Thread: Hi, I'm new, and I'm looking to buy options, someone talk me out of it

Results 1 to 5 of 5

  1. #1

    Default Hi, I'm new, and I'm looking to buy options, someone talk me out of it

    This is my first post, and I admit to joining with an agenda, I want to hear what some seasoned people think of my analysis of a particular option purchase I want to make. I have about a paragraph of a personal story here then I launch into a theory I have. My request (repeated below) is that you poke holes in my work, tell me what I might not be considering.
  2. #2

    Default

    I'm relatively new to trading. I landed my first real job a few years ago and it pays pretty decently. I'm pretty young (mid-20s) so I figured I wanted to be aggressive with my savings while I could still afford to be. Two years ago I decided to throw some money into the stock market and I didn't do to badly. I wasn't playing around with large sums of money (this is still true to some extent) so I didn't diversify at all, I followed specific stocks to learn. My first trade was Bank of America at around $5.5 off of the information that Buffet had bought it, and I did some research and realized that it was sort of a blind trade (i.e. Banks are notoriously difficult to analyze based off their balance sheets), so just trusting that Buffet had bought it was probably as good a strategy as any. Looking back I realize this trade was actually pretty stupid, even though I did double my money.
  3. #3

    Default

    I learned pretty quickly though. I'm actually quite proud of the research I did on my latest couple of stock picks. Now I get to my point. I want to talk about a particular company I've been researching, let's call the stock XYZ. I've done quite a bit of work on this stock, I've read old 10-Ks and 10-Qs of both it and its main competitors (of which it only has a few), I've watched trade show youtube clips and looked at historic trends. The company that I bought is a good value buy in my opinion because it has an absurdly low P/E ratio compared to its competitors (1/4 to that of the most comparable company).
  4. #4

    Default

    There is a good reason for this though, they've been publicly traded since about 2000 and over the past 5-6 years (except for last year) they haven't had the most stellar of results. However their founder retired 5 years ago and a really well respected manager stepped into the lead position and I think he's been making the right calls for a while and they finally posted a respectable profit last year given their size and industry. The profit has a caveat to it though, they sold a piece of Intellectual Property that wasn't core to their business model and that basically netted them most of their profit last year. I have already made a 50% return of off the stock (I bought at $17 and it is currently hovering around $25, but given what I'm investing it doesn't amount to all that much money given my research (I'm probably making close to minimum wage on my research, but I enjoy it). The siren song of options is calling to me.

    XYZ has been giving guidance out for the past few years and it has turned not only to be trustworthy, but also conservative. This year the guidance they're giving has them posting revenue of, let's say, $550 million, with an expected overall profit of ~$200 million. Last year they posted revenue of $400 million with a profit of $160 million, but (as said earlier) a significant portion (I think $130 million) was from their IP sale. Years before they were close to just breaking even. Their next closest competitor (in terms of business model, let's call them ABC) posted revenue of $2B with a profit of $370 million. In my opinion, I think XYZ is set to have a huge jump when they release their 10-K in 2014, because it will be the first year they posted such great revenue and profit simply executing their business plan.
  5. #5

    Default

    All things being equal and XYZ meets or exceeds their guidance I think a large call option purchase before the 10-K release is uniquely positioned to do well in this situation for several reasons. The company's revenue model is odd, they basically make half of their revenue in Q4 (confirmed by old 10-Ks), I think this artificially depresses their price until their Q4/10-K is released. They haven't posted their Q3 yet, but I doubt it will affect the stock price all that much ($25). I also think their price is depressed because if they truly deliver on their guidance this year it will be the first time they posted profit margins on significant revenue that is in line with the rest of their industry (in fact their guidance seems to beat the average profit margins of their industry). They have a P/E ratio of 6.25 right now (based off last years revenue), based on their guidance for next year they have a P/E ratio of 5.66. No competitor has a P/E ratio this low, the next lowest competitor has a P/E ratio of 14 (based on way more revenue). Their most comparable competitor (ABC again) has a P/E ratio of ~25; this competitor has posted about 4 times the revenue, but only twice the profit that XYZs guidance would deliver. I think that after Q4/10-K earnings the stock will correct to a higher P/E ratio.

    I really want to purchase some call options after Q3 earnings (if the price continues to hover around ~25).

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts