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BP plc (NYSE: BP - option chain) shares are rising today after the company reported earnings this morning, posting a third-quarter profit of $5.34 billion. Excluding one-time items, BP earned $4.98 billion, easily topping analysts' forecasts of $3.2 billion. 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 BP.BP opened this morning at $57.93. So far today the stock has hit a low of $57.41 and as of 12:00 is trading near its high on the session at $58.63 up $3.15 (5.7%). The chart for BP looks neutral and S&P gives BP a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a January bull-put credit spread below the $50 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 an 8.1% return in three months as long as BP is above $50 at January expiration. BP would have to fall by more than 14% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.
BP has not been below $50 since August and has shown support around $50 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 BP.
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