Let's look at an example of going long. It's January and you enter into a futures contract to purchase 100 shares of IBM stock at $50 a share on April 1. The contract has a price of $5,000. But if the market value of the stock goes up before April 1, you can sell the contract early for a profit. Buying one call option contract allows you to control 100 shares of stock without owning them outright, for a much cheaper price. Let's say I sell you a call option in GOOG for $1,020 (called a debit), at a strike price of $985, that will expire in 39 days (every option bought or sold will always have an expiration date). You pay me the $1,020 How does a stock option work? The following shows how stock options are granted and exercised: ABC, Inc., hires employee John Smith. As part of his employment package, ABC grants John options to acquire 40,000 shares of ABC’s common stock at 25 cents per share (the fair market value of a share of ABC common stock at the time of grant).