Coventry Health Care (CVH - option chain) shares are rising Tuesday after the company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $109.08 million, or 74 cents per share, on revenue of $3.42 billion. Analysts had forecast a profit of 56 cents per share on revenue of $3.49 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 CVH.CVH opened this morning at $23.81. So far today the stock has hit a low of $22.83 and a high of $23.99. As of 11:40, CVH is trading at $23.22 up 78 cents (3.5%). The chart for CVH looks bullish bullish and S&P gives CVH a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy ranking.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an April bull-put credit spread below the $20 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 13.6% return in two months as long as CVH is above $20 at April expiration. Coventry would have to fall by more than 13% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.
CVH has not been below $20 since November and has shown support around $22 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 CVH.
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