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Navigating NVIDIA Earnings Led Volatility with S&P 500 OptionsNVIDIA will announce its Q2 2025 results on 28th August. The semiconductor giant is expected to deliver USD 28.6 billion in revenues. Even a mild shortfall can send its stock prices tanking. The firm is slated to scale even greater heights on continued AI hardware demand & explosion in data centres. ANALYSTS REMAIN BULLISH NVIDIA enjoys buy rating with 12-month price targets ranging from USD 90 to USD 200 per share across 52 analysts. Forty-seven analysts have strong buy rating followed by nine buys and five holds based on 61 analysts issuing ratings over the last three months. The firm has a commanding position in the AI-driven chip market. Booming demand for GPUs in data centres and cloud computing serve as relentless tail winds. NVIDIA EXPECTED TO DELIVER INCREDIBLE RESULTS ON GROWING AI DEMAND AI demand is palpable. This demand is vindicated by eye popping financial performance. Few can deliver higher earnings without comprising margins. NVIDIA has crushed both. Its revenues have risen 5.6x since 2019 while its net income has risen 10.6x during the same period. Its net income margins have expanded two-fold from 25.6% to 48.9% in the same time frame. Little surprise that its shares are up 162.71% so far this year far surpassing S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and other mega caps. NVIDIA IS EXPECTED TO EXTEND ITS DOMINATION Tech firms are in early stages of AI hardware adoption, driving demand for NVIDIA’s chips. Its data center business is a key revenue driver, benefiting from growing AI workloads. Source: Statista NVIDIA’s AI GPUs are crucial for machine learning and neural network tasks. GPUs will contribute to 40% of its total revenue in 2024. The firm continues to expand its CUDA software ecosystem. CUDA enables developers to optimize AI workloads. Combination of hardware and software makes its ecosystem extremely sticky. It locks in developers & clients contributing to long-term revenues. Furthermore, NVIDIA’s long-term roadmap includes innovations in AI chips designed for specific tasks, such as inferencing and deep learning, areas where its competitors have struggled to gain traction. RECAPPING NVIDIA’S RECORD SHATTERING Q1 2025 EARNINGS The firm delivered record quarterly revenues of USD 26 billion (up 18% QoQ & 262% YoY), primarily driven by a 427% surge in Data Center business. Its net income of USD 14.88 billion and diluted EPS of USD 5.98, marked 21% and 629% increase respectively YoY. The gross margin rose to 78.4%, up 2.4% QoQ & 13.8% YoY. The firm also announced ten-for-one forward stock split effective 7th June. It increased quarterly dividend by 150% to $0.10 per post-split share. On such stunning results, its share prices rose 9.3% after announcement. Even though NVIDIA share prices have risen, its price-to-earnings ratio have come off thanks to even sharper rise in its earnings. The price paid for each dollar of earnings is cheapest over the last eight quarters based on P/E ratio. The P/E ratio is down to 51x as of Q1 2024 compared to 144x as of Q1 2023. EARNINGS SURPRISES & SHOCKS AND ITS IMPACT ON STOCK PRICES NVIDIA’s quarterly earnings has crushed expectations 21 out of the last 22 quarters since 2019. Beating earnings has become par for the course for this firm. Even mild shocks can cause tremors in its share prices. It is no surprise then that the 12-month rolling beta of the firm is 2.78x making it highly volatile. Beta measures share price sensitivity to the overall market. It quantifies price moves of a stock to the broader index. BETA HEDGING NVIDIA STOCKS WITH S&P 500 MICRO INDEX OPTIONS Portfolio Managers holding NVIDIA stocks can cleverly use deeply liquid CME Micro E-Mini S&P 500 Index Options (CME Micro S&P 500 Options) to hedge against potential earnings linked price shocks. Holding NVIDIA shares while hedging the holding via CME Micro S&P 500 Put Options helps to build effective portfolio resilience. Investors are assumed to hold one-hundred shares for illustration. The notional value of NVIDIA shares is calculated using close of market price on 23rd August. Trading View publishes twelve-month rolling beta for each stock. It can be used for calculating the required number of S&P 500 index puts to hedge against downside price risk. We suggest adjusting the beta upwards (“Earnings Linked Beta”) by 50% to cater for earnings linked excess volatility. The notional value of options is calculated using Earnings Linked Beta. Two lots of CME Micro S&P 500 Options are required to hedge 100 NVIDIA shares. The table below demonstrates overall Beta Hedged P&L based on various price scenarios for NVIDIA share prices and S&P 500 futures price after earnings. Single stock options can be used to hedge. The cost of hedging using them would be expensive due to elevated IV levels during earnings. Investors must balance cost savings against basis risks. Please note that beta hedging involves basis risks. If the stock and index prices fail to move in tandem as expected, then beta hedge may not provide adequate protection from adverse price moves. The table below illustrates Beta Hedged P&L if index moves in a muted manner which is unlikely. The table below illustrates Beta Hedged P&L if index moves inversely to NVIDIA share prices. This scenario is a highly unlikely but is included for clarity of understanding and illustration purposes only. Investors can consider exploiting elevated implied volatility in NVIDIA options by selling calls to partly fund the purchase of index put options. By selling a 25-delta options expiring on 30th August, the investor creates a covered call strategy on the underlying NVIDIA stocks. A 25-delta call translates to a 142 strike and the last traded price on 23rd August was USD 2.70 per share. Investors can view up-to-date pricing sheets along with various options analysis tools on CME QuikStrike . The P&L of beta hedge plus covered call assuming expected index moves is as shown below: MARKET DATA CME Real-time Market Data helps identify trading set-ups and express market views better. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs tradingview.com/cme . DISCLAIMER This case study is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services. Trading or investment ideas cited here are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management or trading under the market scenarios being discussed. Please read the FULL DISCLAIMER the link to which is provided in our profile description.
