I'm going to place my next trade tomorrow. It's going to be a "financing" trade.
I'm going to sell -3 vertical WMT (Walmart) Apr08 52.5/55 bear call spreads @ limit of $0.55. The will yield a total credit of $1.55. Then I'm going to purchase 1 KO (Coca-Cola) Apr08 60 put for $1.65.
The above will result in a debit of $0.01 plus the commission of $12 for a total debit of $22.
WMT, trading at 50.79, hasn't traded higher than $51.57 for the last year.
KO, trading at 59.96, has been trading in a channel from 56.49 to 60.83. That's a channel that is 4.35 in width. Right now it's just off the high of the channel and 3.47 from the bottom. If I even get a 50% retracement, that's a profit of 1.73. It has so far only taken 5-10 trading day for the stock price to move from the top to the bottom (or vice versa) of the channel.
I chose to use WMT to fund KO because they don't trade at parity, but WMT tends to trade in the same general general direction, but much flatter. The swing of KO are wilder.
My max loss is, theoretically, kind of high. It's a $5.85 (the 2.5 between the vertical strikes times the three contracts). My max profit (unless KO just breaks down) is $1.73. That's a risk reward of over 3/1. But statistically, and technically, the odds of hitting maximum loss are very low. I also realize that the greeks will work against me a little. But this will be offset somwhat by my put and the longs.
Plus, neither KO or WMT has any earnings report of dividends in the next 30 days.
The market is looking very sour, even with the Fed's actions. If the both WMT and KO head south, I only stand to make more. Both from the put on KO and buy being able to buy the WMT closing trades for far less than I sold them.
The real fear is that KO doesn't go south and WMT heads north. I still don't believe that I'll suffer losing the full spread between the vertical stikes, but it'll devalue my KO put and make the WMT shorts a little more expensive, off-put by the longs, thankfully.
My negative exits are if neither move after 2 weeks or if WMT goes half way between the 52-week high and the shorts. I'll also bail if KO breaks out above its channel.
My positive exit will be if KO reaches a 75% retracement. I'll sell the WMT vertical shorts if they devalue by 75%. I'll hold on to my longs if I think WMT will rebound. If not, I'll sell them, too.
Anyway, that's my plan for tomorrow. I'm going to wait for 0930 EST (30 minutes after the opening bell) to place my order so that I can get a feel for where the stocks are going to go based on the Fed's rate cut.