Blue Horseshoe Stocks: Earnings-Related Options & More

American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.  AEO – Options Idea

Earnings-related options ideas are among some of our favorite plays to track, and that’s what we’ve got here with AEO this morning. American Eagle had a mixed earnings release, satisfying on profit expectations while falling short of on both sales and outlook. Granted that the stock was already looking a bit top-heavy, we’re feeling bearish about this play for the short-term.

To coincide with that instinct, we’re going to signal our interest in a range of puts in the AEO options chain. For possible quick-strike trades, we’re going to be looking at the AEO Weekly $19.50-16.50 Puts.

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Splunk, Inc. SPLK – We’ve also got a bullish options idea to bring to the table with SPLK, and this one is earnings-related as well.

The company posted a strong quarterly report yesterday and is surging as a result. In this case we’re going to highlight and track the SPLK Weekly $60.50-62 Calls.



Petrobras Argentina S.A.  PZE

While we’ve mentioned Petrobras countless times in our reports in the form of PBR, this marks the first occasion upon which we’re focusing on its Argentinian counterpart. The stock has been getting absolutely hammered of late, and with an OPEC deal seemingly close at hand, oil has begun to run. That’s why we’re going to be tracking this one over an extended time period from this point forward.

Should the production cut go off without a hitch, it sets PZE (as well as other oil stocks) up to regain a good bit of the ground lost in past weeks, so we’ll want to put this one on bottom-watch in the days and weeks ahead.


Extended Watchlist:
ICBU, GEYI, GLBS, PBR, FOLD(Bottom-Watch)

Blue Horseshoe Stocks: Options Review & More

Yesterday’s Options Ideas

The options ideas contained in yesterday’s premarket report ended up performing extremely well for us, further outlining why we focus so often on options trading.  

For American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. AEO, we were interested in $15-16 Weekly Calls after noticing its earnings beat, and we met with possible gains in all cases:

-The $15 Calls traded as low as .80 before hitting a high of 1.25, a gain of 56%

-The 15.50 Calls traded as low as .30, and hit a subsequent high of .75; an intraday increase of 150%

-The 16$ calls traded as low as .16 and hit a high of .35, which is equal to a 118% move.

Abercrombie & Fitch ANF was trending in the opposite direction, so we ventured a few conservative ideas* for Weekly $23-24 Puts and the stock continued its decline throughout the session, enabling considerable profits:

-The $23 Puts saw a low of .87 low and closed at 2.74 for an impressive 215% run.

-The $23.50’s rose from a 1.20 low and ended up closing at 3.00, marking a 150% jump.

– The $24 Puts went from a 1.53 up as high as 3.84, an intraday gain of 151%

This morning, ANF is continuing its decline in premarket trading, so traders who chose to hold any of these contracts would be up even more than the figures listed here.

*Please note that the contracts we selected, while they obviously did extremely well, were fairly deep into the money so as to play it relatively safe. Traders looking to assume a bit more risk could have chosen to strike outside of the money, and it would have paid off in a big way. For an example, we can refer to the ANF $21 Puts which traded in a range from .10-.90. (+800%).


Infosonics Corp. IFON

After appearing in yesterday’s extended watchlist, IFON rapidly produced a hearty early-morning rip. The stock opened up at 2.34 and ran as high as 3.18 in the first ten minutes of trading! Quick-witted traders could have come away with rapid gains of up to 36%


Extended Watchlist:
EYES, ARWR, ONCY, AVEO, NAVB

Blue Horseshoe Stocks: Pharma Watchlist & More

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. LXRX

We’re taking notice of LXRX this morning in the wake of a premarket PR that has the stock trending up to its highest levels of the past three months; it contained updates on current projects as well as increased earnings. The addition of an interesting setup on the chart gives us good reason to place LXRX on watch this mid-week.

As you can see on the snapshot below, the stock gapped down significantly at the end of November. In premarket activity today we’re seeing a partial fill taking place. We’re going to be watching for LXRX to fill the remainder of the gap into the mid 1.20’s where its next area of resistance will come in at the 200DMA of 1.28.

THE WOODLANDS, Texas, March 4, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (LXRX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing breakthrough treatments for human disease, today updated its drug development progress and reported financial results for the three months and year ended December 31, 2014.>> VIEW PR


Pharmaceutical Watchlist

There are a number of other pharma and biopharma stocks gapping up in the premarket this morning, some of which have appeared in our reports in the past. We’ve listed them below along with links to today’s news, where applicable:

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. KERX


Atossa Genetics, Inc. ATOS


Coronado Biosciences, Inc. CNDO

Coronado Biosciences Forms New Subsidiary, Checkpoint Therapeutics, to Develop Novel Immuno-Oncology Antibodies (Wed 8:30AM EST)

PhotoMedex, Inc. PHMD

Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. OREX

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. KBIO


Earnings-Related Options Ideas

American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. AEO beat expected Q4 profits and revenues, and is gapping up as a result. To take advantage of the trend, we are monitoring options trading possibilities in the AEO Weekly $15-16 Calls

Abercrombie & Fitch ANF fell short of expectations with regard to sales, which is fueling a downtrend here in the premarket, so we’ll take the opposite approach here, and keep an eye on ANF Weekly $23-24 Puts.


Extended Watchlist:
IFON, PLUG, NPTN, WLT, LEI