Visa (V) is due to announce after the close Tuesday.
So, as always, let’s go through the exercise of looking at a potential trade and its associated mechanics to see if Visa is offering a decent trading opportunity this time around.
Here is an early look at a potential earnings trade for next week. Hopefully this helps a few of you, particularly those that are new to earnings trades, with the mechanics of a trade.
[text_ad use_post='261460']
Iron Condor Earnings Trade in Visa (V)
Again, Visa (V) is due to announce after the close next Tuesday. So, let’s take a look at a potential trade using a risk-defined options strategy like an iron condor.
The stock is currently trading for 217.79.
The next item is to look at Visa’s expected move for the expiration cycle that I’m interested in.
The expected move or expected range over the next seven days can be seen in the pale, orange-colored bar below. The expected move is from 207.5 to roughly 227.5, for a range of $20.
Knowing the expected range, I want to, in most cases, place the short call strike and short put strike of my iron condor outside of the expected range, in this case outside of 207.50 to 227.50.
This is my preference most of the time when using iron condors.
If we look at the call side of V for the April 29, 2022, expiration, we can see that the 232.5 call strike offers an 88.34% probability of success and the 235 strike offers us a 91.79% probability of success. For this example, I’m going to sell the short call at the 232.5 call strike and define my risk with the 237.5 call strike. By choosing the 237.5 call strike to define my risk, I know that there is less than a 6% chance that I will take a max loss on the trade.
Now let us move to the put side. Same process as the call side. But now we want to find a suitable strike below the low side of our expected move, or 207.5. The 195 put strike, with an 91.24% probability of success, works as our short put strike. The 195 put strike defines our probability of success on the downside. I’m going to define my risk by choosing the 190 put strike with a 94.40% probability of success. This means we have less than a 6% chance of taking a max loss on the downside.
We can create a trade with a nice probability of success if Visa stays between our 37.5-point range, or between the 232.5 call strike and the 195 put strike. Our probability of success on the trade is 88.34% on the upside and 91.24% on the downside.
I like those odds.
Here is the trade:
Simultaneously:
Sell to open V April 29, 2022, 232.5 calls
Buy to open V April 29, 2022, 237.5 calls
Sell to open V April 29, 2022, 195 puts
Buy to open V April 29, 2022, 190 puts for roughly $0.67 or $67 per iron condor
Our potential return on the trade: 15.5%
Our margin requirement is $433 per iron condor.
Again, the goal of selling the V iron condor is to have the underlying stock, in this case V, stay below the 232.5 call strike and above the 195 put strike immediately after Visa earnings are announced.
Here are the parameters for this trade:
- The Probability of Success – 88.34% (call side) and 91.24% (put side)
- The maximum return on the trade is the credit of $0.67, or $67 per iron condor
- Breakeven level: 233.17 – 194.33
- The maximum loss on the trade is $433 per iron condor. Remember, we always adjust if necessary, and always stick to our stop-loss guidelines. Position size, as always, is key.
Remember, I prefer to make these trades the day before earnings are announced, so I would expect to see the premium a bit lower than it is now due to decay. So, premium could be an issue at the time of the trade. But I like to see where potential trades stand the week to a few days prior, so I have a good understanding of what stocks look appealing for a potential trade around earnings, which is why I go through this exercise with the stocks on my weekly earnings watch list.
Again, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me or post your question in the comments section below. And don’t forget to sign up for my Free Newsletter for education, research and trade ideas.