CBS: Volatility play

The mass-media company CBS Corp. (CBS), headquartered in New York City,  publishes earnings after the closing bell today, Feb. 12.

I shall trade the FEB series of options, which trades for the last time on Feb. 20, eight days hence.

[CBS in Wikipedia]

CBS

The goal of my trade is to construct a direction-neutral position with a zone of profitability at expiration covering all of the one standard deviation range implied by volatility and options pricing, or the 30-day hourly chart support and resistance range, whichever is wider. The Zacks Investment Research rating is neutral.

Ranges

Click on chart to enlarge.

CBS at 10:25 a.m. New York time, 30 days hourly bars

Implied volatility stands at 33%, in the 69th percentile of the prior uptrend.

Ranges implied by options and the chart

Week	SD1 68.2%	SD2 95%	Chart
Upper	59.45	62.23	57.50
Lower	53.91	51.13	54.39
Gain/loss	4.9%	9.8%

Implied volatility 1 and 2 standard deviations; chart support and resistance
The Trade

Iron condor short the $60 calls and long the $62.50 calls,
short the $53 puts and long the $51 puts
sold for a credit and expiring Feb. 21
Probability of expiring out-of-the-money

FEB	Strike	%
Upper	60	84
Lower	53	87

The proposed trade covers both the one standrad deviation range and the chart support and resistance range. The $2.50 width between the short and long legs of the calls and the $2 width of the puts was dictated in part by the distribution of open interest on the grid. I prefer three figures or better

A greater width, however, increases the risk-reward ratio to 7.3:1, way higher than I'm willing to accept.

Changing the structure to short the $59 call and $53 put, with a width for the long legs of $1 ($60 calls and $52 puts) produces a risk/reward of 3:1, just at the outer boundary of my criteria. However, that leaves 45 cents of the one standard deviation range uncovered, as well as lowering the out-of-the-money probability on the upside to 76%.


Decision for My Account

I don't like either trade. There's too much risk compared to the potential reward. Therefore, I won't be opening a position on CBS.

-- Tim Bovee, Portland, Oregon, Feb.. 12, 2015

References

My volatility trading rules can be read here. For a discussion of the rationale behind the rules, see my essay, "Rules for very short term trades".

The directional score is calculated as the sum of the following:

• Zacks rating --The Zacks ratings are translated as follows: 1=2, 2=1, 3=0, 4=-1 and 5=-2.
• Enthusiasm rating --: A single percentage derived from the number of analysts whose opinions are in one of five categories: Strong buy, buy, hold, sell and strong sell.
• Strong buy share -- The percentage of all analysts who rank the stock strong buy. If the share is 60% or greater, the score is 1; if 40% or less, then the score is -1; otherwise, the score is zero.
• Ethusiasm momentum -- The score is 1 if today’s enthusiasm rating is larger than the rating 30 days earlier; otherwise, the score is zero.
• 30-day direction -- The trend that best describes the 30-day chart: 1 for an uptrend, -1 for a downtrend and zero for a sideways trend.
• One-day direction -- The trend that best describes the one-day chart: 1 for an uptrend, -1 for a downtrend and zero for a sideways trend.

From time to time I use the number 68.2% in using applied volatility to calculate the expected trading range. This comes from statistics and refers to the one standard deviation boundaries, which are expected to contain 68.2% of whatever is being studied. Putting it another way, given an item (a trade or whatever), there is a 68.2% chance that it will appear within those boundaries.

Elliott wave analysis tracks patterns in price movements. The principal practitioner of Elliott wave analysis is Robert Prechter at Elliott Wave International. His book, Elliott Wave Principle, is a must-read for people interested in this form of analysis, as is his most recent publication, Visual Guide to Elliott Wave Trading. 

Several web sites summarize Elliott wave theory, among them, Investopedia, StockCharts and Wikipedia.


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Disclaimer

Tim Bovee, Private Trader tracks the analysis and trades of a private trader for his own accounts. Nothing in this blog constitutes a recommendation to buy or sell stocks, options or any other financial instrument. The only purpose of this blog is to provide education and entertainment.

No trader is ever 100 percent successful in his or her trades. Trading in the stock and option markets is risky and uncertain. Each trader must make trading decisions for his or her own account, and take responsibility for the consequences.

License



All content on Tim Bovee, Private Trader by Timothy K. Bovee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Based on a work at www.timbovee.com.