The Summer of Our Discontent

But Greenberg has recently started to suggest the selective selling of put options on beaten-down names as a way to generate income and build positions at discounted prices. In the near term, he thinks that with Krispy Kreme(KKD Quote) trading around $18.50, selling the August $17.50 put for 70 cents provides an attractive risk/reward for the three weeks until expiration.

Along those lines, I'll suggest that I think Nvidia's(NVDA Quote) August $12.50 puts at 45 cents look like an attractive sale. The stock has tumbled 33% to $14 in the last four weeks and a sale of these puts, which are still out of the money by 10%, provide a chance to earn 3.5% over the next three weeks or let you purchase the stock at $12.

Spar told me he has switched gears, saying "three to six months ago I was suggesting clients do overwrites on stocks they owned that were hitting new highs, now I'm recommending married put situations." (A married put consists of buying stock and related put options; it provides downside protection against a steep decline while maintaining unlimited upside profit potential.)

Recently, Spar established such a position in Fossil(FOSL Quote) by purchasing the stock near $24 and buying its March 2005 put for around $2.25 per contract. He likes this position because "even though the shares have recently declined, its uptrend remains intact and the puts give me cheap protection through another three earning periods."

That strategy of using long-dated puts in a married position is important because it leaves you less exposed to time decay during the earlier part of the holding and also provides time for a stock price to rise sufficiently above the break-even point and overcome the cost of the put option.

Jon "Dr. J" Najarian, chief market strategist at PTI Securities, is prescribing keeping things simple with straight-forward vertical call spreads. "I'm looking for some beaten-down stocks that don't have to move much to give me a 100% return on a limited-risk investment," he said.

He recently established a call spread in Cisco Systems(CSCO Quote) by buying the January $20 call and selling the January $22.50 call for a net cost of $1.10 per spread. If Cisco moves back above $22.50, the spread will be worth $2.25, giving him a 125% gain on his limited risk investment.

The overriding view of the market seems to be that it should be higher by the end of the year, but these relatively low-risk options strategies are saying, "I'll believe it when I see it."