Yesterday afternoon prior to FB’s Q4 results, I bought a Feb weekly / March regular Call Calendar (below). My thought was FB’s results would be decent enough to keep the stock from giving back a good bit of its recent gains, but not good enough to have the stock outperform the implied move (10%) on the upside. I wanted to take advantage of the inflated vol in the weekly calls to help finance the purchase of March calls as I do feel the stock has more upside once it bases a bit more btwn 30 and 31.
The stock has had a pretty volatile 22 hours since last night’s print, after initially trading down to almost $28 in the after-hours, the stock settle at about $30.50. Then this morning Citibank’s internet analyst downgraded the stock and after opening at $29, down about 8%, the stock has spent most of the day rallying, and now unchanged on the day.
SO WHAT TO DO NOW WITH THE SMALL LOSING POSITION?
The Feb weekly 34 calls that I am short are worthless with the stock at 31.11, I will let these expire tomorrow. My real decision is what to do with the March 34 Calls that I am long for .65. With the stock at 31.25, these calls are .55 bid, and they have a 25^, meaning they should move about .25 for every dollar the stock moves.
At this point it is really a market call, and frankly while I think the market is set up for a near term decline, it does not show too many signs that it ever will.
Option 1: Sell the March 34 calls for .10 loss
Option 2: Spread the March calls by selling a higher strike call and reduce my break-even and my risk
At this point I am going to give it one more day before I make my mind up, unless the stock continued to rally and I had the option of potentially locking in a gain. I will be sure to post any updates on the trade from here.
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Original Post Jan 30th, 2012: New Trade $FB: Poking Weekly Vol to Friend March
Last Friday in a Name That Trade post, I detailed a strategy for existing long holders of FB shares to add some juice on the upside to their long position. I did not do this because I believe one way or the other that tonight’s earnings event will be catalyst one way or the other to propel the stock immediately back to its ipo price of $38, but I do believe if the company can make incremental progress on monetizing mobile users, investors will stick with the stock back towards IPO break-even in the near term. I think there is a very strong likelihood that FB gets back to $38 at some point this year, but it will be a process, the stock will have to grow into the valuation so to speak.
Enis believes the stock will be range bound in the near term, regardless of tonight’s results and guidance, and he has a trade on to reflect that view (here), and I don’t disagree, but I think the bias is likely up as recently departed AAPL investors look for the next large cap tech growth story.
I am willing to make a bet that the stock does not outperform the implied move to the upside following the results and benefits from selling the very inflated upside weekly calls in an effort to help finance some of the longer dated cheaper ones.
Trade; FB ($31.16) Bought the Feb 1st weekly / March Regular 34 Call Calendar for .65
- Sold 1 Feb 1st weekly 34 calls at .60
- Bought 1 March Regular 34 calls for 1.25
Break-Even on Feb 1st Expiration:
- Profits If the stock is below 34 the Feb1 calls expire worthless and I am long the March 34’s for the difference between what I paid minus the loss or gain from the move and volatility coming in in March.
- This trade is a likely small winner tomorrow if FB stock underperforms its expected move (~10%). Even if it the stock is down slightly. It is a bigger winner if the stock is up slightly (towards 34) without an extreme move above that level. It is a small loser if the stock is down towards 30 and a big loser if the stock is down way below 30 or way above 34.
Trade Rationale: As I mentioned above Enis has a fly that targets the 30 strike and an inside move. If there is any risk to this trade (especially with the stock at 31) it is to the upside. This calendar trade is similar in that it is fading the move but with a slightly higher upside bias. These two trades work well together. Alone they are basically the difference between a slightly bearish biased trade vs a slightly bullishly biased.
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Original Post from Enis on Jan 30th, 2012 at 11:19am: $FB Q4 Earnings Preview
Event: FB reports their Q4 earnings after the close tonight. The options market is implying about a 11%* move following the results, which is below the 2 qtr average of 15.5%.
