Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN - option chain) shares are rising today after the company reported earnings last night, posting a first-quarter profit of $81 million, or 37 cents per share.
Excluding one-time items, JWN earned 31 cents per share, topping analysts' forecasts of 26 cents per share. 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 JWN.
JWN opened this morning at $21.64. So far today the stock has hit a low of $21.41 and a high of $23.05. As of 11:40, JWN is trading at $22.68 up 1.73 (8.3%). The chart for JWN looks bearish and S&P gives JWN a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a July bull-put credit spread below the $16 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 6.0% return in just two months as long as JWN is above $16 at July expiration. Nordstrom would have to fall by more than 29% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.
JWN has not been below 16 at all since March and has shown support around $20 recently.
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 JWN
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