Agree To Purchase Priceline.com At $720, Earn 7.6%

Investors eyeing a purchase of Priceline.com Priceline.com (NASD: PCLN) shares, but tentative about paying the going market price of $1003.44/share, might benefit from considering selling puts among the alternative strategies at their disposal. One interesting put contract in particular, is the January 2016 put at the $720 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of $54.50. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 7.6% return against the $720 commitment, or a 3.3% annualized rate of return (at Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost).

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Selling a put does not give an investor access to PCLN's upside potential the way owning shares would, because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised. And the person on the other side of the contract would only benefit from exercising at the $720 strike if doing so produced a better outcome than selling at the going market price. (Do options carry counterparty risk? This and six other common options myths debunked). So unless Priceline.com sees its shares fall 28.4% and the contract is exercised (resulting in a cost basis of $665.50 per share before broker commissions, subtracting the $54.50 from $720), the only upside to the put seller is from collecting that premium for the 3.3% annualized rate of return.

Below is a chart showing the trailing twelve month trading history for Priceline.com, and highlighting in green where the $720 strike is located relative to that history:

The chart above, and the stock's historical volatility, can be a helpful guide in combination with fundamental analysis to judge whether selling the January 2016 put at the $720 strike for the 3.3% annualized rate of return represents good reward for the risks. We calculate the trailing twelve month volatility for Priceline.com, Inc. (considering the last 250 trading day closing values as well as today's price of $1003.44) to be 24%. For other put options contract ideas at the various different available expirations, visit the PCLN Stock Options page of StockOptionsChannel.com.