Get Paid for Agreeing to Buy Discounted Stocks I want

      Before jumping to this topic, let me just say that there may a great opportunity around the corner. Euro to me is a doomed currency and I'd like to bet that it may not be alive within 10 years. I made thousands of dollars early this year by shorting Euro (betting devaluation of Euro) and got out of the trade right at the bottom of it in Jun. I'm excited to see Euro is fighting back and appreciating substantially against US$. I think it is still a bit early but very close to its top again. When the time comes, it would be a great opportunity to short it again. Will let you know. Now back to the today's topic.

      If I ask you: which price you want to pay for a stock, at $50 or at $40, you may think what a stupid question I'm asking. If I ask again: how about another 12% discount to pay the stock at $35, you would think this guy looks like has lost his mind to even think about such a stupid question. If I ask further: how about you get paid to wait for the chance to buy the above stock with the discounts indicated above, you will certainly think this guy must be insane now without knowing what he is asking! But wait. I'm still mentally sane and it is indeed a legitimate way to invest. Let's see a real example. For my friends working in the pharma industry, many of you must know Genzyme, a Boston biotech company. It is famous for its medications for rare genetic diseases. About 2 years ago Genzyme got a big trouble due to a contamination issue in the manufacturing process. They had to recall some key products which significantly hurt its bottom line. The stock price has since dropped from $80 to around $50 early this year. This has really got my attention. Heck, Genzyme is a fundamentally very sound company with products which have very little competition due to their orphan drug status. Manufacturing problems are not deadly ones, which can be fixed eventually. To me, if the stock drops below $50, it is a good discount and I'd be happy to buy and hold. So I made the following trade. It is called Sell Put, an option trade.

GENZ Jan 21'12 $40 Put		$0.50					-10		$5.10			$4,582.33*			89.54%*

     Given that many friends may not be familiar with option, which requires some understanding of the underlying concepts, let me first explain what a put selling means with this real example. I will later post more on the technical details of option trading. For now, simply remember buying "Call" options means betting a stock price will increase (Call up) and buying "Put" options means betting a stock price will decrease (Put down). Therefore in contrast, selling call options means to bet a price decline and selling put options means to bet a price increase. In this case, I sold 10 contracts (1000 shares) of put option of GENZ for a strike price at $40 with a date of Jan 21, 2012. What it means is that, if GENZ price drops below $40 on the date of Jan 21, 2012, I will have the obligation to buy GENZ 1000 shares at $40. For this obligation, I'm immediately getting paid with $5.10 per share (ie $5100 for 10 contracts). If the price is above $40 on 21-Jan-2012, the option expires worthless and I'm off the hook completely and I keep the whole $5100 hard cash in my pocket. Of course, I can also get out of this trade (obligation) at any time before expiry (either with a loss or with a reduced profit depending on the stock market price). The beauty of such trading is that I don't use my cash upfront (but need 20% fund as collateral); rather immediately take in (paid) $5100 deposited in my account. Remember my 3 questions at the beginning? When GENZ was around $50, I wanted to buy it at $40 or below. Since I got paid with $5.1 per share, I would actually just pay about $35 per share ($40-$5.1), a 12% further discount, if I ever have to buy. For me agreeing to wait for the chance to buy at such discounted price within the next 18 months (up to Jan 2012), people are willing to pay me for the chance at $5.1 per share. Do you still think I'm a dummy and insane? A note of the position status. Since Sanofi is trying to buy Genzyme (a happy surprise for me), GENZ is currently traded at around $70, meaning less and less chance that it will drop below $40. Therefore, its put price is around $ 0.5 now. In other words, if I want to totally get out of this trade, I can buy back the put option at $0.5 per share (pay $500 for 10 contracts) to close the position, with a $4500 profit. Not a bad trade for about 6 months without using my own money upfront. I guess you will agree with me now that you probably don't every want to buy any stock outright at its market price, if selling put is possible for the stock. I certainly don't!

      I'm telling you this trade now because there may be a great chance in about a month or so for the Merck stock. Merck is currently being sued by J&J and the ruling may be come in about a month. If Merck fails, it may lose its main product, Remicade, a $2-3 billion blockbuster. If this really happens, I think Merck stock may get a hair cut. If it drops around $30, I think it will be a great buy and I will be looking at a trade to get paid for agreeing to buy Merck at a price much less than $30. My fingers-crossed!