465 below the $3,655 he paid.
A LEAP's price also depends on implied volatility, which is how much traders expect the stock to swing. If that expectation drops, the call can lose value even when the stock doesn't move. That NVDA call stood to lose about $64 for each one-point drop in implied volatility.
These three were winning trades. Not every LEAP works, and past results don't promise future ones.
Recap
The video and Kyle's trades
Kyle posts his LEAP trades to our members at Cash Flow University.
Educational content. Not financial advice. Options carry risk of loss. A long call can lose the full premium paid, and past results don't promise future ones.