Short sellers tend to get a lot of bad press — and a lot of blame when stocks go down. The alternative to shorting is to buy a put option. Buying a put allows you to lease the downward price movement of a stock…
Sooner or later, the financial sector will come back. Calling a bottom (or a top) in anything is downright impossible. Anyone who does it once is lucky. So how do you play the longer term, realizing that you don't know when the eventual reversal will happen? The better way to play this is with an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that covers the sector, such as the Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF). Or, better yet, you could commit even less cash and play LEAPS…
Leveraging earnings plays with options is a great trading strategy because earnings are more predictable than most of the market. If a company disappoints, the stock usually declines, while a surprise typically spurs a stock gain. And those moves often come regardless of what the market is doing…