Monsanto (NYSE: MON) shares are trading higher today after the company announced that it has finished its acquisition of Marmot, SA, which includes the Latina American seed company Semillas Cristiani Burkard. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on MON.

After hitting a one-year low of $58.50 in August, the stock hit a one-year high of $145.80 in June. MON opened this morning at $119.50. So far today the stock has hit a low of $119.28 and a high of $124.09. As of 12:20, MON is trading at $122.94, up $5.40 (4.6%). The chart for MON looks bearish and steady, while S&P gives the stock its highest 5 Stars (out of 5) Strong Buy rating.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an August bull-put credit spread below the $95 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make a 6.2% return in just five weeks as long as MON is above $95 at August expiration. Monsanto would have to fall by more than 22% before we would start to lose money.

MON hasn't been below $95 since November and has shown support around $110 recently. This trade could be risky if the price of oil falls sharply in the next month and a half, but even if that happens, this position could be protected by the support the stock might find at its 200 day moving average, which is currently around $110 and rising.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in MON.