Since TradingView made it so you can't remove posts, my first (test) post will unfortunately remain, but since it's actually getting a few views (in all its glorious mediocrity) I figured I would at least share the full trade.
On May 23rd, NASA announced its selection of Maxar for the construction of the first part of their upcoming Lunar Gateway, slated to support future manned missions to the moon in 2024. Maxar has been struggling for a while for a number of reasons, including a slump in geostationary satellite sales affecting revenue among other factors including negative analyst ratings stemming from over-leveraging including debt rating of B1/B, ‘sub-investment grade’ from the ratings agencies. On another note, insiders only own 1.2% of outstanding shares. Doesn't show a lot of confidence, at least in terms of expectations for stock value. Share prices have reflected this ongoing difficulty (glance at a long term chart and it's extremely apparent what I'm talking about), and this news about the Lunar Gateway project, announced both through Maxar's investor relations page as well as being mentioned in a YouTube video announcement on NASA's channel, was seen as a much needed positive signal for the company, and became a catalyst for a move to the upside. Due to Maxar's being small-cap as well as their low share price I also suspect that retail intraday traders saw this catalyst as a potential to make a quick trade, further propelling the stock to the upside, reaching around 20% at its peak.
Throughout the day I will often scan for the biggest movers throughout any given trading day to look for potential options plays, and I will often take the cynical side and enter put positions on companies that have risen sharply on minimal information despite an obvious bearish trend long term. Maxar met my criteria, and after analyzing MAXR's past movements and long term decline I came to the conclusion that this 20% was far from sustainable as the movement was based on little more than an announcement and success was far from guaranteed in this new venture (even though I as much as anyone would like to see this Lunar Gateway happen in the very near future). I entered into a Put position 2 minutes before EOD on the 23rd of May, starting with in-the-money contracts with a $10 strike price (for risk management reasons), and with a much longer timeframe than many of my trades (in this case, Expiry of July 19th) because I wanted to allocate some extra time to let this play out, knowing that MAXR wouldn't be dropping 20% the next day, that I would likely be waiting for negative PR relating to the Lunar Gateway venture for a more significant gain, and that the bagholders from trading would take a bit of time to come to the conclusion that ultimately they would have to sell, take the loss and move on. Since I entered my position the share price has, on average, continued to fall - and is still dropping as I write this.
To conclude, let me share a paragraph from Rich Smith writing for The Motley Fool that I think sums up my sentiment on MAXR - "I personally would love to see the company succeed on its Lunar Gateway project -- and rethink the satellite servicing contract, too! But with $3.3 billion in net debt on its books, and no free cash flow coming in to service that debt, I don't see Maxar's problems as over just yet, and even this week's positive NASA news may be too little, too late to save the company."
Thanks for reading, please like the post if you enjoyed it and give a follow if you'd like to see more of my options trades explained in the future.
Comment
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The position was closed today (6/7/19) as MAXR began to gain. Hit my 5% trailing stop loss (albeit a mental one) and so secured my profits, ~80% return on my investment. I maintain a position in $5 MAXR December puts.
I think the initial trade was a smart move but what is your logic behind the $5 December puts? Given the continuous increase in US high margin imagery contracts as a result of US listing and expected 120M in run rate savings to be realized be end of year I don't see such a drop coming in the future. In addition MDA of MAXR is soon to be awarded the Canadarm 3 contract and is the front runner for the Telesat deal. These awards along with the Nasa deal (which would be awarded on the back of company B/S review) point to alleviating cash flow concerns.
Scottvr2000
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I have taken the opposite position to you and have gone long on calls throughout the year.
gweebo
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@Scottvr2000, Late update but you are correct, it was pretty gambly (and extremely small) position and I exited the position promptly when it started heading against me.