Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN - option chain) shares are rising today after voters in Ohio approved ballot measures to allow casinos in four cities in the state. PENN lobbied heavily in favor of the measure and will build two of the casinos, in Toledo and Columbus, which are scheduled to open in 2012. 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 PENN.PENN opened this morning at $27.49. So far today the stock has hit a low of $27.49 and a high of $28.88. As of 11:40, PENN is trading at $28.32 up $2.12 (8.1%). The chart for PENN looks bearish and S&P does not currently have a STARS rating for PENN.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a January bull-put credit spread below the $22.50 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 8.7% return in four months as long as PENN is above $22.50 at January expiration. Penn would have to fall by more than 20% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.
PENN has not been below $22.50 since March and has shown support around $24.50 recently.
Brent C. 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 PENN.
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