NASDAQ:NVDALong
by mintdotfinance
Harvesting Alpha with Beta HedgingImagine this. Dark skies, earth tremors and thunder roars. Shelter is top priority. Size matters in a crisis. When the tsunami strikes and lightning splits the sky, investors shudder in fear; But the super seven stand tall, shielding investors from the fury. Dramatic metaphors aside, we truly live in unprecedented times. Risk lurks everywhere. List is endless. Unstable geopolitics. Sticky inflation. Recession expectations. Unprecedented deepening of yield curve inversion. Unfinished regional banking crisis. Weak manufacturing. Tightening financial conditions. Extremely divisive global politics, to just name a few. Despite severe headwinds, US equity markets are roaring. YTD, S&P is up +15% and Nasdaq is up +32%. At the start of 2023, the consensus was for US equities to be in doldrums dragged down by recession. Halfway through the year, markets are at the cusp of one of the best first half for US equity markets in twenty years. This is among the narrowest and top-heavy rally ever. Only a sliver of stocks - precisely seven of them - defines this optimism. This paper will refer to these as the Super Sevens. These are the biggest members of the S&P 500 index. Super Sevens are Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. This paper argues that the Super Sevens will deliver above market returns in the short term as investors seek safe haven from a vast array of macro risks. The paper articulates a case study to demonstrate the use of beta hedging to extract alpha from holding long positions in Super Sevens and hedging them against sharp reversals using CME Micro E-Mini S&P 500 index futures ("CME Micro S&P 500 Futures"). THE RISE AND RISE OF SUPER SEVENS Super Sevens have an outsized impact as S&P 500 is a market weighted index. Merely five of these seven form 25% of the S&P 500 market capitalisation. At $2.9 trillion in market capitalisation, Apple is greater than all of UK’s top 100 listed companies put together. If that were not enough, Apple's market capitalisation alone is greater than the aggregate market capitalisation of all the firms in the Russell 2000 index. Nvidia has been soaring on hopes of AI driven productivity gains. On blow out revenue guidance, it has rallied $640 billion in market cap YTD. That increment alone is larger than the combined market cap of JP Morgan & Bank of America the two largest banks in the US. The heatmap summarises analyst targets & technical signals on pathway for prices ahead: In part 2 of this paper, Mint will cover the detailed analyst price forecasts, technical signals and summary narratives covering value drives and intrinsic risk factors. WHAT DRIVES INVESTOR CONCENTRATION INTO THE SUPER SEVENS? As reported in the Financial Times last week, two broad market trends appear to have fed into this investor concentration. First, Passive investing. When funds merely deliver the performance of an index by replicating its composition, the higher the index weights, the more these passive funds buy into these names. Second, ESG investing. Rising push towards ESG has forced investment into tech and away from carbon-heavy sectors such as energy. Collectively, this has resulted in all types of investors – active, passive, momentum, ESG- all going after the same names. Question is, what happens now? Will the broader market catch up with the Super Sevens? Or will the Super Sevens suffer a sharp pullback? That depends on the broader US economy. Will it have a hard landing, soft landing, or no landing at all? Given market expectations of (a) resilient earnings capacity, and (b) solid growth potential among Super Sevens, we expect that in the near to mid-term the Super Sevens will continue to outperform the broader market. In ordinary times, investors could have simply established long positions in Super Sevens and wait to reap their harvests. However, we live in unprecedented times. WE LIVE IN TRULY UNPRECEDENTED TIMES Risks abound but no signs of it in equity markets. Historically, geopolitical instability, tightening financial conditions, and a deeply inverted curve could have led to crushing returns in the US equity markets. Not this time though. Peak concentration As mentioned earlier, bullishness in equity markets can be vastly attributed to just the Super Sevens. These seven have delivered crushing returns rising between 40% and 192% YTD. The S&P 500 index is market cap weighted. Super Sevens represent the largest companies in the index by market cap and their stellar performance has an outsized impact on the index. Is this a bull run or a bear market clouded by over optimism among Super Sevens? Deeply inverted yield curve In simple words, it costs far more to borrow for the near term (2 year) relative to the borrowing for long term (10-year). The US Treasury yield curves have been inverted for more than a year now. The difference between the 2-Year and 10-Year treasuries is at its widest level since the early 1980s. Inversion in yield curve has historically been a credible signal of recession ahead. When bonds with near term duration yield higher rates than those with longer-dated expiries, this precedes trouble in the economy. Recession. What recession? This period might go into the record books for the most long-awaited recession that is yet to come. For the last 12 months, experts have been calling for recession to show up in 3 months. While manufacturing sector seems feeble, labour market remains solid. Corporate balance sheets are robust. Consumer finances and consumer confidence are in good health. The VIX remains sanguine while the only fear indicator that appears unsettled is the MOVE index