Goodyear Tire & Rubber (NYSE: GT) shares are trading higher today after the company posted third-quarter earnings of $31 million, or 13 cents per share. GT's adjusted profit of 43 cents per share beat analysts' estimates of 33 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 GT.

GT opened this morning at $10.06. So far today the stock has hit a low of $9.43 and a high of $10.67. As of 3:00, GT is trading at $9.58, up 0.66 (7.4%). The chart for GT looks neutral and S&P gives GT a 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider a December bull-put credit spread below the $7.50 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 a 19.0% return in just seven weeks as long as GT is above $7.50 at December expiration. Goodyear would have to fall by more than 21% before we would start to lose money. Learn more about this type of trade here.

GT hasn't been below $7.75 at all in the past year and has shown support around $8.50 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 GT.