Traders more than doubled their money on Schaeffer's recommended put
Subscribers to Schaeffer's Weekend Trader Alert newsletter just more than doubled their money with our Box Inc (NYSE:BOX) June 22 put option recommendation. Below, we'll explain how this options trade more than surpassed its expected target, leaving the stock's options traders with a big win.
When we initially recommended the put to subscribers on April 29, the software concern had suffered a huge bear gap in late February. The stock was down nearly 10% year-over-year, and was trading around its post-gap highs in the $20.50 area, which had emerged as resistance that could knock BOX even lower.
Despite its February plummet, analysts were still quite bullish on the equity. At the time, BOX held nine “buy” ratings and only four “hold” ratings. Plus, the consensus 12-month price target of $24.85 sat in BOX’s pre-bear gap region, and represented a solid 22% premium to current levels, making the stock vulnerable to downgrades and price-target cuts.
A large amount of open interest at the May 21 call also looked to potentially serve as a short-term ceiling for BOX. Plus, the equity sported an extremely low 20-day put/call volume ratio of 0.04 on the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX). The last time this specific ratio was this low, BOX shares struggled.
Options were attractively priced, too. BOX’s Schaeffer’s Volatility Index (SVI) of 41% sat in the relatively low 15th percentile of its annual range. This meant that near-term options were pricing in relatively low volatility expectations.
Following our late-April recommendation, BOX steadily moved lower on the charts, suffering no fewer than five bear gaps. The steepest pullback came on the second trading day of June, after the cloud name lowered its full-year revenue forecast and reported a first-quarter loss. A handful of downgrades and price cuts also occurred as predicted, fueling BOX's collapse. The security not only immediately fell beneath our required price to make a profit, but allowed us to exit at $5.76, helping traders lock in a 161% gain in under eight weeks.
