For today’s trade of the day, we will be looking at a monthly chart for United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL), states Chuck Hughes of Hughes Optioneering.
Before breaking down UAL’s monthly chart let’s first review what products and services the company offers. United Airlines Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides air transportation services in North America, Asia, Europe, Africa, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America. The company transports people and cargo through its mainline and regional fleets. It also offers catering, ground handling, training, and maintenance services for third parties.
Now, let’s begin to break down the monthly chart for UAL stock. Below is a Ten-Month Simple Moving Average chart for United Airlines Holdings, Inc.
Buy UAL Stock
As the chart shows, in January, the UAL One-Month Price, crossed above the 10-Month simple moving average (SMA). This crossover indicated the buying pressure for UAL stock exceeded the selling pressure. For this kind of crossover to occur, a stock has to be in a strong bullish uptrend. Now, as you can see, the One-Month Price is still above the Ten-Month SMA. That means the bullish trend is still in play!
As long as the One-Month price remains above the Ten-Month SMA, the stock is more likely to keep trading at new highs and should be purchased. Our initial price target for UAL is 59.00 per share.
79.3% Profit Potential for UAL Option
Now, since UAL’s One-Month Price is trading above the Ten-Month SMA this means the stock’s bullish rally will likely continue. Let’s use the Hughes Optioneering calculator to look at the potential returns for a UAL call option purchase.
The Call Option Calculator will calculate the profit/loss potential for a call option trade based on the price change of the underlying stock/ETF at option expiration in this example from a flat UAL price to a 12.5% increase.
The Optioneering Team uses the 1% Rule to select an option strike price with a higher percentage of winning trades. In the following UAL option example, we used the 1% Rule to select the UAL option strike price but out of fairness to our paid option service subscribers we don’t list the strike price used in the profit/loss calculation.
Trade with Higher Accuracy
When you use the 1% Rule to select a UAL in-the-money option strike price, UAL stock only has to increase by 1% for the option to break even and start profiting! Remember, if you purchase an at-the-money or out-of-the-money call option and the underlying stock closes flat at option expiration it will result in a 100% loss for your option trade! In this example, if UAL stock is flat at 56.05 at option expiration, it will only result in a 6.9% loss for the UAL option compared to a 100% loss for an at-the-money or out-of-the-money call option.
Using the 1% Rule to select an option strike price can result in a higher percentage of winning trades compared to at-the-money or out-of-the-money call options. This higher accuracy can give you the discipline needed to become a successful options trader and can help avoid 100% losses when trading options.
The goal of this example is to demonstrate the powerful profit potential available from trading options compared to stocks. The prices and returns represented below were calculated based on the current stock and option pricing for UAL on 7/10/2023 before commissions. When you purchase a call option, there is no limit on the profit potential of the call if the underlying stock continues to move up in price.
For this specific call option, the calculator analysis below reveals if UAL stock increases 5.0% at option expiration to 58.85 (circled), the call option would make 36.2% before the commission. If UAL stock increases 10.0% at option expiration to 61.66 (circled), the call option would make 79.3% before the commission and outperform the stock return by nearly eight to one. The leverage provided by call options allows you to maximize potential returns on bullish stocks. The Hughes Optioneering Team is here to help you identify profit opportunities just like this one.