*With the stock trading at ~$31 the Feb1st weekly 31 straddle is trading around ~$3.35, so if you were to buy that you would need a move of at least $3.35 or ~11% by Friday’s close to break-even.
Sentiment: Wall Street analysts remain fairly optimistic on the stock with 27 Buys ratings, 12 Holds and 2 Sells, though the avg 12 month price target is only ~$34. Short interest has fallen dramatically in the past 3 months, and now sits at a mere 2.5% of the float.
Options volumes have shown an out-sized preference for calls for a month now. The 20 day average call to put ratio is around 2.0. The one week average is more skewed, around 2.6. Along with the increased call trading, open interest has shifted towards calls in the past month, moving from 1.3 calls for each put outstanding 1 month ago, to 1.55 today.
Price Action / Technicals: The technical set up in a stock like Facebook can be an valuable input given its short trading history, lack of comparable companies, and its murky fundamentals as it grapples with monetizing its massive user base. Also, you just happen to have a huge investor base that was left holding a loser after the first day of trading, and those investors have experienced the emotions of fear, total capitulation, and renewed hope in the span of less than 9 months. Let’s look at the lifetime chart:
[caption id="attachment_22140" align="alignnone" width="617"]
FB Lifetime Chart, Courtesy of Bloomberg[/caption]
I laid out in my post a few weeks ago my trade idea to take advantage of the 27 to 33 range in Facebook. The stock has continued to respect that range. The 33 area will be difficult to breach given how many losers in the stock are still hoping to get out for a minimal loss. Against that, the 27-28 area is significant support. It was resistance in November and December, so it likely acts as support, and the rising 50 day ma happens to be in that region as well.
Valuation / Fundamentals: Back in late Sept, Barron’s famously ran a cover story suggesting that FB shares “were still to pricey” when the stock was ~$23, citing what the secular computing shift from desktop to mobile and the risk that FB’s lacked a solid plan to monetize users on a 4 to 8 inch screen. Since the fall, the stock is up nearly 80% off of the lows as the company demonstrated better than expected results in mobile in Q3, particularly in the U.S.. Average revenue per user, or arpu, grew 22% year over year in North America, up from 11% in Q2. Investors will need to see a continuation of this trend, and a pick up in Europe (only grew 2% YoY) if the stock is to maintain its current upward momentum (approaching levels not seen since June, a month after the failed ipo. Investors also want to hear plans for other initiatives to further ring out sales from their supposed 1 billion user base.
FB shares of late have benefited from tech and growth investors who have pealed out of AAPL, now looking for the next double or triple. FB shares currently trade at 47x 2013 earnings estimates that are expected to grow 28% off of a very low base (.51 to .66) on sales of $6.5billion that are expected to grown 31% yoy. The stock is not cheap, but it is so early in the game, valuation should not be a huge focus for many investors.
Vol Snapshot: Feb1 weeklies are just above 160 vol, Feb regulars about 72 and March 52. The ATM straddle in the weeklies is about 3.35. There’s not a ton of historical vol data to go off of but the average vol across all months is just over 60 (red) and that puts it at about the average historical realized vol (peach?) in the stock:
[caption id="attachment_22153" align="aligncenter" width="626"]
IV30 vs HV360 from LiveVol Pro[/caption]
Implied vol in Feb and March should see the low 40’s following the earnings announcement.
My View: Facebook is still too early as a company to assess it on a true stock valuation basis. Too many unknowns to say, yes, this is an appropriate price for the company. Rather, it’s the classic story stock, with everyone pitching a tale, and buying it with the thought of, what do I think other people will pay for it in a week, a month, a year. As such, it’s very beholden to trader psychology.
My view for the past month has been that Facebook is range-bound. On the plus side, the company is doing a good job in the mobile space, and continuing to implement new monetization schemes. On the negative side, the stock has rallied into previous resistance, and has a huge investor base that just wants to get out without a major loss, and move on from this roller coaster ride. Unless the company shows drastic improvements in its underlying trends, I expect the 27 to 33 range to hold. That’s where the odds are, for a trade.