You can make money buying stocks and holding them for long periods, but you risk a large amount of capital when doing so. By contrast, buying calls can provide the same type of returns with less risk. The problem is that time decay works against you.

A strategy designed to compensate for this drawback is buying long-term calls on exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track major market indices, and selling them to buy options that expire even later — a technique called "rolling." The strategy uses Long-term AnticiPation Securities, or LEAPS, which are options that don’t expire for at least a year. These calls behave the same as regular calls, but are designed specifically for investors with longer-term time frames.

The goal is to profit from a call’s inherent leverage in a bull market. You can only lose the amount you paid for each call, which limit losses. All options expire eventually, but the rolling process allows you to stay in the trade.