which indicates volatility in the bond markets. After having spiked earlier in the year, the MOVE is starting to soften as well. BETA HEDGING FOR PURE ALPHA In times of turbulence, risk management is not an afterthought but a necessity. Hedge delivers the edge. When there are ample arguments to be made for bullish and bearish markets, taking a directional position can be precarious. This paper posits Super Sevens holdings be hedged with CME Micro S&P 500 Futures. Hedging single stocks is nuanced. The stocks and the index do not always move in tandem. A given stock may be more volatile or less volatile relative to the benchmark. Beta is the sensitivity of the stock price relative to a benchmark. Beta is computed from daily returns over a defined historical period. Stocks with high Beta move a lot more than the underlying index. Stocks that move narrowly relative to its underlying benchmark exhibits low Beta. Beta hedging involves adjusting the notional value of a stock price based on its beta. Using beta-adjusted notional, hedging then involves taking an offsetting position in an index derivative contract to match the notional value. TradingView publishes beta values computed based on daily returns over the last 12 months. The following table illustrates the beta-adjusted notional for the Super Sevens based on the last traded prices as of close of market on June 16th. Beta hedging using CME Micro S&P 500 Futures enables investors to precisely scale their portfolio exposures to the index. A small contract size enables investors to manage risks with finer granularity. CME allows conversion of micro futures into a classic E-mini futures position, and vice versa. Round the clock liquidity combined with tight spreads and sizeable open interest across the two front contract months, investors can enter and exit the market at ease. BETA-HEDGED TRADE SET UP In unprecedented times like today, markets may continue to rally or come crashing. To harness pure alpha, this paper posits a spread with long positions in Super Sevens hedged by a short position in CME Micro S&P 500 Futures expiring in September 2023. This trade set-up gains when (a) Super Sevens rise faster than the S&P 500, or (b) Super Sevens suffers drop in value but falls lesser relative to S&P 500, or (c) Super Sevens gain while S&P 500 falls. This trade setup loses when (a) Super Seven falls faster than S&P 500, or (b) S&P 500 rises faster than Super Seven, or (c) S&P 500 rises while Super Sevens pullback Each CME Micro S&P 500 Futures has a multiplier of USD 5. The September contract settled on June 16th at 4453.75 implying a notional value of USD 22,269 (4453.75 * USD 5). Effective beta hedge requires that notional of the hedging trade is equivalent to the beta-adjusted notional value of single stock. Given the beta-adjusted notional value of USD 2,561 for single shares in Super Sevens and the notional value for each lot of CME Micro S&P 500 Futures at USD 22,269, the spread trade requires: a. A long position in 26 shares each across all the Super Sevens translating to a beta-adjusted notional of USD 66,576. b. Hedged by a short position with 3 lots of CME Micro S&P 500 Futures which provides a notional exposure of USD 66,807. The following table illustrates the hypothetical P&L of this spread trade under various scenarios: MARKET DATA CME Real-time Market Data helps identify trading set-ups and express market views better. If you have futures in your trading portfolio, you can check out on CME Group data plans available that suit your trading needs www.tradingview.com DISCLAIMER This case study is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment recommendations or advice. Nor are they used to promote any specific products, or services. Trading or investment ideas cited here are for illustration only, as an integral part of a case study to demonstrate the fundamental concepts in risk management or trading under the market scenarios being discussed. Please read the FULL DISCLAIMER the link to which is provided in our profile description.
NASDAQ:AAPLLong
by mintdotfinance
3
F/TSLA Beta Hedge , Just took a small starter in this trade .I think that there is a good possibility that , with Farley at the helm at Ford , which has also recently broken out of a 20 year base and just on Friday ( Dec 10th, 2021) broke out of a smaller base too, that we will likely begin to see F outperform TSLA . I am not saying that TSLA is going to capitulate or anything like that , but I am betting that Ford is going to become a pretty notable challenger for EV dominance and give TSLA a run for its leader status in the industry . I think that TSLA is going to have some difficulties keeping the same levels of growth up we have seen in its former years and whereas Ford is just getting started in the EV sector really and that is currently not priced in well to it's share price. So, I personally believe that the market is very inefficient in pricing Fords true value but that it eventually will correct this inefficiency . I could be wrong but even if I am , this trade probably has a pretty low probability of loss overall . I like the market caps vs share price of the two . TSLA - $ 966.55 per share with a cap of 979 billion . F - $ 20.68 per share with a cap of 89 billion . Ford is a sleeping giant here . Also , I really like Farley too and that's a big part of why I have high hopes for Fords future . Nothing against Musk either :) This is about making money though and I think it's a trade that has potential for profit greater than loss . If this goes the way I am hoping I will add when it shows us some more strength in the highlighted area on the chart .
NYSE:FLong
by NAK1987
2