Tuesday, November 20, 2007

have stocks bottomed? strategies forwardlooking

ok, does the market suck or what? I mean we are all getting hammered here. However, I have an idea that will bring money to the bank by next June. I'm going to be placing a bull credit spread on CRDN.

First of all, a little insight into spreads. Spreads can be horizontal or vertical. Horizontal means you buy / sell at the same strike price, different months. Vertical means you buy / sell at different strike prices on the same month. I think CRDN is grossly undervalued right now. At $43, it is victim to short sellers. The company reported good numbers, which fell below expectations due to one time taxes.

I have previously asserted my stance on CRDN, I think it can hit $100 after it receives MRAP II orders. However, at $43, it is trading at 8 times forward earnings. Either somebody knows something or it is just getting beaten up. I'd like to propose buying 10 June 50's and selling 10 June 80's. I'm not sure if you have to buy and sell at the same time. What I would prefer to do is buy 10 here (costing 5000) and sell 10 when CRDN goes up a little bit. That way I would lower my initial cost. Anyways, lets get to the point.

Lets say I buy 10 June 50's for $5.00 a contract. I wait two weeks CRDN recovers a little. I could just sell these, and make a profit, but I am long CRDN. I want to sell 10 June 80's. I sell them for $2.00 a contract. I know have an initial investment of $3000. Three different outcomes are possible.

The first is CRDN is less than $50 in June. I have limited my loss and will lose all $3000. I'm lucky I'm young because I can recover. The second outcome would be the share price would be between $50 and $80. This would give me some gain as long as the share price would be above 53. I paid 5-2 per contract, so 3 dollars a contract. As long as it's above 53 we are good to go. If the share price is above 80, I have made $30 per contract, with 10 contracts, that's $30000 of a $3000 investment.

Ultimately I would like to buy June 50's now and sell June 80's in a few weeks when I can get the same price. This would also enable me to risk nothing if I can buy and sell at the same price.

With the money, I would use $10k to pay off debt, $10k for a mutual fund and $10k on Ashley. This way everyone is happy. I have also looked into chinese stocks for this play and will keep you posted on any strategies I implement from now on.

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