JP Morgan Short off All Time HighWith the stock market making new All Time Highs fresh new opportunities for contrarian trades are going to be somewhat scarce. Thanks to a viewer on my Livestream (every Friday on Tradingview: 4pm EST UTC-5) I was made aware of a short setup I like on NYSE:JPM
Context
This price action is happening at a test of the past ATH set in November 2021. Last week the Earnings announcement pushed price intraday above the high only to close well below the key Resistance level of the former ATH. This is a false breakout signal or as I like to identify them as: Spikes.
The Spike
The Spike occurred on Earnings. I have found that false breakouts on earnings have a very high probability of signaling a reversal. The significance value (135% ATR) is within my rules. It took until the following week for price to actually pull back to the proper entry point of the Spike bar's Tenkan Sen value at 172.48. What these factors mean I go over during my Livestream.
The Trade
How I am expressing this trade is in a combination of short shares and Puts.
In choosing my Put strike I look for where I see price going as a target via technical analysis. In this case it would be the 50% Retracement of the bullish trend around 155.
For expiration I consider the prior bullish trend that got price up to the high I am reading as a false breakout to enter. I project the time that trend took, add an additional month as a time buffer, and then typically take that expiration. Unfortunately, an option expiring in March as this technique would suggest puts the expiration too close and just before earnings.
A note about options and earnings: In the 4 weeks prior to earnings very typically a stock's options will experience a rise in IV (implied volatility). This rise in IV and the Greek Vega can increase the prices of all options often offsetting the value lost to theta time decay. This is a very advantageous condition if a trader is long single options. Therefor, I chose the April expirations to give myself the potential for the IV push. I will likely close the options the day before earnings regardless of where price may be. Options are a coin flip.