re: Anyone trade these LEAP calls before?

it lets you leverage up a long position thats it. The risk you run is if the stock collapses it goes to $0. Take Google its $695/share today so $65,900 buys you 100 shares. If I wanted to lay out the same money and get more shares I could buy the 2018 $500 calls for $220/share thus for $220 x 300 shares Id lay out $66,000 for 300 shares vs 100 shares.

Being 220/share and the strike at $500, google needs to be over $720/share in january 2018 for me to breakeven. At that point every dollar over $720 ill make $300 per dollar vs $100 per dollar

Its a tremendous strategy but it has risks of $0. If I buy 100 shares of google today and its $495 in 2018 i still have $49,500 if I buy those calls I have $0.

If you buy leaps what you need to do is sell calls weekly vs your position to reduce your cost basis.