[trader220]

Buying calls is a suckers game. Because of the nature of the volatility curve, straight long calls (as long as they’re not parity calls) will always underperform the market if the stock goes up.

Long put and long stock = long call. If ABC is trading at 100 bucks common sense says that the 90 strike put should be priced the same as the 110 call, they’re both 10 bucks out of the money. The mathematical probability that either will be in the money at expiration is roughly equal, except that assumes normal distribution on a bell shaped curve. The 90 put will always be more expensive than the 110 call because of the shape of the volatility curve. Long put and long stock is known as the "synthetic" or "Synthetic call". Institutional traders, if they are going to be leaning long on a directional play will almost always use the synthetic version.